Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to support the motion put forward by the NDP. I am also very pleased to support my colleague who made a very compassionate and passionate speech on this issue.
As we are all very much aware, the motion calls upon the government to make changes in the eligibility requirements for the disability tax credit. It calls for changes that take account of the real life circumstances of people with disabilities, changes that are a little more humane and a little more compassionate in how the government approaches the disabled problem.
We would not be having this problem today if we had a government that was a little more humane and compassionate in its approach. One would think that a tax credit program designed to assist the disabled community would be the heart and soul of compassion and humanity. However, in the hands of the government, even a program designed to assist disabled people can become a very blunt instrument causing no end to grief. It can become an instrument that government dickers around with and causes an awful lot of problems for our disabled community.
Nearly a year ago my office and all members' offices were flooded with calls about the pending changes to the disability tax credit. Then the changes came and thousands of Canadians were notified that they no longer qualified for the disability tax credit. Imagine, as a member pointed out with one of his constituents, being a disabled individual and after 10 or 15 years of receiving a disability tax credit suddenly being told that the government will make that determination as to whether or not the person is disabled. These are people with genuine disabilities, people who had availed of the tax credit for years who were suddenly and summarily cut off from the program. That not only played havoc with the mental abilities of disabled people, it played havoc with the household budgets of thousands of Canadians on low or fixed incomes, who had little in the way of options to plug the hole in their budget that was caused by the stroke of a pen in Ottawa.
The speed and harshness of the cuts only served to maximize their impact. One day someone was a disabled person availing of a certain government program, and the next day that person was not disabled. There are no provisions to take into account the various types and levels of disability.
The member for Saint John made the very good point about the individual who happened to be mentally disabled. There is no x-ray for the doctor to hold up to the light and say that the individual is mentally disabled.
As a matter of fact, the form the CCRA sends to people has ridiculous questions, for example:
Can your patient perceive, think, and remember? Answer no only if, all or almost all the time, even with therapy, medication, or a device, your patient cannot perceive, think, and remember. For example, answer no if he or she cannot manage or initiate personal care without constant supervision.
This is absolutely ridiculous and it places the onus upon the doctor to get back to the CCRA on this.
The speed and harshness of the cuts only serve to maximize the impact. These questions, as the member for Cumberland—Colchester pointed out, are designed to exclude people. It makes it very difficult for people within the disabled community to get a fair reading from the government.
The government makes much of the fact that it has balanced the nation's books. What the government has really shown is that it had the necessary ruthlessness to balance the nation's books on the backs of the unemployed, the people who are disabled and the people who are sick in the community.
We see it everywhere, not just within the disabled community. Transfers to the provinces for health care and post-secondary education were cut as well, which threw the budgets of the provinces and the territories into a tailspin. A university education became the domain of the rich or the massively indebted. The sick are lined up for treatment in the health care system, whose strains are only surpassed by those of the armed forces. Now it is the disabled. In the regions of the country dependent on seasonal employment, there have been massive cuts to the EI system.
All of those things are an indication that the government is balancing its books on the backs of the unemployed, the people who are sick and who cannot avail themselves of decent health care. Now it is people who are disabled. First it was the sick, then it was the unemployed, and now it is our disabled community. All groups in our society are potential targets when the government starts slashing funding to serve its own particular priorities.
If the government would only cut out some of its waste and political patronage, that would go a long way to financing the disability tax credit that is suited to the everyday realities and practical needs of our disabled people.
We do not need any more unilateral cuts or changes. Interest groups should be thoroughly consulted about these things before sweeping changes are made to a program like the disability tax credit.
We are dealing here with many of our society's disadvantaged people. It behooves us to be extra sensitive, not insensitive, not unilateral, but extra sensitive to the harsh realities that are faced by many Canadians through no fault of their own.
It is no problem really for any of us to support this motion. The motion makes sense. It is a motion the government should be willing to deal with before the day is out.
We should also realize that the tax credit does not recognize the significant variation of cuts for individuals who have disabilities. We should realize that the tax credit only offsets a very small portion of the costs most individuals experience, which does not create tax fairness for people with disabilities. The tax credit does not benefit the majority of Canadians with disabilities because they might be living in poverty. Most of them do not have a taxable income.
A review was recently held by the parliamentary Sub-Committee on the Status of Persons with Disabilities. It held hearings last winter and issued a report on the issues related to the tax credit. The report criticized the CCRA for “practices that are grossly inadequate for people with disabilities”. It called for a complete overhaul of the disability tax credit program.
Everyone on this side of the House is in support of the government overhauling that program. Everyone on this side of the House is in support of the government doing something very quickly to help our disabled people.