Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to welcome the minister to our meeting today.
My first question relates to the fact that we know that throughout the pandemic there have been several groups that have been totally left behind. One group in particular has been the disability community, which had to wait until National AccessAbility Week at the end of May to get any sort of response from your government. This is totally unacceptable.
In addition, they had to wait until just last week—over seven months after the pandemic was declared—to receive a one-time $600 tax credit, which in fact only 40 persons with disabilities were able to access due to serious issues with the disability tax credit. Tax credits and savings plans for disabled persons are simply not good enough, and we've certainly witnessed that. The failures of this federal government to support disabled people during the pandemic should prompt a sweeping review of federal disability programs and policies in order to support disabled people, because they have been made the most vulnerable through the holes in the federal social safety net, as you have acknowledged today, Minister.
Prior to the pandemic, people in the disability community had been pushing for a guaranteed livable basic income in addition to the supports we currently have and will have in the future. Is your government open to bolstering income security programs to ensure that disabled persons can live with human rights and not legislated poverty, as affirmed in our Canadian charter? If you are open to that, what sorts of changes would you make to bolster our social security programs?