In December, Minister Lebouthillier announced that the CRA would revert to its May 2017 practices of assessing applications for the DTC from people with diabetes. They also announced that they would review all of the applications from people with diabetes that had been rejected between May and December. They have completed that review and have announced that they reviewed a little over 2,300 cases. They subsequently approved about 1,400 of those, or 58%. The remaining 42% of applications will remain disallowed.
We have been engaging with the bureaucrats at CRA to ensure that the folks who remain disallowed are notified of that status. They have indicated to us that it is their plan not to notify those 42% because, they say, that might be confusing for those applicants. Our contention is that this creates a lack of transparency and also impedes the ability of applicants whose cases have been denied to appeal, which is a time-limited ability. We are reaching out to them to indicate that it is our strong view that all of the applicants should be notified.
I know that the disability advisory committee, which was also reinstated late last year, continues to work on a number of issues, including challenges to accessing life-sustaining therapies by people such as those with diabetes. We're optimistic that this advisory committee will have some good recommendations, but it is necessarily and understandably a lengthy process that they are engaged in. They're volunteers and meet only a few times a year, so we're hoping that the bureaucracy can respond and make more time-sensitive changes as the disability advisory committee is doing its work.