Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Calgary Shepard for that excellent Yiddish proverb. It has been a while since I have heard one from him.
I too am rising on an issue involving the CRA and the disability tax credit.
On October 27, I asked the minister responsible for the Canada Revenue Agency if she could explain why she is hiking taxes on people suffering from type 1 diabetes. The response was frankly nonsense because she said that her department was not changing anything at all. She has repeated this assertion 11 times, both in the House and in committee, that neither the law nor the interpretation of the law has been changed, but we know that is false. Doctors themselves have come forward with letters from the CRA which clearly state that it is restricting eligibility for the tax credit, taking it away from people that had typically qualified for it in the past.
Under the law, those with type 1 diabetes have been eligible to receive the credit for at least the last 10 years as long as a doctor certified that they required life-sustaining therapy at least three times a week totalling 14 hours on average. The government is now taking the tax credit away from diabetics even when doctors certify they are eligible under the existing law and policy, neither of which apparently has changed. This new direction appears to have happened secretly, with no public notice or consultation with the diabetic community.
A family in my riding sent me a desperate plea for help. A family member needs seven needles every single day to manage his disability. On top of running the house, working all day, ensuring that her family member is healthy and receiving the medication the family member needs, this mother has to worry about this Liberal tax grab.
It is not just diabetes sufferers whom the Liberals are targeting for tax revenue. We have heard that sufferers of autism, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and other mental health issues are also being targeted by the Liberal government.
The Liberals like to talk about their middle-class tax cut, but thanks to their tax rampage, eliminating credits like the children's fitness tax credit, the education credit, and the public transit tax credit, and now changing the eligibility for the disability tax credit, net incomes are dropping. With the elimination of the income-splitting credit, Canadian families can see even more earnings being clawed back.
The Fraser Institute states that eliminating the income-splitting tax credit effectively means an average $949 tax hike on middle-class families, and that simply put, eliminating just the income splitting tax credit more than offset the benefit of the tax rate reduction.
The Liberals can wax poetic about how amazing they are and how they are the champions of the middle class, but their actions clearly indicate it is all smoke and mirrors.
Diabetes medication is a matter of life and death. This is not a choice for those suffering from it. Diabetics do not get to decide that they just will not take their medication, check their blood, or take a break to eat something. These are all things they have to do to stay healthy.
It appears the government's priorities are more focused on looking good than doing the right thing. We have over $8 million spent on a temporary hockey rink, $200,000 for the PM's illegal vacation on a billionaire's island, $100,000 on the previous minister of health's Twitter account, and $22,000 on Snapchat filters, and yet somehow, for some reason, the government's response to this waste of taxpayers' money is to target people suffering from an incurable disease.
There is an aphorism called Hanlon's razor that says not to attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence. I have to ask the minister, which is it with her handling of the government's attack on diabetics, malice or incompetence?