Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's good to see you, again as well.
Members of the committee, I'm delighted to be here.
Way back in 1981, the United Nations conducted the International Year of Disabled Persons. It did so under the forward-looking theme of full participation and equality. That was 1981. Since then, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms has been put into place, and it spoke about equal protection under the law and the equal benefit of the law. Unfortunately, we've done not too badly in terms of equal protection of the law, but we're a long way from achieving either the goal of the international year or the promise of the charter, namely the equal benefit of the law.
So what do we see? Today, persons with disabilities are among the poorest of the poor in Canada, among the most unemployed in Canada, among the most chronically marginalized in this country. We submit that ongoing situation, that ongoing plight, is a national disgrace. It's nothing short of a national disgrace in a country like this.
So what do we need? We need a national economic strategy. I've chosen those words very carefully—and, Mr. Chairman, you've heard me speak about this one time before, and I did not mean a national employment strategy, I meant it when I said a national economic strategy. Instead of looking at things in the typical way government does, a piecemeal approach, we are calling for a holistic broad-brush approach.
Where does it start? It starts with the main tenet that has been missing forever in this country, and that is national political will. Thus, we call upon the Prime Minister to convene a new approach, calling together business, labour, and citizen organizations like mine, like the Council of Canadians with Disabilities, the DisAbled Women's Network, citizens organizations, to try to forge a new partnership.
That partnership needs to look at employment. It should start by making the federal public service the model employer that we want it to be. In the last year or so there was a new commitment to hiring visible minorities in the federal public service. I think that's a good idea. We believe a dedicated, energetic strategy needs also to be put into place to cover the disabled community. And that needs also to take place in all provinces and territories across the country and among all other employers, both private and public.
In Canada, we have the opportunity to move from province to province. That is enshrined in the charter itself. It's called mobility rights. We, too, have the right to move across country. But if you look at the disparity that exists province to province, this is what we find. I was first entertained when I heard this notion; now I'm not. Laurie Beachell, the national coordinator of the Council of Canadians with Disabilities says that if you are disabled, if you need home care, you'd better live in Manitoba; if you want technical aids, you'd better live in Ontario; and so on and so forth. What he means by this is that, in the area of technical aids, as an Ontarian I have the opportunity to access Ontario's assistive devices program, but if I should leave Ontario and move just one mile across the border into Manitoba, I would not have a similar opportunity.
I think that's disgraceful. We live in what is supposedly one country. Why do we not have similar entitlements in all provinces? What this needs is national standards, a national strategy.
In the area of income, we hear about the disability tax credit. I'm retired. I'm a taxpayer. I benefit from that. I'm very pleased about it. It does help offset some of the costs of disability. But I think calling it a tax credit is a grand misnomer. People like me who work, benefit. People who are on social assistance, who I must say need it even more than I do, don't. That's not a credit; it's a deduction. If you mean it to be a deduction, then call it a deduction; that's fine. We are among those who believe that the tax credit should become a true refundable tax credit.
A lot of the work we do, Mr. Chairman, is in trying to remove old barriers and prevent the introduction of new ones. Believe it or not, in 2009 a growing amount of our work involves trying to prevent the introduction of new barriers. That happens, believe it or not, in this year in this country. The area of technology provides a good example. A lot of technology is not developed with the notion of universal design in mind; thus either it is unusable by us or it requires expensive additional technology. To make a cellphone talk involves our buying extra adaptive technology to make it work. You can go to a store and buy a microwave, or travel on Air Canada and use all that's available. I am presented with more and more touch screens that have no buttons and that I can't use. Is it any wonder that I call this discrimination?
Of course, in the area of income, the disabled community's plight and level of poverty is well known and well documented, especially in this province. Report upon report has come out in the last year. As you know, Ontario has embarked upon a poverty reduction strategy. We'll see what happens. One of these reports has made a very interesting and perhaps startling revelation; that is, if you put $1,000 more into the pockets of poor people, it will make a significant difference in their health status. We know that our health care system is overburdened. We need to do everything we can to try to help with it.
Finally, I want to talk about a point in the last budget, the infrastructure money. There are potentials here, but to what extent does that program include money designated to help remove some of the barriers that affect persons with disabilities? Some of the money is going to colleges and universities, and that's a good idea. Some colleges and universities need significant retrofit to make their buildings more accessible. To what extent is it intended that some of this money be used for that? In the area of public transit, the transit needs to be made more accessible. Can that money be used—never mind can it, but is it intended to be used for those purposes?
In conclusion, we're calling for a national economic strategy that will begin with political will, that will include some work on labour market involvement, that will look at income security and at removing barriers to technology, that will also address the issues of first nations people with disabilities, and that will make use of some of the infrastructure money to assist our community.
Mr. Chairman, these days governments at all levels are finding funds to bail out corporations. Isn't it time that some more money be found to help bail out those Canadians who are most in need of assistance?
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.