Mr. Speaker, once again I would like to acknowledge the leadership of the member for Halifax in putting forward today's motion. Also I thank my colleague for giving me the opportunity to share some of her time. I would also like to acknowledge her leadership on the subcommittee for the disabled.
The first week in September I was sitting in my constituency office on the Danforth. A young fellow who has worked with me in the last three election campaigns on my phone bank rolled into my office in his wheelchair. Johnny has no legs. He said, “Dennis, guess what I have here. I have a letter that says I am no longer eligible for my disability credit”. I said that it must have been some kind of a joke or a computer glitch, that it was a no-brainer and I would get it fixed in a second. I took the letter and sure enough it said he would have to reapply and it went on and on with a long list of things.
I immediately called the office of the Minister of Finance and said it was crazy and that they would have to get on it. The letter was real. I was shocked. I followed through with a letter to the Minister of Finance and I received a response that the law of the land had to be amended because in fact there were some loopholes in the current law. I was shocked when I received that response.
The very first week we were back in the House the issue was raised by a member of the New Democratic Party. In fact I responded to the member by saying that this was something that must be dealt with immediately. I made a commitment that I would be pushing and following through on this. Now it is almost three months later.
I can remember a few months ago when all the Olympic athletes we cheered for in Salt Lake City were ushered into the House of Commons, every one of our athletes who won a medal. I remember how we all stood and cheered for about 10 minutes because of their accomplishments.
In order to get the point across here, we may have to usher in a couple of hundred people who are visibly disabled who have been disallowed their disability credit. This is such an obvious discrimination against the most disadvantaged people in our country. For the life of me I cannot understand why the Department of Finance and the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency do not just lock themselves in a room and design the policy that fixes this immediately.
Many years ago I had the opportunity to work across the street in the Langevin Block in Prime Minister Trudeau's office. We coined an expression in those days. It was called the MAD treatment, maximum administrative delay. We would use that expression when we had a political priority that we wanted implemented but the officials would give us the MAD treatment, maximum administrative delay. I think this Parliament, this House of Commons is getting the MAD treatment on this file.
It is pretty basic to me. I will be supporting the New Democratic motion this afternoon, or whenever the vote takes place. I believe that to create any kind of a misperception that we are doing anything other than supporting those people in our country who are most disadvantaged disgraces this chamber.