Evidence of meeting #129 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was disabilities.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:55 a.m.
Liberal
Dan Ruimy Liberal Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC
I want to move quickly to Deborah. I don't have a lot of time.
This is a bit of a different situation.
9:55 a.m.
Representative, Neurological Health Charities Canada
It's totally different.
9:55 a.m.
Representative, Neurological Health Charities Canada
You'd be disgusted if I told you the truth, so I'm not sure if I want to get into the financial plight I've been through in the last three years.
Because I had acquired a brain injury at a job and then one in a motor vehicle accident, my support through the job was cut off when they let me go. Because I had a first head injury, which was a workplace injury, I didn't qualify for any help through my car insurance.
I sold my home in order to live, so I would have funding. I am still living off the monies from the sale of my home. When I've exhausted everything, maybe I can apply for ODSP. I currently get only $842 a month from CPP disability, which is nothing.
I pay for my own therapy for my PTSD. I pay for my own physiotherapy. I pay for a sacral massage therapist to help with my balance.
I'm not getting any supports. I'm sorry, but I'm a little disappointed in my government.
10 a.m.
Liberal
Dan Ruimy Liberal Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC
No, don't be sorry. Listen, we want people with lived experiences because we need to hear these sorts of things, and we need to figure out—
10 a.m.
Representative, Neurological Health Charities Canada
There are too many loopholes, and I've been told that my situation is too complicated. I feel like I've fallen through the cracks.
10 a.m.
Liberal
Dan Ruimy Liberal Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC
I think there are plenty of examples of people who've fallen through the cracks.
Recently, with the Ontario government, there was the guaranteed income pilot project. I think everybody was looking to see what the results would be and what we could learn from that. Part of me believes that is something we may have to go to at some point. That sounds like it might be a potential solution to some of the challenges we're seeing.
This is the challenge that we're at. Everybody has different challenges, and it's hard to understand this.
Thank you very much for sharing with us.
10 a.m.
Conservative
Rosemarie Falk Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK
I want to thank you all for being here and taking the time to share your stories. It is important that we do hear the reality of it.
Something I get very frustrated with is how the other side wants to turn this partisan all the time. I very much do care about people, what their experiences are and how that shapes their life, because that's really what will happen.
It always comes back to money. It's funny, because this weekend the Prime Minister actually announced $50 million. From what I heard from Mr. Prince—if the numbers of $50 million to $100 million are correct—if this government wanted to take action, they could do that today with the money they give out. That's just a bit of frustration I have.
Even last night in the House, we voted for 12 weeks of bereavement leave for parents...under one year. The government voted against that.
Sometimes I get very frustrated being here and wondering what is getting done. We've heard the testimony. We know there's a problem. How are we going to make the system evolve? We know the system needs to change. We've heard that. On the last reforms—the seventies, eighties and that type of thing—things have evolved. Things have changed. We need to take action. Empty words are not enough.
On that note, Patrycia, I wanted to ask you how we can change the culture of episodic disabilities. I know you mentioned that episodic disabilities aren't understood well. How can we change the thought process or the mindset around episodic disabilities?
10 a.m.
Ambassador and Spokesperson, Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada
I think that's a big question. I don't know if anyone really knows the answer to that one, because a lot of them are so invisible. I think it's just having the conversation and then potentially better supports for organizations like the MS Society or any of the other societies that support episodic disabilities. I don't know. It's just building that awareness.
When I applied to the police service, their view of multiple sclerosis was of someone in a wheelchair, basically, or an example of one person someone knew who had multiple sclerosis who was potentially more aggressive.
Yes, I think it's just having those conversations and getting that out there. That's what I am trying to do. I'm really only one person, so I don't know how best to keep going with that.
10 a.m.
Ambassador and Spokesperson, Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada
It's a tough question.
10 a.m.
Conservative
Rosemarie Falk Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK
I think with any stigma, a conversation is where the stigma breakdown starts to happen.
10 a.m.
Conservative
Rosemarie Falk Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK
Mr. Prince, you spoke about medical practitioners and the certificates and the lack of knowledge. Do you know right now if there are training programs or information sessions that are put on by Service Canada or whomever, for medical practitioners to navigate the system or know what their patients might need to apply for?
10:05 a.m.
Professor of Social Policy, Faculty of Human and Social Development, University of Victoria, As an Individual
There's some basic information put out, but it's very passive, I would say. It links directly to the disability tax credit issue as well, which is so important as a gatekeeper program, and not just for the registered disability savings program, which is a fantastic program for financial security. Even provincially, in B.C. for example, we have a home renovation tax credit for seniors. We recently expanded that to people with disabilities. The eligibility criterion for that provincial tax credit is the DTC, and we're seeing more and more provinces use the federal DTC as the gatekeeper to other benefits. It turns out that, of the eligible people to access that, maybe 5% to 10% get it, because the rest can't get the DTC to get the provincial tax credit to do a home renovation to be able to live longer in their own homes.
We have a lot of work to do to provide better supports to physicians and nurse practitioners, who increasingly are being recognized as qualified health practitioners to do these assessments. There's an issue around reimbursements for filling out these forms. There's the issue of the ability of physicians to have direct communications back to departments, whether it's Canada Revenue Agency or Service Canada, and find out what was done incorrectly on the form, particularly for the DTC, which gets pushed back again and again, and improved communication materials targeted to physicians and nurse practitioners.
Quite frankly, again from my own anecdotal experience in B.C., some physicians see this as a burden. They don't really put much time into it. Some will fill out anything their patient wants; others are more suspicious, and others are more rigorous. Some of them are not sure what the right words are that will either trigger an acceptance or a rejection. We talk about awareness. There's the awareness and communication with key gatekeepers. We've added more and more obligations on physicians and nurse practitioners to be some of the gatekeepers to these essential programs in a way that I don't think we really appreciated 30, 40, 50, 60 years ago. That was before medicare.
We have public health insurance. Surely to God we should be able to work this out very well with a system that's public and universal across the country. So there's a huge communications problem there.
December 4th, 2018 / 10:05 a.m.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
Thank you, Chair.
Mr. Prince, you used the number $50 million as the cost to the system to extend EI sickness benefits from 15 to 26 years.
10:05 a.m.
Professor of Social Policy, Faculty of Human and Social Development, University of Victoria, As an Individual
Yes. That would be a nice long benefit.
10:05 a.m.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
It was officials from Service Canada, I believe, who may have used a different outlook. How did you calculate the $50 million?
10:05 a.m.
Professor of Social Policy, Faculty of Human and Social Development, University of Victoria, As an Individual
Quite frankly, they're back-of-the-envelope calculations. It's 11 weeks times the average weekly benefit, which is a little over $400, and then an assumption of the 135,000 people who are currently exhausting the benefit at week 15, and how many of those would continue and use the full subsequent 11 weeks. We can make a number of scenarios. If we assume that all 135,000 use all 11 weeks, and they all have the average weekly benefit, that takes you up to a $165-million price tag.
10:05 a.m.
Professor of Social Policy, Faculty of Human and Social Development, University of Victoria, As an Individual
If you make other assumptions about what percentages of those 135,000 would use how many extra weeks, you can come up with different calibrations. That's why my best guesstimate is between $50 million and $100 million. That's partly based on the fact that when other programs, such as the compassionate care benefit and others, were rolled out, the government's official target estimates tended to be larger than what the actual program obligations were for the subsequent rollout of the programs, so the officials were cautious and estimating high costs. The actual rollouts tended to be lower. It's harder take-up, awareness, applications, etc. So these programs tend to roll out not as high as some. Again, this would be the work of the officials to do.
