Mr. Speaker, I have been following this debate this morning and this afternoon with a great deal of interest because it is a debate about finding a balance.
I remember when the new rules for the disability tax credit came in some years ago. I felt that it was a positive thing, because we do not have to be members of Parliament sitting in our constituency offices to know that there are those Canadians who, for reasons that may be psychological, reasons in their own backgrounds, make much of what may be only limiting disabilities, make much in the sense that they use these limiting disabilities as perhaps an excuse not to work, an excuse to withdraw from society and an excuse not to participate.
I think the parliamentary secretary made a most important point when she underlined the fact that the disability tax credit is supposed to be applied to people who are severely restricted in their ability to participate in society. It is not intended to reward people for having a disability. In that sense I supported the change that came down, because I think that at that time we on this side of the House, and this entire Parliament, were reviewing the way in which government social programs were being applied. We went through, I think, a period, particularly in the late seventies and throughout the eighties, of general irresponsibility in terms of how we were applying our social programs insofar as many people were taking advantage of the social programs who did not genuinely need them. I think we were losing many, many millions, if not billions, of dollars, because we did not demand scrutiny and accountability on the way programs were applied. I think this is the case in point with the disability tax credit.
As a member of Parliament since the program change came in, I certainly had experiences where people came in who were questioned. That was what happened. There were 106,000 Canadians who were automatically receiving the disability tax credit and who were suddenly required to justify, in documentation by responding to a questionnaire, why they should still be receiving the disability tax credit. Indeed, I did have in my office, I remember very vividly, a person who came in. She had filled out the questionnaire. Her disability tax credit had been refused. When she came to my office it was very evident that she was suffering from an extreme form of arthritis. Literally, her limbs and her fingers were tied up in knots.
The reason why she was denied the credit was that she had replied on the form that she was still going out there and being active in the community, so it was assumed by the bureaucrats that this was a person who did not have a severely restrictive disability. In fact she did have, and what was happening is that she was paying for her courage in losing this disability tax credit. I have to tell you, Mr. Speaker, I naturally intervened as best I could in her case. Indeed, it was reviewed and she did get the credit in the long run.
However, I contrast that with other people who came into my office and talked about the fact that they had been denied the disability tax credit. While one cannot get into the minds of people, it did seem very apparent that just by the way they moved around and the way they spoke and everything else, they did not seem to have the type of disability that would prevent them from participating in society in some useful way or, indeed, earning a living.
The problem is how to strike a balance between those two extremes. It is very, very difficult. One of the things that has fascinated me about this debate today is a sort of shift in sides between the Liberals on this side and in particular the Canadian Alliance on the other. We expect the NDP to always be in favour, as they always have been, of applying money, basically without question, to social problems.
I do not mean that in a disparaging sense but, shall we say, the social left of the political spectrum tends to put the money ahead of the requirement to make sure the money is well spent.