Mr. Speaker, this is White Cane Week. It is an opportunity to raise awareness about the reality of people living with a visual impairment and their contribution to society.
Vision loss carries a huge financial burden and costs our society billions of dollars a year. If nothing is done, these costs will rise substantially over the coming years, given our aging population.
Unfortunately, access to specialized documents and products for the visually impaired is still lacking in Canada. I would like to remind hon. members that Canada still does not have a national network of public libraries with accessible formats for the visually impaired.
It is unacceptable that people with a visual impairment are required to pay federal and provincial tax on the already very expensive assistive technologies they need, when many of them are living below the poverty line.
I urge the government to take the meaningful action needed to meet its international commitments in this regard.