Thank you so much.
Thank you so much for being here again, Minister.
I'm seized with this disability benefit and how it's going to get to Canadians.
I want to share with you a letter I received from a family physician in Toronto around the disability tax credit. The letter says, “The disability tax credit is an underused, difficult-to-access program that will increase barriers to access for those most in need of a Canada disability benefit. Very few people living at low income with disabilities currently access the DTC because it is a non-refundable credit. It also requires a complex form to be filled by a physician, and many physicians will demand payment for this work. The largest group of people who receive the DTC are higher-income seniors, definitely not the demographic targeted by the CDB.”
As an aside here, I'll say that, of the 900,000 DTC claimants, only 75,000 of them record income under $25,000. There is no way to do a one-to-one comparison between a person with a disability and the claimant.
The physician goes on to say, “The disability tax credit also rests on a definition of disability that is highly medicalized, has an exceedingly high threshold for approval, and is out of touch with current understanding of disability. Living with a disability results in exclusion from workplace and society due to structural social barriers, not due to individual medical diagnoses, or issues with the function of body parts. Programs like ODSP focus on deficits and ability to function in society rather than specific medical diagnosis. The DTC does the opposite. I have never heard a disability rights-oriented advocate or health professional support the use of the DTC as a gateway to disability supports. To allow the DTC to be used as the gateway to the CDB will build a massive structural impediment to this program, and it will not allow to ever achieve its goal of raising people living with a disability out of poverty.”
I'll ask you again, Minister, how is the government going to deliver the Canada disability benefit?