Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. On behalf of JDRF Canada, the leading global charity focused on research to cure, prevent, and treat type 1 diabetes, I want to thank you for inviting us here today to present to the pre-budget consultations. Type 1 diabetes or

Finance committee  That's correct.

Finance committee  Sure, and thank you. It's a very complicated disease. It's not just that you check your blood sugar and determine how much insulin to give. You're literally calculating, based on the food on your plate, every meal. If you're doing exercise, you want to be monitoring your blood s

Finance committee  Yes, oddly enough. There are going to be fewer complications down the road, though, but it's actually strange because in these letters—we're seeing it as well—I think there's an implied assumption that the technology is making it less time-consuming.

Finance committee  It's difficult for us to understand. It seems that it's something that they have reviewed and determined with some of their internal and medical reviews. We were not consulted nor were other groups. We've talked to people like Diabetes Canada. This found us in the last few months

Finance committee  It seems that the vast majority of cases are rejections, not acceptances.

Finance committee  Our goal would be that it would apply to everybody. We think this would make it possible, because we believe carb counting is actually more significant than people actually understand. With respect to the 14 to 10, the 14 hours seemed like it was arbitrary to begin with, so we're

Finance committee  We would be very supportive of that. What's actually disturbing to us is that doctors are part of the application process, so in essence the CRA is rejecting doctors' advice right now. We're very concerned about that because we feel that a doctor is signing that they're meeting

Finance committee  The answer is yes. We figured we had five minutes—

Finance committee  —so we actually focused on this because we feel they're interconnected. We're very aware of that issue and are supportive of that as well.

Finance committee  That is a good definition by our analysis to date, yes.

Finance committee  We've reached out to the CRA to talk to them about it. Other groups are involved, for example, Diabetes Canada. There are organizations that actually do apply on behalf of people. This has gained a lot of momentum in our community relatively quickly. We have a letter from the min

Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  It's along the lines that unless there's a secondary chronic condition, you will not be able to get to the 14-hour threshold. It seems that it's adding another threshold on top of the original threshold.

Finance committee  Yes. It's called brittle diabetes, so you're unaware that you go low. This is another version that is very dangerous. Those people have to monitor it very carefully, and some of those people are getting rejected as well.