Thank you.
Thank you for your invitation. I will address you only in English but I will be very happy to answer your questions in French later on.
Thank you very much for inviting the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada to present today. We're pleased to provide input to your study of the federal contribution to reducing poverty in Canada, and congratulate the committee for undertaking this important work.
Our recommendations focus on two areas--one, ensuring that people with MS can stay at work, and two, ensuring that those who cannot work do not live in poverty. We have three specific recommendations, and I'll detail them: first, allow spouses to claim the caregiver tax credit, which--you may find this surprising--right now isn't allowed; make employment insurance sickness benefits more flexible to allow people with MS to work part time and receive partial benefits; and finally, make the disability tax credit a refundable one. I'll discuss each in turn at greater length.
Allowing spouses to claim the tax credit for caregiving would recognize the incredible contribution caregivers make, particularly, as is most often the case, when this role falls on the spouse. We hear about this issue very often, typically when someone who is trying to understand the caregiver amount gives our society a call. As their spouse becomes much more disabled, they're often unable to work as much, and have to reduce their hours of work to provide for their very disabled spouse. With that in mind, the spouse starts reading what is available in the government documentation, and reads:
you or your spouse or common-law partner’s child or grandchild; or you or your spouse's or common-law partner’s brother, sister, niece, nephew, aunt, uncle, parent, or grandparent who was resident in Canada....
That's quite a list, but obviously the person who is not included in this list is the spouse of the person who is disabled. We believe this is a major policy gap. It undervalues the caregiving that spouses provide every day, often at the expense of their paid participation in the labour market, every week, every year.
I just mention as an aside that the Province of Manitoba has just launched a refundable caregiver tax credit, very much modelled on the federal one, but in that case it extends to spouses, who can also claim the credit.
Our second recommendation is to allow people who have an unpredictable and episodic disease to have the option of working part-time while receiving partial employment insurance sickness benefits. This would encourage them to stay in the workplace and encourage employers to think of them as valuable employees, not as those who are ill and unreliable.
Episodic disabilities--these include, beyond MS, such things as lupus, mental illness, cancer, arthritis, hepatitis C, HIV--are illnesses that are characterized by periods of graver illness and then periods of respite. We recommend changes to the EI rules so that they allow individuals to work part-time and receive partial sickness benefits from 150 half-days instead of the current 15 weeks or the 75 full days.
We believe this small step would benefit people with MS and other episodic disabilities and benefit society at large as well. There are obvious benefits beyond the collection of taxes, obviously, to participation in the labour market. We know that from people in poverty and people with disability--people want to work.
We do recognize that this change has the potential to increase the number of EI sickness benefit payouts, but we believe this cost would be substantially offset by the increased number of people and the value, obviously, of their participation in the workplace.
Our third recommendation really has to do significantly with those people with MS for whom the disease has been most disabling, and who cannot work. It really is a simple one: make the disability tax credit a refundable benefit.
Having a disability automatically means that you have expenses that an able-bodied person avoids. These expenses are very significant. For many people with MS, fatigue will be an invisible characteristic of the early course of the disease. That alone can make walking even short distances impossible. Riding a bus or using public transit is made difficult. A car becomes a necessity. For people who use a wheelchair, an adapted van is a necessity.
We believe that making the disability tax credit a refundable benefit would bring money into the hands of people with a disability who do not have enough income against which to apply the credit.
I realize my time is up, so I'll just say that the adoption of these three practical and modest changes could allow for quick movement in this very critical area. We've prioritized them because we believe they're relatively easy, small steps to make, and are all clearly within federal jurisdiction.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.