Citizenship and Immigration committee  Do you see what I'm getting at? Again, the costs—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, I think—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, you are. You're close. The cost of that excessive demand is about $7,000 a year. The provision came in in 1976, so it is rather dated itself, but I would say that if you're thinking about doing anything with that threshold, you should raise it, if that's a possibility. I'm t

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes. It's even more than a two-tiered system. First of all, it distinguishes disabled from non-disabled. As I said before, this whole argument is over 400 years old, to control people. It is a two-tiered system. The other part of that is a result of the Supreme Court decisions

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'm not sure that people with disabilities would jump on the bandwagon to come here just for the sake of disability costs. It could happen, but I doubt it. The other thing is that, speaking for myself, I would say, “Welcome.” I believe in diversity, and disability is just anothe

Citizenship and Immigration committee  One of the questions I would ask is do we really want it? I agree 100% that I find it very difficult to quantify that. As I mentioned, with the people I know and am working with, we have the potential to lose great citizens. One young man I'm trying to help has a master's degre

Citizenship and Immigration committee  One of the things you mentioned is that families couldn't afford that—not that this isn't an issue—but what I'm getting at is that families I know and I'm working with are willing to cover the costs of the care, but they're still being denied entry. The other thing is if we kee

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Absolutely. To start with, I've been involved in organizing and working with people with disabilities at the local, national, and international levels, and it does discriminate against persons with disabilities. In fact, the UN convention has discussions about mobility rights as

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'm sure a lot of you do, yes.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  One issue that I find here around the debate is that first of all, I don't see disability as a health issue. Disability is a social issue, a political issue, an economic issue. This is one of the concerns I have around the excessive demand clause. For me, the person that I'm work

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Okay. This may seem to be the policy, but it's not the practice. I'm presently working with a young man from the Middle East who was willing to pay for everything for his family to come here, but they're being denied. Not only that, but some families here also risk deportation,

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Good morning. First of all, I'd like to thank members of the committee for inviting me to speak about the excessive demand clause of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. I am particularly grateful that members of Parliament are examining this clause, and I congratulate a