Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to address the report and acknowledge that all parties agreed to the report. It was a unanimous report and we are calling for it to be concurred in.
I believe everyone in the House is moved by the need to be compassionate toward people with disabilities. We must bring our programs in alignment with that compassion and use some common sense and courtesy in doing that.
First, I say courtesy because when the government was preparing to have people re-apply effectively for the tax credit, it sent out a stern, rude letter to which a lot of people took great offence. The committee looked at this and recommended that a letter of apology be sent to the 106,000 who received that letter. We would hope that the drafter would show a little more respect next time around. The Canadian Alliance regrets that the government would send out a letter like that to people it claimed to be concerned about.
Second, I want to address the issue of common sense. Bureaucracies are often guilty of not demonstrating common sense on issues and this is a good example. My friend from Blackstrap raised an issue with me. An amputee approached her and said that he was still an amputee. He had not grown a new limb so obviously he would still be eligible for the disability tax credit.
A lot of members of parliament have run into that situation where people with disabilities have said to them that nothing had changed with their situation. They ask why they have to go through the rigamarole of re-applying for the disability tax credit? That is very true. I am not certain that the government showed much common sense in how it went about having people re-apply.
I also want to make a pitch for simple compassion. Members of the committee have run into complaints from people who have diseases with intermittent symptoms. For example, diseases like multiple sclerosis where one day everything is fine and the next day a person can be almost completely debilitated. Because it is a disease with intermittent symptoms, those people may not necessarily be qualified to receive the tax credit, which is unfortunate.
On the one hand they do not get the credit, but on the other hand often they are unable to work because employers cannot count on them to be there due to their illness. We would hope that the government would take the recommendations made by the committee with respect to those types of illnesses seriously and use common sense, but also be compassionate toward these people.
This is a demonstration of what parliament can do when we have all the parties unanimously agree to a report and work together for the good of, in this case, people with disabilities across Canada. We urge the government to take note that this was a unanimous report. Perhaps that will give the report extra weight when the government considers some of the recommendations.