SPER Committee Meeting

37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION

Subcommittee on the Status of Persons with Disabilities of the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Wednesday, February 12, 2003

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1540

The Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett (St. Paul's, Lib.))

Mr. Harry Beatty (Canada Pension Plan (Disability)Working Group)

The Chair

Mr. Laurie Beachell (National Coordinator, Council of Canadians with Disabilities)

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1545

The Chair

Mrs. Mary Ennis (Vice-President, Council of Canadians with Disabilities)

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1550

The Chair

Mr. Laurie Beachell

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1555

The Chair

Ms. Traci Walters (National Director, Canadian Association of Independent Living Centres)

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1600

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1605

Mr. John Young (Managing Director, Indepedent Living Resource Centre (Winnipeg), Canadian Association of Independent Living Centres)

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1610

The Chair

Mr. Guy Arseneault (Deputy Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of Review Tribunals (Canada Pension Plan/Old Age Security))

Mr. Chris Baker (Vice-President, Environics Research Group Ltd)

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1615

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1620

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1625

The Chair

Mr. Harry Beatty

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1630

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1635

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1640

The Chair

Mr. Pat Iannitti (Director, Tribunal Operations and Communications, Office of the Commissioner of Review Tribunals (Canada Pension Plan/Old Age Security))

Mr. Laurie Beachell

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1645

The Chair

Mr. Reed Elley (Nanaimo—Cowichan, Canadian Alliance)

Mr. Laurie Beachell

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1650

The Chair

Mr. Reed Elley

Mr. Laurie Beachell

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1655

Mr. Reed Elley

Ms. Traci Walters

The Chair

Ms. Traci Walters

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1700

The Chair

Ms. Jocelyne Girard-Bujold (Jonquière, BQ)

Mr. Laurie Beachell

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1705

The Chair

Ms. Jocelyne Girard-Bujold

Mr. Harry Beatty

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1710

The Chair

Ms. Wendy Lill (Dartmouth, NDP)

Ms. Traci Walters

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1715

Ms. Wendy Lill

Ms. Traci Walters

Ms. Wendy Lill

Ms. Traci Walters

Ms. Wendy Lill

Ms. Traci Walters

The Chair

Ms. Traci Walters

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1720

Mr. Laurie Beachell

The Chair

Mr. John Young

The Chair

»

1725

Mr. Harry Beatty

Mr. Guy Arseneault

The Chair

Mr. Guy Arseneault

The Chair

Mr. Guy Arseneault

The Chair

Mr. John Young

»

1730

Mr. Reed Elley

Ms. Traci Walters

The Chair

Mr. Laurie Beachell

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1735

The Chair

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CANADA

Subcommittee on the Status of Persons with Disabilities of the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities

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NUMBER 006

l

2nd SESSION

l

37th PARLIAMENT

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EVIDENCE

Wednesday, February 12, 2003

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

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[English]

    The Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett (St. Paul's, Lib.)): I'm going to call the meeting to order even though our tiny, perfect committee is less than perfect at the moment. We've been decimated on Wednesday afternoons by the fact that meetings of the aboriginal affairs, health, and public accounts committees are held at the same time, where our favourite members are mandated by their caucuses to be. This is the last time we're going to meet on a Wednesday afternoon, because it's too difficult.

    All of your wonderful testimony, as you know, will end up on the record and will be an important part of our deliberations. But we do apologize for not being able to be in five different places at once.

    Under the advice of my spectacular advisers from the Library of Parliament, we've asked if maybe we could hear from the disability community first, then the Office of the Commissioner of Review Tribunals, then Environics, and Harry Beatty will then tell us what it all means. Is that fair, Harry?

    Mr. Harry Beatty (Canada Pension Plan (Disability)Working Group): Sure.

    Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

    The Chair: So that would be Laurie and Mary and then Traci.

    Mr. Laurie Beachell (National Coordinator, Council of Canadians with Disabilities): I'm Laurie Beachell, with the Council of Canadians with Disabilities. Once again we appreciate the opportunity to appear before your tiny, perfect committee to express some concerns. I'm the national coordinator with the Council of Canadians with Disabilities, and Mary Ennis is the vice-chair of the association.

    Before presenting to you our specifics relating to the Canada Pension Plan, I would like to take two minutes just to say that our community at the present time views itself as in a state of extended waiting—let me say that—and the waiting has been long and is becoming rather difficult to continue. We remain hopeful of something next week in the federal budget, but the issues of our community have not seen much action by the federal government for some time, and despite the alarms we have been ringing about the erosion of services and supports to Canadians with disabilities generally across this country, not only in the area of income, but in disability supports, in long-held issues around access to transportation and employment, etc., frankly, things are not getting better. Things are not even remaining the same. They are getting worse.

    I would say to all committee members that we will have to take a hard look next week at what is in the budget to see whether we are actually seeing movement forward or whether we are going to be asked, once again, to wait. Waiting, I think, becomes no longer an option, frankly. Processes that have been in place, federal-provincial discussions around acting in unison, frankly, are not ending in results, and unless there is some federal commitment and federal leadership on these issues.... We know Minister Stewart and others are championing the cause and we know there are competing interests, but I would say to you we have been patient. There are many within our community who are saying we have been patient far too long, and there are many who are saying it is time to dust off the “disabled beggars workshop” proposal and once again consider that we may have to take to the streets.

    I would say to you as a committee that patience has almost worn out and the collaborativeness of our community is not something you can count on for much longer. Repeated appearances before committees, repeated presentations to ministers, and meetings are not getting us where we want to go, and our community is asking what we have to do next.

    Putting that aside, let me say that we recognize and are wholly supportive of the hard work of this committee, and that this committee has acted with a unanimous voice in support of Canadians with disabilities. Your reports and your collaborative working and your non-partisan approach to this issue have been the thing that has helped us hold some people's feet in government to the fire. Come Tuesday we'll see whether the fire burnt or whether it was only a mild singeing.

    I wanted to deliver that message before we come back to CPP. I don't want us to dwell, necessarily, on that fact, but I don't think at the present time we can ignore it.

    I'll turn it over to Mary Ennis to talk about some of our pieces in a broader policy sense around CPP, recognizing that there are two focuses for us: one is the substantive policy changes that we recognize may be longer-term in their achieving; and two, those pieces that are more administrative in nature that we may be able to move on more quickly. We will not repeat for you all of the principles and purposes of Canada Pension Plan disability benefits.

    We know that Michael Prince and Sherri Torjman and Michael Mendelson have presented to the committee in some depth around the history of this program—a history of continued progress and improvement, but one that has some bumps in the road as well. It is a history that frankly says some of the substantive changes we might wish to achieve through this program are difficult, unless we are prepared to address income supports in a broader way, in that income for people with a disability is an extremely complex system. Tinkering with one has an impact on other systems. Therefore, there is some need to look broadly around this whole picture. We will not go through the history but just look at some of the policy changes.

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    I'll turn it over to Mary Ennis, who is vice-chair, who will address policy, and then I'll come back to the admin side.

    The Chair: Ms. Ennis.

    Mrs. Mary Ennis (Vice-President, Council of Canadians with Disabilities): Thanks, Laurie, and thank you, everybody.

    While we certainly don't anticipate a lot of legislative changes overnight, we have identified several issues that we believe require legislative amendments.

    When we look at the range of considerations that must be given to people with disabilities trying to return to the workforce, we recognize the amount of time and effort that must go into that. There are issues around self-confidence. People who are newly disabled need a certain amount of time to accept their disabilities. We have to look at removal of physical barriers in work places, issues like high unemployment in some regions, adapting to new technology, and adaptive equipment that might be needed to accommodate the disability. We realized then that it does take a certain amount of time for a person to adjust and to get back into the workforce. We're looking at the first legislative change that would be around extending the eligibility for trying to return to work.

    As well, the current requirement to contribute for four out of the last six years in order to be eligible for CPP disability is not fitting for people with disabilities because of fluctuating conditions, etc. We would seriously like to consider reverting to the old eligibility requirements, two out of three or five out of ten years.

    Then we have the issue of whether disability benefits should continue to be taxable. CPP disability provides an already low income, and imposing taxes on a low-income program like this one doesn't reflect the disability community's idea of fairness. So we really suggest a review of whether or not the disability benefits should continue to be taxable.

    As well, we have to consider that many people with disabilities, at the best of times, are unable to hold traditional full-time jobs. We strongly believe that these people, these individuals, should have the option of working part-time. It makes more sense that they have that option--be able to go back to work for the length of time they're able to contribute, to give them a better quality of life--instead of having to declare themselves unemployable and not be able to work any more in order to get the benefit.

    There has been talk for quite a number of years now, and some discussion and effort made, around one comprehensive disability income program for persons with disabilities. The idea, the concept, of that I don't think should be lost. We should continue to keep that in mind and to work towards it. I personally believe it can be done. We've already discovered how difficult it could be in past discussions, but I think together we can find a way.

    Finally, I think this subcommittee can play a big role, and is playing a role, and can continue to play a larger role in identifying these broader issues and finding a way that we could work together to come up with some really solid solutions around them.

    Thank you.

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    The Chair: Mr. Beachell.

    Mr. Laurie Beachell: Let me just add that the policy changes of 1998 were regressive, and we would ask that we move back and look at the issue of how long you have to make contributions before you're eligible, etc., and those kinds of conditions that were changed in 1998.

    On the administrative side there are steps in the process of being designed to try to improve these, steps whereby consumers would be involved in focus groups to give feedback on processes in service delivery, whether rehabilitation, application process, tribunal review, or appeal mechanisms, so we actually test some of this.

    There have been medical handbooks developed, but again, the input is from.... This is nothing against physicians, Madam Chair, but as you are well aware, the handbooks meet the physicians' needs, not necessarily the community's needs, around the disability tax credit. We know that physicians frankly don't want to be in this business. This is not what they're interested in. This is not their area of expertise. They are not experts in functional limitations, they are experts in treatment of disease and in health-related conditions.

    To continue to use a medical model, frankly, one that is distressed across this country and stretched to the limit--and we as Canadians are all talking about investing in health care, yet we send people with disabilities to their doctor to determine their eligibility for everything from a tax credit to a parking pass to Canada Pension Plan benefits--does not make sense.

    We would like to see allowable earnings increased. The move to allow that and to increase that portion has been important.

    I have a fellow who phones me every two months, a person with a psychiatric disability who is unable to work full-time. He knows that if he works full-time he'll end up back in hospital. He can't handle the stress of full-time employment, but he works every second weekend. He is now working, and he phones and gives me an update every two months and says, “They haven't challenged my benefits and it's working for me; I keep my CPP, I'm working, I'm driving a taxi, and I like it because I can work part-time.”

    If we could increase those earning exemptions before the benefit reduction kicks in, it would be quite helpful.

    As well, I think we need to ensure that advocacy associations are resourced to help individuals, or we need to find a system of helping individuals bring forward appeals. Most individuals are still intimidated by the process even though there have been attempts to make it more friendly. Most people say, I don't know what to do; I don't know how to handle this; what's your advice? They are actually looking for either legal counsel or for others who have gone through the process.

    Of course, there are individuals who are not well served by this program, as by others, and those are individuals whose disability is cyclical and whose mental health concerns...such as muscular dystrophy or a number of concerns where individuals may be well for a period of time, do not wish to identify themselves as unemployable, but have to do so in order to retain any benefits. I think we have to find a way to work with employers to remove some of the barriers and to find ways of giving some partial benefit.

    I have no idea what is happening with this issue in relation to the aboriginal community, but I think the committee might want to talk to them. The incidence of disability among aboriginal community members is absolutely a national disgrace. I think this issue should be addressed in some way by the committee, and I would encourage people to look into that. We are in communication with that community, but we do not pretend to represent them.

    There continues to be a need, I would think, for appointment of people with disabilities to the review tribunals, people with experience of living with a disability. It would be helpful that when folk came into the room, there was some connection with others; that would make the system more user-friendly. And there should be more training for adjudicators from a disability community perspective. The appeals process is probably the number one subject of complaint we hear from people. First they're either denied or are forced by the private insurer to apply, even when they know they probably aren't eligible. It seems to be an absolute waste of resources for us to go through that, and it also, I think, skews the figures as to the number who are actually denied. But I know that if I become disabled, my insurer will require that I make a CPP application before I do anything else.

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    I would leave it at that. I think Ms. Head mentioned that they were going to have to air their dirty laundry. That would be interesting, and we would welcome having it hung out there to dry.

    Thank you.

    The Chair: Thank you very much.

    Traci.

    Ms. Traci Walters (National Director, Canadian Association of Independent Living Centres): Hi there. I'm Traci Walters, the national director of the Canadian Association of Independent Living Centres. I guess most of us know each other.

    I too just want to reiterate what Laurie said when he introduced this session with his little talk. We're becoming very frustrated this week; we do not feel confident because of the rumours and speculations about the priorities in this year's budget, although we won't know for sure until next week. We feel that we have waited ten years for concrete action from the federal government, and the ten-year mark is a good time to say okay, we've given ten years, and it's time to mobilize people with disabilities here in Canada; we have waited and waited and it has been a long decade.

    We also want to see some concrete things in the budget with regard to employment assistance for persons with disabilities and with regard to moving forward on some sort of disability support strategy with respect to a labour-market strategy and the disability tax credit.

    There are many things we have suggested, and it's not only the applicants for CPPD who feel hopeless and in despair. It's people with disabilities across this country right now who have waited patiently for ten years for something to happen with this federal government to show that people with disabilities are a priority. I don't know what it is, maybe it's the ten-year mark, but we are all frustrated. We have had enough, and people across this country are now ready; if we go through another budget without concrete changes, we will have to mobilize. We cannot go any longer.

    I just wanted to start off with that. I know the subcommittee has been very supportive, but we need action from this federal government, and CPPD is just one piece of it.

    I have next to me John Young, who's the managing director of the Winnipeg Independent Living Resource Centre. Many of the MPs have independent living centres in their riding.

    We are a disability organization run by four people with disabilities helping other people with disabilities to problem-solve and to develop skills to live independently. Over the past number of years the Winnipeg centre has had enough resources and some ability to support applicants of CPPD. Over the years, by applying the model of people with disabilities helping other people with disabilities, by using people who have gone through the system and understand how to problem-solve, we find that we have developed an expert knowledge base concerning the application and the appeal process for supporting individuals through this process.

    The Independent Living Resource Centre in Winnipeg facilitates the collection of the appropriate information to help individuals determine who legitimately qualifies and who does not. You can help people sort this out right at the beginning rather than wait for years. In this way the Independent Living Resource Centre views its position as a supportive buffer or filter between the consumers and a variety of government and non-government agencies in order to keep a proper and accurate flow of information. We do this at the centre in a number of ways, providing accurate, up-to-date information in an accessible and plain language format, which is hard to find when you're dealing with the CPPD information.

    Starting at the pre-application stage and throughout the process, we help applicants conduct appropriate tracking, medical tracking. We provide whatever information is required, such as that on contributions. We ensure accurate information is submitted to the program. We develop and maintain a collaborative, third-party working relationship with applicants and CPP disability officials. We help people explore alternative income supports and disability-related supports that help them move along in their journey, whether it is going to be through CPPD or not. We help bring people together to problem-solve so people don't feel so isolated and hopeless, as so many applicants for CPPD do throughout this country.

    The Winnipeg model demonstrates that the independent living philosophy is well suited to providing support for CPPD applicants. Indeed, with its focus on allowing individuals to have control over their own lives, make their own decisions, take risks, and even make mistakes, we are well suited to providing a program that emphasizes the provision of disability-related income security within a work incentive framework.

    Basically, we at the grassroots level notice, from trying to support individuals and organizations, whether they're independent living centres or other disability organizations, that we have the expertise. We know we can help people through this process a lot faster as well, help them sort through the information, yet we do not have the resources to do it.

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It's the best model, we believe. I'll ask John to speak in a few minutes, but one of the recommendations that CCD has is to develop the capacity of the advocacy in disability organizations to be involved in this process, which will be much more cost-effective, much more empowering, in a citizenship model for individual applicants of CPPD. So we are supporting this recommendation as well.

    We know from your report, the subcommittee's report, that you have also highlighted six issues of concern that arose from your national round table meeting. They are basically the same as what we're finding out through the IL model: eligibility requirement guidelines are too narrow, resulting in individuals being improperly denied benefits; application process is too complex, requires high literacy skills and knowledge; time required to process application is too lengthy; a general lack of information and program assistance for applicants is a huge barrier; poor linkages between CPPD and other service providers, including private insurance benefits, whereas in the model of our organization providing that support we could be working with the individuals, helping them link up to all the types of disability supports they require; also, there are very high numbers of cases going to an appeal, including the second and third levels, which you have identified--and we know that, and John and the centre have experience in helping people sort through these problems way before those stages.

    We at CAILC are recommending the following.

    One, provide applicants with dignity and a robust sense of citizenship through the provision of genuine control over and full engagement with the CPPD application process. That is not the way the system works.

    Two, empower applicants with information, skills development, and networking offered by ILRCs and disability organizations, both concerning CPPD as well as generic disability-related supports and services.

    Three, reduce the high volume of CPPD appeals and demands by investing in the capacity of advocacy in disability organizations like independent living centres for us to provide advocacy and service delivery supports to individual applicants. It's a great solution for part of the problem by providing those supports to the individuals rather than the MPs getting constant calls from people being so isolated for years and years and not even knowing or having any clues about information, which if they had had upfront they could have been able to make a better decision.

    John, do you want to explain a bit of the experiences of how individuals are assisted through the model?

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    Mr. John Young (Managing Director, Indepedent Living Resource Centre (Winnipeg), Canadian Association of Independent Living Centres): One thing I did want to say is that when we talk about advocacy for the ILRCs, it's not that we're going to advocate for anybody. What we're doing is empowering and teaching people how to advocate for themselves. They go through the process where we would even set up tribunals right in our boardrooms and get them used to the whole idea, because it is intimidating for people when they walk into that room. After about four or five months of proper preparation, people are able to do that themselves and do the majority of representations themselves.

    We have another program called the access to western justice that comes through our.... Lawyers will do pro bono information sorting. We've talked to a lot of those different lawyers and they're in agreement that even if CPP went more towards the legal aid system, it would cost a lot more money, because it takes a lot of time to do this, and you're talking about junior litigators who are doing it. There is the setting of precedents and all kinds of complications and more money involved in that.

    In our process we take the people through the process. They control that whole thing. Even gathering information for different types of disabilities with people--that environment has to be created for them so they can gather the proper information and coordinate and control it the way you need it in order for this to be an accepted application.

    One of the other bigger things that we find is the constant insurance companies.... If you want long-term disability, you have to apply for CPPD. If you exhaust all the appeals, you have to turn around and do the whole process over again. Some people are caught in this perpetual cycle, and they can never stop to even look to get better or to look at other avenues because they're too busy worrying about being cut off from long-term disability if they don't apply for CPPD.

    So we've had a lot of success at our centre since 1998, since the amendment came in. More people are coming forward. But we don't dare to advertise because we'd be swamped. We would never be able to handle it. We're at the brink right now, because 30% of all our advocacy, our self-advocacy pieces, are CPPD-related. It's becoming bigger and bigger. It's not getting better.

    The one thing we don't say, and we should be saying it more but we don't how to put that out.... We can guesstimate that of all the CPPD applicants who come to ILRC, once we go through the information and the tracking and they realize this probably isn't for them, 3% to 5% don't even apply for your program. They go into alternative, different pieces that are in the community, different programs that we have at the ILRC.

    So I think it's not necessarily about applying and filling the application and tracking and that stuff; it's giving options, and we're very good at doing that.

    Thank you.

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    The Chair: Thank you very much.

    We'll now hear from the Office of the Commissioner of Review Tribunals, Guy Arseneault, deputy commissioner.

    Guy, will you be introducing your colleagues?

    Mr. Guy Arseneault (Deputy Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of Review Tribunals (Canada Pension Plan/Old Age Security)): I'll do so as I go along.

    First of all, let me say thank you very much, Madam Chair and members of the subcommittee, for giving us the opportunity to table and discuss our client satisfaction surveys conducted for our office by Environics Research Group.

    We believe it is our duty to ensure that those Canadians who need access to government programs are given every opportunity to access them. To more effectively serve Canadians, Treasury Board instituted modernizing service for Canadians. This program requires that each department, agency, board, and commission examine their procedures to ensure that the services provided are being done in an effective, efficient manner.

    These surveys have helped to provide us with a road map to improve our service to the Canadians we serve. The client satisfaction surveys will serve as a benchmark against which we can measure our progress. We must ensure, though, that as we improve our service in one area, the impact does not negatively affect other areas where we are doing well.

    These surveys have not sat on the shelf. We have built into our work plan activities that address some of the areas we can improve.

    We will be running a pilot project to see if we can cover appellant expenses beyond those covered by current policy. The project will include giving appellants the option of appearing at a hearing in a location nearer to their families or medical specialists, as opposed to the current policy of requiring them to have their hearing at a location nearest to where they live. We are currently exploring ways to increase the opportunity for appellants to have representation at hearings through discussions and cooperation with advocacy groups and legal aid clinics. We are presently developing a video that will contain tips on preparing for a hearing to help appellants become better prepared for their hearings. We are also reviewing and updating our brochures and correspondence to make them easier for appellants to understand and to provide more information on the appeal process.

    We have a number of other initiatives we are working on as well. Most of them stem from the results of the surveys, which you're going to get in a few minutes.

    With me today from our office are Ms. Tina Head, general counsel, and Mr. Pat Iannitti, director of operations and communications.

    We call the client satisfaction surveys a benchmark, but being a school teacher, I call them a report card, because it will give us a true feeling of what's going on out there. We're using it as a guide in developing ways to better serve Canadians and to measure our success in this endeavour.

    It's now my pleasure to introduce Mr. Chris Baker, vice-president of Environics Research Group, who will present the findings of the client satisfaction surveys in more detail.

    We are available to answer questions, and Mr. Baker is as well.

    Thank you very much.

    Mr. Chris Baker (Vice-President, Environics Research Group Ltd): Thank you very much for the opportunity to appear before the committee today. I'm joined by Amanda Parriag, from our office here in Ottawa, who is observing the session.

    I want to take you briefly through the methodology we used in collecting the information, and then we'll get into some of the key findings.

    The report itself is a fairly hefty document. I think some copies are available here today for members of the committee and others who may be interested.

    Essentially, we looked at 1,400 appellants, people who had been denied benefits and then went through the appeal process, as well as 202 non-appellants, people who had been denied but, for whatever reason, decided not to appeal.

    Of course, whenever you're designing a questionnaire in a new area or looking at service delivery, as Mr. Beachell said, sometimes it's very useful to have some focus groups help develop the research instrument. That's what we did. We had some preliminary groups, one with appellants, one with non-appellants. This not only informed our findings in terms of putting faces to numbers, but also in helping to understand some of the issues they were struggling with as they were going through the process.

    There are also a number of research issues that I think I should familiarize the committee with. First of all, this is a very specialized sample. This is not a general sample of Canadians where we are looking just to find people who qualify. These were people who had been involved in the system, and of course as people who have been involved in both applying for CPP and in the tribunal process, there needs to be extra sensitivity, extra care taken in the administration of the survey. It's not a thing where you just catch the people on the phone and try to run them through as quickly as possible. It was a process where we took care to listen to people, to let the survey proceed at its own pace.

    Of course, if respondents had any concerns at all about the legitimacy of the survey, anything like that, we did provide them with a toll-free number, both to call our office, as well as the office of the commissioner, just to get some feedback on the survey.

    Certainly they were assured--and this is one of the things on which we pride ourselves in the industry--of the confidentiality of their responses. No individual names or data were included in the report that could identify any specific respondent, and of course we were looking at doing this during the day, during the time that people would want to talk to us, rather than, let's say, the normal time that surveys are done, which is often in the evenings or on the weekends.

    I guess one of the gratifying aspects of the survey is that after it was completed, Statistics Canada reviewed the survey and basically gave it a good bill of health. We expected we would pass with flying colours, and of course we did.

    Of course, we collected all kinds of information about the appellants and non-appellants. There's no doubt that those between 50 and 60 years of age are slightly overrepresented amongst the populations, but in fact we found people across all age groups.

    We did find that in comparison to the Canadian norm, appellants and non-appellants were slightly less educated and affluent than the general population, and a plurality lived in households of two people, including themselves.

    Of course, one of the things we were looking at was their perceptions of the tribunal experience. As was touched on by some of the other presenters today, top-of-mind perceptions of appearing in front of a tribunal are largely negative. There's the whole stress of preparing and appearing at an appeal process, and there may be travel involved. It is a judicial approach, and it does have an adversarial element to it.

    Certainly when people are coming forward, they're looking to have their problems addressed, and they want their problems heard. They may not necessarily be prepared or even wanting an examination or inquiry on their condition. This was one of the issues that really appeared mainly in the focus groups but was also touched on in the survey itself: There was some confusion about the role of the minister's representative in the tribunal experience. Not to gloss over it or anything, it was almost like the minister's representative was there in a prosecutorial role rather than representing, let's say, a ministry of the Crown.

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    That said, even though people find the review tribunal experience stressful and distressing, we did get a chance to rate some of the areas of the experience. We found that people who had participated in the appeal process, who had appeared before tribunals, had positive perceptions of the tribunal members and of the commissioner's staff. Good marks were awarded for the accessibility of the hearing location—this is not necessarily that it was close to their homes, but that the locations chosen had access for disabled people, and that sort of thing.

    People actually felt good about the amount of time they were allotted to present their case. There was a good deal of satisfaction with the amount of time people were given to speak to the tribunal. There was less satisfaction, maybe, about how they could prepare, especially when it came to getting records from doctors' offices and those sorts of things. But certainly when it came to the tribunal process itself, people felt they had a chance to have their say.

    Even though there are perceptions—those who have a positive outcome naturally are more positive about their experience; those who have negative outcomes are more negative about their experience—and despite some of the concerns and the frustrations of people, there was a feeling that the tribunal members were fair.

    Some of the presenters talked a bit today about the resources available to appellants. Generally, people who are appellants or even non-appellants are uninformed about what expenses the Office of the Commissioner of the Review Tribunals will cover as part of an appeal. Basically, about some of the simple things such as photocopying charges, for example, people were unaware. And when you're dealing with people who have very low incomes, even three cents a copy can become an unreasonable burden for people.

    One of the other areas where people—appellants and non-appellants—agreed was that they had a choice of service in either official language. Once they were there, the procedures were straightforward and easy to understand, and the documents themselves were relatively easy to understand. There are always going to be some people who find any government document frustrating, and certainly there are always areas for improvement. In looking at those areas of improvement, appellants and non-appellants thought communication with both the office of the commissioner and the CPP office needed to be improved.

    The “brown brochure” that is put out from the office of the commissioner itself contains useful information; it's just that most people don't understand that it's available, how to get it, what its relationship is to the process. There needs to be some effort to increase the awareness of appellants and non-appellants of the resources that might be available to them to assist them in the appeal, their rights at the appeal, and their use of representatives in the appeal process.

    Most appellants and non-appellants do not qualify for benefits other than CPP disability. This means that reliance on CPP disability is very important for these people. It's interesting and distressing to find that a successful appeal can have a negative effect on the benefits that are provided by insurance companies and by others.

    The point about the taxation of CPP benefits was one that was raised in the focus groups. Some of the people who attended contrasted the fact that a benefit that may come from a third party such as an insurance company is not taxable, whereas CPP benefits are.

    We found that some of these third-party benefit providers recommended that people apply for CPP disability; that was a fairly universal experience. But amongst non-appellants, we found they did not feel they were pressured to go to a tribunal by their third-party provider, even though they were turned down in their initial application.

    We find that people's lives generally do not get better, even though they may receive a positive outcome from the review tribunal process. We're talking about people who are living with challenges in their lives, and this has an impact on their standard of living.

    We talked about the inability to work, dealing with stress—these sorts of things brought on by your illness. But again, dealing with a judicial process where you're going to be presenting something that's very personal about yourself to a room full of strangers can be frustrating. It can certainly cause alienation. Having to jump through the various bureaucratic hoops, going to see doctors—all of these things—were brought up as problems these people are dealing with as they're trying to get some help in their lives.

º  (1620)  

    Those who were turned down or received a negative result out of the tribunal process certainly had greater negative life changes than those who were successful, but even for those who had received a benefit by going through the tribunal process it wasn't night or day; it wasn't as if everything became wonderful afterwards. People pointed out that the benefits you receive are relatively modest. It is something people appreciate when they do get it, but they wonder why they had to go through an agonizing process to receive these benefits.

    Organizational independence is always a very important criterion in a judicial or quasi-judicial body. There is some skepticism amongst appellants and non-appellants about whether the office of the commissioner is independent and operates at arm's length from CPP disability. There are some concerns that maybe that organizational independence is not seen. But there certainly is a belief that the tribunal members themselves are independent from the CPP disability office. Those people who are actually asked to assess the cases that are brought before them are seen to be independent from the government bureaucracy.

    It's also interesting to note that in terms of connectivity— reliance on the Internet and that sort of thing—a bare majority of appellants and non-appellants have computer access, but fewer than half of appellants and non-appellants have access to Internet e-mail, even though the government is placing a lot of emphasis on government on-line. It's not the magic bullet some people think it is.

    For the appellants themselves, if they're trying to acquire information, the Office of the Commissioner of Review Tribunals' website isn't their primary source of information. They are more likely to rely on a telephone call or other forms of information, and of course, as with the general population, access to computers, Internet, and e-mail decreases with age and increases with income, which is also a factor that needs to be a consideration of the office of the commissioner as it moves forward on this file, and as the government itself moves forward on this file.

    That's a very brief overview of the findings of the survey. Thank you very much for listening to me today.

º  (1625)  

    The Chair: Thanks very much.

    I think it's good for the committee, and probably for the community here, too, that this kind of honest, objective client satisfaction actually matters. It's probably not every agency, board, and commission that actually does this. So we thank you for the presentation and for the resources you put to it.

    Harry.

    Mr. Harry Beatty: Thanks very much, Madam Chair.

    Today I'm representing the Canada Pension Plan (Disability) Working Group, which primarily is composed of people working in community legal clinics in the greater Toronto area. I think it's worth noting that one of the founding members actually is a lay advocate from a multicultural organization, Felicidade Rodrigues. She is one of the driving forces behind it and a wonderful advocate. There's certainly a hope to work with people who are doing advocacy within any setting. Recently the group has expanded its mandate to include clinics from across the province and other advocacy groups as well.

    We have a submission with about 50 or 60 points, but given the amount of time available, I'll just highlight a few of them. Many of them have already been touched on by other speakers.

    I was struck in listening to Mr. Baker that even only knowing this brief summary of the Environics report, it seems largely consistent with what we and others are saying. There weren't really very many surprises. Probably if you look at the kinds of observations that are coming from the clinic folk, many of whom have done cases over 15 or 20 years, the picture, I think, is pretty similar.

    A starting point here is really that first of all it's a very modest program. Typically what we find is that people do not regard getting on this program as a very favourable outcome in their lives. It's a last resort in many cases, or, failing that, the person's last option will be social assistance. So in many cases CPPD is all that stands between people and a fall into complete poverty.

    For this reason we start our brief by emphasizing the importance of supporting and strengthening a public plan that is portable and flexible. We're certainly moving towards a society where for a whole bunch of reasons more and more people are in and out of the workforce, and more and more people will not have any other alternative either for retirement or for disability. We believe the program does need to be strengthened, so that it is a real and continuing part of the social safety network.

    As clinic advocates, we emphasize the client entitlement and service focus, which is certainly part of what the review tribunals have presented today. But of course, in a way, that's the second stage of the process. There's also HRDC. It's important to keep in mind that the process starts from when the person makes the first call, from the telephone intake usually or sometimes a visit to the office. Some of the issues about client service with HRDC that have been raised over a number of years have not, in our minds, been fully addressed or not addressed very well.

    A pet peeve of my mine is that although now people get the record of contributions more often, there's still a printout that says people are not eligible for the disability pension.

º  (1630)  

    The computer system can't really generate that. It can't really take into account things like child rearing dropout, credit splitting, and so on. There's no way they can put that into the computer system. So people are getting these printouts that say they're not eligible if they become disabled, when in fact it may well not be true.

    That's just one example of where we think the client service focus is lacking generally. We believe there should be a clear policy that if someone wants to apply for CPP(D), they should be provided with the opportunity for doing so.

    Some people may understand from the outset that they're clearly not eligible and shouldn't have to go through it. At the same time, any experienced caseworker has seen people who, lo and behold, are eligible once you start looking into it.

    I can remember one client of mine who didn't appear to have enough earnings, and it was only after about a year's work that I discovered there was some contract employment for which a T4 should have been issued, and the person got their CPP(D).

    In terms of the whole review process, though--turning to page 2 in our presentation--there is a three-year review cycle mandated in the legislation, but of course it's the fiscal review that is mandatory. A review of benefits and whether it is adequately serving the people it's supposed to be helping seems to be discretionary and may or may not be occurring at all. Certainly we have not heard very much from the Ministers of Finance that they would be considering any of the kinds of issues we're raising today.

    Of course, this is the final year of the second three-year review cycle following the 1998 reforms where the restricted eligibility, as has been pointed out already, was aimed primarily at the community of people with disabilities.

    In terms of the relationship between other programs, the issue about taxation has already been noted. We are specifically concerned about LTD and other programs going so far as to deduct the children's benefits from the individual's eligibility. Some do it and some don't. We understand that the federal government would have to work with the provinces to prohibit that, but again, many LTD plans will take the children's benefit off as well.

    People who are on CCP(D) are often able to afford essential disability-related supports and heath care items. In some cases, depending on the province and provincial system, a person is actually worse off than if they didn't get CPP at all. Again, I think Environics may have found some of that.

    We believe strongly that there should be strengthening of the vocational rehabilitation initiative. Essentially, the area of people with disabilities returning to work has win-win possibilities. Everyone agrees that it should happen, but it still appears that people with disabilities get a very mixed message. On the one hand, yes, they should work; we're encouraging them to work. On the other hand, if they pursue rehabilitation and return to work, we are going to reclassify them as not disabled enough for our program. I think that is really not something that can be addressed by tinkering but requires a more in-depth look at disability assessment and how it's done, with perhaps a broader perspective than just a medical one, as was indicated before.

º  (1635)  

    Certainly as well, in the determination of eligibility, the wider social and economic realities of disability have to be taken into account, looking at--as the Villani case suggests very strongly--not just whether theoretically this person could do a job, but whether they can do a job that is actually available in their community and that someone is going to give them.

    Many members of our group feel strongly that with gradual-onset disabilities, or for people who, as they get older, are outside the workforce for some period for caregiving and so on--we are seeing people who have contributed for 25 years who cannot meet the “recent” test because they haven't contributed in four out of six.

    A group has suggested a vesting, where you would get the basic pension after 15 years of contributions. Right now we will have people come in who, as I said, may have contributed from when the plan came in, in 1966, to the early nineties, and contributed at the full amount every year, but then they ran into disability issues, they didn't contribute for three years, and they get nothing, which affects not only their current situation but also their ultimate retirement pensions and the ultimate benefits available for survivors, and children's benefits as well, for their dependants.

    Moving on to administration, I think a lot of these issues have been covered. We still believe, based on the most recent data from HRDC, that essentially it's pretty clear that it's harder to qualify now than at any time over the last 20 years. If you look at the actual numbers of people being approved, in absolute levels, according to the last data available, they're just about where they were in 1980 when Canada's population was less and younger on the whole. And if you also look at the amount of money spent on the program, it has pretty close to flatlined over the last several years.

    We are concerned that the working definition of “disability” seems to change through administrative fiat. Basically we've had the same definition in the legislation since the act came in, in the sixties, with no change, but the interpretation seems to be moved back and forth by the department depending on a whole range of factors.

    As advocates we find the cost of expert reports to be an important issue to address. More and more we find not only CPPD but other providers of disability benefits requiring more and more complex medical and health-related reports.

    Payment for the report is often a major obstacle. Within the clinic system, for example, Legal Aid Ontario in our province put a cap on what essentially a clinic could spend on an individual case, which has caused something of a crisis for us in terms of getting reports. That's just an Ontario example.

    There are perhaps other points I could touch on, but I want to leave time for discussion, and as I said, many of the points in our brief have already been touched on by others.

º  (1640)  

    The closing point, maybe the last one, is that there is concern among advocates that the Pension Appeals Board makes its decisions available only through a commercial service and not, as other tribunals do, through a public website to which everyone can have free access. While in a way that is a small point, it's still valuable to have precedents. Of course, people who are part of a legal clinic in a larger centre can go to a law library and access the report. We understand on-line access is $1,000 a year from the commercial publisher. Again, it's just a small example, but I think a concrete one, of some of the barriers that stand in the way of an equitable appeal system.

    The Chair: Thanks very much.

    Before we go to the questioners, is there any experience among this group around people being cut off CPP disability and what appeal process or what recourse they have? Does the tribunal deal with those cases?

    Mr. Pat Iannitti (Director, Tribunal Operations and Communications, Office of the Commissioner of Review Tribunals (Canada Pension Plan/Old Age Security)): Yes, we do see the cases where the department has reassessed and cut people off. They're very few in number that get to us, but we do have those.

    Mr. Laurie Beachell: Carolyn, sometimes a human face to this helps. About two months ago I had a woman phone. She had worked for a number of years and left the workforce because she had a son who had a significant disability. She chose to stay home to look after her son and to provide support. She was out of the workforce for a considerable period of time. Her husband then became ill and was no longer the primary support to the family. He went onto CPP disability. She went back, got training--entered the job training programs provided--got a full-time job, and then she was diagnosed with terminal cancer. In the meantime, the eligibility and contributory period had changed. She was no longer eligible for CPP disability and she would not apply for social assistance.

    It was just one of those cases where the individual had done everything that we would expect them to do. The family had decided to provide support to their son. She chose to go back to the workforce when her husband was unable to work. She got training. She got a job. She did all of that. Then she found she had terminal cancer, and she was three months short of the four of six because she was out for those periods.

    I know they are looking into this case, but it puts that human face to what we are actually dealing with here.

º  (1645)  

    The Chair: I think all of us, as members of Parliament, have stories. I think that's why this bothers us so much. We also have people who had contributed 15 years, 20 years, 25 years, got laid off in the recession, and now are very sick and don't qualify because too much time has elapsed since their last contribution. It just doesn't seem fair.

    I think that's what this committee is struggling with. How do we deal with the discrepancy between the fairness that any Canadian who thinks there's a disability program would assume was in the rules and these ones we're confronted with every day?

    Mr. Elley.

    Mr. Reed Elley (Nanaimo—Cowichan, Canadian Alliance): Thanks very much for coming and sharing with us. Our tiny, perfect committee makes this more like a conversation than a grilling or anything like that. Let's be pretty casual about this, although it's a very important subject that we don't want to be too casual about.

    We have a very interesting mix of people before us this afternoon: those of you who are charged with legislative responsibility to do reviews of the fallout of the Canada Pension Plan disability plan and those of you who are advocating for people who are caught up in the system.

    In a sense you highlight the dilemma we face on this. As members of Parliament, we're as frustrated as you are. This goes across all parties. Those of us on the committee get as frustrated as you do about the inability of governments to come to grips with this problem, which affects the very marginalized people in our society. So we are really grappling with that.

    At last week's committee meeting we tended to get into it in terms of whether we should be talking about tinkering with the CPP disability plan or looking at a new model, moving beyond this and trying to do something that really works for people with disabilities in this country. One of the things we talked about, which I think Laurie and perhaps some others brought up, was about us starting to take a look at the environment of the disability rather than the disability itself. What's causing this? What's happening in this person's life that causes these kinds of circumstances? Until we start thinking about a new model, we're just going to tinker around the edges of this thing, and government won't be forced to do anything bold and new to tackle the problem.

    I'd like to get your reactions to what I'm saying here. Am I on track with this? What is the new model we should be looking at? Give us some help on this using your expertise. I know that perhaps the advocacy groups will be able to answer this more fully than those of you who are involved with the government mandate and review. But please have a go at it.

    Mr. Laurie Beachell: To be perfectly honest, I believe the new model is the huge challenge. Income supports to persons with disabilities.... It is not that we don't spend money in this area. We have everything from the Canada Pension Plan, to workers' compensation programs, to employment insurance, to long-term disability, to social assistance, to tort law, to a whole range of support mechanisms around income for people. The bolder, comprehensive disability insurance models discussed in the late eighties did not move forward for a whole range of issues. It does require some substantive study as well as some substantive courage and long-range vision to move forward.

    There were pieces proposed in the income support review in Ontario and in the Transitions report some years ago about starting around the disability piece and building a broader--perhaps you want to call it--guaranteed annual income initiative. Those are the broad, bold strokes we need to continue to talk about. We get so tied up in the minutiae of all of these various programs, definitions, forms, eligibility requirements, appeals, court cases, and precedents that we have sometimes lost the opportunity to sit down together in environments where we can work collaboratively on a broader vision.

    We are looking for a national plan to address some of the disability stuff. We are looking for national leadership. Without it we will continue to tinker, and we will probably continue to tinker to the point where the mobility rights of people with disabilities become further eroded and you will be trapped within the system in which you have established eligibility. You will not move across this country to accept other jobs, to be closer to family or friends, or just to explore a different part of this great country. You will live, if you have a disability, within your environment, within a specific geographic region in which you've established eligibility and where you can get to work, get to school, meet your friends, and do those kinds of things.

    There is a huge big-vision challenge here, and I don't pretend that advocacy associations have all the answers on this. As we continue to do the incremental--and I think Sherri Torjman's term of relentless incrementalism expresses it well--that is not where we would want to be. Let's ensure that we do no harm as a first. I think that's part of the Hippocratic oath, is it not? Let's not inflict further harm on people as we explore that broader vision. What we see is having to fight battles where harm is inflicted upon people, people who are not presently anywhere near being assured of equal citizenship in this country.

    I don't have an answer for you, but your question is the right question, and the question of this committee is the right one. The way we explore that together moves us forward.

    The big challenge? Federal-provincial. If nothing else, the debates of the last few weeks around the health care transfer have allowed us to iterate that this is the fundamental challenge we face.

º  (1650)  

    The Chair: I think, Laurie, what Mr. Elley was talking about was, in this whole concept of CPP disability, taking the word “disability” out and calling it a sort of qualifier for early retirement. The idea would be to actually say that these people should no longer be expected to look after themselves, because even with training they won't be able to do it. We should just get off their case and help them. Is that what you took from it last week, Reed?

    Mr. Reed Elley: That's part of what we were talking about, but I wouldn't limit it to that by any means because there are people you're working with who would qualify under that definition.

    Mr. Laurie Beachell: If we move in those directions, the implications of support are understood. There was movement in the nineties to upload people onto CPP disability, people who would not normally have qualified under the disability category, namely older workers who had been laid off, etc., within the broad social and economic interpretation.

    It was not necessarily a bad thing, but at the end of the day, in 1998, our community was targeted. They said, we will cut this program; we will cut these benefits because the uptake is simply too great. The actuarial report shows the targeted reduction, the 20% of this program that was disability in comparison to the targeted reduction of the 80% that was the retirement benefit, was substantial. We were hit hardest, and our community was targeted to get reduced benefits and to be less eligible for support.

    In the broad initiative there had better be the guts to step up to the plate and say that the resources will be here to support this as well, so if we broaden it, we don't just do further damage to those who have been damaged already.

º  (1655)  

    Mr. Reed Elley: Don't you want to respond to that?

    Ms. Traci Walters: My concern is that the individual out there.... Yes, we come together, we appear before committees, we come up with some research, we have some results, we've done sampling here and there to find out how people feel, and we've had questionnaires. Whatever we do, whether we tinker or we do something new, we have to do something today for people with disabilities, for applicants to CPPD. It's not fair to the members of Parliament, and it is not fair to them.

    I know all of these people here, who I've met before, have innovative ideas and approaches, and there are some approaches that can be piloted right away to help support the individuals.

    We wait over and over again in order to come up with what it's going to be and with what it's going to look like, yet there are things we could be doing and investing in right now--I know we can--to support the individuals through the process. That should be our greatest concern. What have we done over all these years for any of these individuals, for any of these families? We have done nothing but sit here and produce studies.

    Where is our commitment to the people? I think there are some solutions that can be tested, and we can move forward just while you're thinking about the new plan for whatever it might be ten years from now. I know how things move with the government, and it takes a long time for anything to change.

    The Chair: In terms of the study, obviously we hope to have a report by June.

    Are you saying, Traci, that even with the questions we put on the website for you to present your solutions, you almost think they should be divided up into short term and long term? Do you mean that there are some solutions you would like to see right now, ones people could have while we are dreaming in Technicolor about what an income support program might look like in terms of full citizenship? Would you like us to ask the questions differently?

    We're only going to get this right if we ask the right questions.

    Ms. Traci Walters: Ask people right now, what could be done? You're right. What could be done right now to support people? We all know they need appropriate information, they need to understand it, and they need to know about how to deal with this stuff.

    Can you imagine being an individual with a disability? You become disabled, you have to fight for your transportation, you have to figure out every way, you have to figure out if you're going to get some home care, if you're going to...every day. Can you imagine that individual...? And I've worked with many people through this process as a friend and as somebody who used to support individuals when I worked at a local independent living centre.

    In their lives--you know because you hear about it in your ridings--they have to battle for who knows how many things on a daily basis just to survive, and to once again come here today.... We know there are ideas. We know there are other ways we can support people right now, getting some of this immediate support to them, helping them understand the system and get through it in less than five years or three years. It's basic skills development and support the people need.

    I told you I was kind of sad today because it's the ten-year mark of, again, nothing happening in the ten years I've been in my job, nothing concrete happening. It's just becoming very disheartening, and I hate to think we're going to sit here for another few years trying to figure out, okay, what could it look like someday ten or twenty years from now? What have we done for the Canadians who are applying? I don't know.

    So maybe it's a question of short term and long term, but I know we could put our heads together and start providing things right now, just helping people get through this system, while we're busy here for years and years.

»  (1700)  

    The Chair: As a family physician, I think primary care reform would be a beginning in being able to get some sort of one-stop shopping for people, to have somebody in the office to help them even know what community resources are there. As family physicians, half the time we didn't know what we were doing. I couldn't agree with you more.

    Jocelyne.

[Translation]

    Ms. Jocelyne Girard-Bujold (Jonquière, BQ): I would first like to thank my colleague, whom I am replacing today.

    I am very happy to be here. Everything I hear from people who defend the rights of the handicapped, I have been hearing it at home for years. I realize, as Madam does, that all kinds of things are said, but it always turns to confrontation instead of achieving specific objectives to resolve the problems the handicapped are currently faced with.

    You said earlier, Sir, that advocacy did not have all the answers. But you have answers, and these answers are present and are adapted to the actual needs of these individuals.

    At home, in Québec, we have the Régie des rentes du Québec. This is referred to as the counterpart of the Canada Pension Plan. Currently, the Régie des rentes du Québec is not perfect, but it sees income in an integrated way. The Régie des rentes deals with social welfare, with anything that affects the income of a handicapped person. Do you think the CPP should be the same?

    The benefits these people have are very minimal. Currently, as Madam said, it's a real mess. To get information, you don't talk to people... As the gentlemen said, in major centres, they have access to the Internet, libraries, consultants, but we are talking here about the situation across Canada. There are small communities that have access to nothing. Do you think there should be advertisement, information?

    Your organizations provide information and assistance to these people. Does bureaucracy understand the words “assistance,” “present,” “immediate,” or does it always need to be done all over again? It is always very complex to open a file, even if they say, as the gentleman said in his survey, that they are very happy with the way they are treated. These people treat them well, but the criteria do not change. They must work with the law's criteria . I think the criteria should be adapted to the current realities.

    Will it take decades, as Madam said? I think these people will have time to die twice before having assistance. Instead of initiating major reforms, what can we do now, with what we currently have, to improve services and enable people to have access to the small amounts they are entitled to as handicapped people?

[English]

    Mr. Laurie Beachell: The primary issue of people with disabilities in Canada is disability supports; those things that assist the individual to pursue whatever their ambitions are, whether they want to go to school, get a job, or raise their family. Those are the fundamentals. CPP disability is only a small part of what is actually needed for people to be able to express their full citizenship. It is a fundamental program because it is available to all Canadians who are in the labour force and pay premiums into it. It is an important first step.

    Sherri Torjman's comparison of the Quebec Pension Plan and CPP is useful. I don't pretend to be an expert on QPP, but I understand it is not a first-payer program, while CPP is. There are many issues related to how that functions and what that means in actual benefits to individuals.

    When I look at a group benefit plan and its disability pension component, it looks pretty decent, but the first step in that is CCPD and it's taxable, and what I get from long-term disability is not. Yet the gross CPP is still the calculation for my gross income insured. There are problems with that. The changes made related to the interface between CCP disability and retirement pension are also detrimental to many folk.

    In Quebec I have seen a better regionalized information system and better information at the local community around this because you have created a much stronger regional system than we may have in other parts of this country. That gives people information and that information becomes power for them. We don't have those same systems across this country. In fact, we have very strong centralized systems in many other parts of this country.

»  (1705)  

    The Chair: Ms. Girard-Bujold.

[Translation]

    Ms. Jocelyne Girard-Bujold: Mr. Beatty, you said earlier that you wanted to give a universal definition to the word “handicapped.” What would be this definition that would finally enable us to speak the same language?

[English]

    Mr. Harry Beatty: I don't know whether I said there would be a uniform definition for all purposes, but it's certainly a problem, as we've just been discussing, that there's a different definition and a different assessment process for every program, so that people have to go back to their doctors, as Traci mentioned earlier, for a different form every time they apply for something.

    I would at least like to see somebody look at the programs and at the differences between them to see if they can be justified, or whether there is a possibility of having not necessarily a standardized but at least a more uniform approach in some ways.

    I also think, in terms of the definition, that programs like CPPD that equate disability with unemployability create a huge barrier for people. If a start could be made to changing the provisions so that people who were undergoing training or education could return to work with less possibility of losing their eligibility.... Or taking the caregiver example that Laurie gave, where people lose their eligibility, really through their efforts to help themselves or their family member, and are penalized for those efforts, it's almost as if we're saying to people: just remain dependent; don't do anything.

    I think there are some of these common problems. At least those programs of the federal government, the provinces, the private insurers could be looked at to see whether these differences are justified, and an attempt be made to make recommendations around this. Right now, the different programs just seem to operate in complete silos, to use the contemporary jargon. Often, even worse, if one program makes some improvements, another will just say, “Great! We can save a little bit here; we've transferred the cost to somebody else.”

»  (1710)  

    The Chair: Wendy.

    Ms. Wendy Lill (Dartmouth, NDP): Thank you very much for coming here.

    I'm sorry I was late. I was at the children and youth subcommittee, which I now sit on as well. My new leader has decided I am so valuable I should be cloned and should sit on two committees at exactly the same time.

    The committee was talking about aboriginal youth at risk. What you just said, Traci, is interesting, because the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples—a very comprehensive study that was done on aboriginal people, and people signed on, they swore to it, they held a lot of hope in it—hasn't been instituted. Now we have Matthew Coon Come and many people from the aboriginal communities coming again before this particular committee, as well as many others, to talk and talk and talk.

    I hear what you're saying, Traci, about the fact that nothing has changed. It's very discouraging. I remember meeting you at the very beginning of being an MP, over five years ago, and you were talking about The Will To Act, the 1996 Andy Scott task force report, and how exciting it was. But we had a press conference right at that time about the fact that only six out of 56 proposals had in fact been implemented.

    I guess I'm just thinking about another model altogether here. Why bother going through these exercises over and over again? Why not just simply hold to the text at hand, which we've all sort of agreed on, that we think is valuable, and deepen that text? It's not like a bible, of course. The Will to Act wasn't a bible, but if it's something everyone says is a good model, let's work at it, and let's not ever let it out of our minds, and never let it be put on the shelf and another one put on top of it.

    I just throw that out. Why not go right back to the Andy Scott task force and see what was said at that point in time around this particular issue, update that, and then just keep the pressure on the people who are making decisions to follow through on parliamentary task forces, on royal commissions?

    Really, we do spend an awful lot of time together, all of us, and we have better things to do. I particularly think you have much better things to do. This is what we're supposed to be doing, but it's not fair that you have to come here over and over again to say the same thing, still more passionately every time. My hat's off to you, because you do it every single time. I just think maybe we should try another model on that.

    Ms. Traci Walters: Could I respond?

    Wendy, just when we started here earlier, CCD and CAILC were both saying it's all too much. Whether it's CPPD, whether it's everything we've asked for from this federal government, people with disabilities don't deserve this. They truly do not deserve this ten years of inaction. It's to the point where I was saying before, it doesn't sound as if disability is a priority in this budget—just rumours. Nothing is happening. Why are we doing this to ourselves? As Laurie says, we come here to watch each other grow older.

    There are infrastructures in place now, whether it's disability organizations, whether it's other community groups, that could help individual applicants go through this process and eliminate years of nonsense: help them get through, get the materials they need, get everything moving quicker. We know it; we have the research. You know it too.

    Why are we not doing something right now with the existing infrastructures that we have to support individual applicants? That is something we can do that is concrete. It's not one particular infrastructure. We know we want to work in partnership with CPPD. What we've offered the disability community is an infrastructure to support individuals. This is something we can do now—concrete, very cost effective—enabling individuals to have appropriate information and the skills they need to get through this quicker.

    At the time of the task force, thousands of Canadians with disabilities came together. Laurie and I sat through every task force meeting as well. Why are we constantly going out and asking people what it is they need when we have heard it? We travelled all across the country. I was part of that gang. We heard it over and over and over again, and that report sits there to this day.

    And you know, we just got another report from the federal government, December 3, advancing the inclusion of people with disabilities—just talking about the problems again. Why are we spending all these taxpayers' dollars talking about these problems? I don't understand it. Why are we not doing something, instead of all these reports? It is so simple; it is so clear; it is so concrete.

»  (1715)  

    Ms. Wendy Lill: Carolyn, maybe we should have a press conference and just say we've had enough and we're not going to take it any more. We're a tiny, perfect committee, and all the disability groups in the country have just had enough.

    Ms. Traci Walters: We've had it!

    Ms. Wendy Lill: They're not coming to the Hill any more; they're not going to do it any more.

    Ms. Traci Walters: It's unreal. And the money we pay to come! You bring us in, we travel here, and we go over and over this again—all these reports. I'm sorry; I'm in a bad mood today—Laurie and I take turns being in a bad mood. But what a waste of taxpayers' dollars, and what a disservice to Canadians with disabilities.

    This is enough. I agree the community is fed up. If we hear next week that there is nothing in this budget once again, enough is enough. And today is the day we just say, that's it, we want action. We're not here to just talk and talk and talk and produce reports and write papers. What about the people?

    That's how I feel today. Thank you.

    Ms. Wendy Lill: It does raise the question about the budget and what this tiny, perfect committee is going to do if in fact there is nothing concrete in that budget about the issues we struggle with.

    We have worked so hard on this tiny.... No, the disability tax credit is not tiny. The successes we've managed to achieve so far.... Just that rollback of two amendments that were going to make it more punitive—they hadn't even happened yet—took an enormous amount of effort. It's just an example of how incredibly slow-moving and difficult the process is.

    But really, I think there is a huge crunch, and the crunch is coming to a head next week when there is the budget and we do not see any real inclusion of—

    Ms. Traci Walters: I think together we can do something, the committee and the community. We have to stand up here.

    The Chair: As you know, one of the big problems everybody has mentioned is this fed-prov gridlock we're in. Whether I'm talking about women's issues, health reform, or anything, everything we care about is in about three different government departments and at least three different levels of government, and we're in gridlock. We need help through that.

    Income supports are something the feds can do. We've only really ever been able to use the tax system to try to do that. But supports and services are provincial. We're going to get day care in the budget next week. It has taken how many thousands of years of fed-prov gridlock to get day care, even though Quebec has been doing it perfectly well for a long time?

    Hopefully the disability community will see that day care is a good thing. As difficult as it has been, we're going to get something next week. It's because members of Parliament have kept pushing against the gridlock. The communities and all of the great people working on child care in this country have been pulling. We have to work together; two and two do make five.

    I hear your frustration. We're as frustrated as you. Looking at that first ministers meeting last week didn't fill me full of huge hope, sweetness, and light when you have 13 ganging up on one.

    We can only do something with your help, but somebody has to be at each provincial capital of this country too, because the issues of disabilities have lots to do with supports and services.

    Ms. Traci Walters: Carolyn and Laurie can elaborate; however, the provinces are now going to walk away because the federal government will not move on the disability supports and the “In Unison” process that is going on. We are so close. The provinces are going to walk away on this issue because the federal government is not doing anything.

    Laurie, could you expand on that, please?

»  (1720)  

    Mr. Laurie Beachell: Change has been slow. Other communities have fought long and hard battles too. We applaud their initiative and we learn from them. We hope there will be child care next week. We hope there will be greater benefits for aboriginal Canadians and a number of other communities as well.

    We have to say there has to be something for those people with disabilities in this mix. In the other mix, just as day care is an issue for many, it is also an issue for those with children with disabilities. It is an issue in the aboriginal community that so many in their community are disabled. We have to have that integrated approach. That has always been the challenge, and a tough one on disability, frankly, because there isn't that clean silver bullet on this front.

    The challenge at the provincial level is huge, to the point where I believe people are beginning to identify themselves not as Canadians but as Ontarians, Manitobans, British Columbians, or Nova Scotians. It's because the levers at the federal level to directly affect people's lives have become so limited. That whole concept of being a Canadian is eroding.

    I do not think this is a positive initiative in any way, shape, or form. We understand the move toward greater local autonomy and control and we believe good solutions can come, but there have to be some standards across this country so the benefits that might be accrued to people in Alberta are equally available to people in Prince Edward Island.

    It is the role of government and the challenge of elected federal officials to find the presence to ensure citizenship for all Canadians, not just people with disabilities. That's a big task.

    The Chair: The librarian has reminded me that that is the reason why we are doing this study on the most visible federal program there is. We want to get this one right because it really does affect so many Canadians. That's why we need your help.

    John has a comment, and maybe Reed has another question.

    Mr. John Young: What I was saying is that even with the retroactive lump sum payments people will get after going through the process for two or three years, the money is instantly gobbled up by the insurance companies. Some people don't even know that money goes to insurance companies. People should have the option of keeping both, but we're not doing that. We're clawing back in favour of the LTD, which is fine. But the reality is that if you allow people the choice with that bulk, lump sum payment, they could use the money for other purposes than giving it directly to the insurance companies, whether it would be for enhancements to their homes, for entrepreneurship, or for education or training.

    One of the reports I read said that $36 million went to a few private insurance companies in five years, and all of it was from lump sum payments. If that money were put into the community, there are things we could do with it, and allow an individual the choice whether the insurance company.... The insurance company can tell you how long you're on LTD, for two years or twenty years. They can almost do it when you're going to expire. It just seems to me that one of the simplest solutions we could use right now is to set up a little budget, taking a piece of their monthly cheques to pay for the lump sum piece, so they can take the money and use it for something else. It wouldn't cost us anything.

    The Chair: I think that is something the committee is very interested in, in terms of the first-payer situation of CPP being different from QPP.

    I think Kevin's going to help us at some point with the reasoning behind CPP disability being taxed and LTD not being taxed.

    Do you have an explanation, Kevin, or should we look into it and report back? Or maybe Harry will explain it.

»  (1725)  

    Mr. Harry Beatty: Thanks for that.

    Actually, LTD is taxed, unless it is paid for in after-tax dollars by the participant. So individual participants or individual purchasers of individual plans typically get tax-free benefits, but in most employment situations it's not set up to be tax free.

    So there is a distinction, as sometimes it is taxed and sometimes it isn't.

    Mr. Guy Arseneault: It might be helpful for the committee to know that as a result of our appearance last spring, and at the invitation of the chair and other committee members, the commissioner engaged to report back with some recommendations drawn from the experience of panel members. This was at the request of the committee. As a result, we set up a number of task forces of experienced panel members to ask other panel members about their experiences. One of those issues was the insurance issue, and the other was core policies, legislative rules, and things of that nature, including communication.

    I'm glad to say that those task forces or committees are ready to report to the committee at some future date. I think they will answer some of the questions we are asking on what we can do now. It is more than likely that they will have some recommendations. For instance, the member asked what we can do and what some of the recommendations are. I think you will find there will be some, but I don't want to anticipate the recommendations, because they are the work of the task forces and not of the commission or commissioner. It will be presented to the committee at some later date when the committee sees fit to call us.

    The Chair: The commissioner then would come back to the committee with the results of those task forces.

    Mr. Guy Arseneault: Yes, the commissioner would be available. I'm led to believe the schedule will probably be closer to the end of your deliberations. We would be ready with some comprehensive documentation, which will hopefully assist the committee.

    Our group is ready to collaborate and cooperate in any way we can. If there are some pilot projects the government wants to implement, we're more than willing to be flexible and to look at them, as long as they are consistent with the legislation that confines us as a body. We are a body made by the legislation, which we have to follow. We have to be very careful, and we're supposed to be neutral. There are two parties coming before us—the government and the appellants. We are in between them, and we have to listen to both sides.

    We're bound by the legislation. Just remember that part.

    The Chair: To the panel on the tax and insurance, I am aware of certain constituents who got the lump sum payment, had to give the whole amount to the insurance company, and had to pay the tax on it. They were actually dinged for the tax on it. Is that possible?

    Mr. Guy Arseneault: I'm led to believe that there isn't double taxation, but there is a possibility that it could happen if the appellant is not aware of the situation, for example, filling out the forms and claiming whether the tax has been paid or not, or not knowing the regulations and not having the capacity. You must remember that a lot of our appellants, if they are disabled, have some issues with regard to being able to do certain things, so in this case it could happen that they would be unaware and they'd have to pay tax on it.

    The Chair: I think John wanted to say something.

    Mr. John Young: We've come across consumers who would say they're taxed on the lump sum, and then when the insurance company wants it back, they give it back. Then they're sent a letter saying they're this much short based on the benefits they paid them while they're waiting for the CPP.

»  (1730)  

    Mr. Reed Elley: We're all going to have to do whatever we do at 5:30, but I just wanted to say that in the discussion we've had today we've heard a lot of feeling, and it's good for us to hear that. We share some of that feeling, but we're not walking in your shoes. I am the father of a disabled child and I can walk in that shoe, but I'm not walking in your shoes every day with people who are just marginal, just existing.

    I guess in answer to your emotion on this, Traci, I think if we're going to solve a huge problem like this, there are going to be people who are visionaries and people who are pragmatists who will solve it. And you're the pragmatist.

    We perhaps heard the visionaries last week when we were talking about the big picture and about moving into some new model, whether we could do things better, have a paradigm shift, all of these things that visionaries talk about. And we do have to do that.

    I think part of our committee's work is to look forward and try to provide the leadership that is lacking on the federal level. That's what this committee is about--to try to provide leadership and to push the government to produce. The pragmatists amongst us, like yourselves--and here in this committee--say there are things we can push that need to be done right now, that will work within the system we have to make it easier for people with disabilities.

    So we have two parallel roads moving toward the same goal. I think this committee will want to continue to focus on that. I know we're very interested in working with you to push that forward, and if after next week's budget things still don't look very good, then let's sit down and talk about how we can make this a national issue beyond this tidy, neat, little committee.

    Ms. Traci Walters: That would be a very good gift, and even beforehand, before the budget, if there were any strategizing there as well.... It's nice to hear you say that's the role of this committee. It's very refreshing. I'm really happy to hear that you will work with the community to make sure the federal government is responding.

    Sometimes I feel like I don't know any more. And I think if there's a reiteration of the role of this committee, that's a really good start, if that's where we're heading. We should be prepared...maybe next week. Why aren't we prepared as a group--the committee, if that is your role, and our community?

    I'm just thrilled to hear you say that. Thank you.

    The Chair: Yes.

    Mr. Laurie Beachell: Madam Chair, we began by talking about the current situation in Canada, and if you would indulge me for one minute, I would like to address quickly the international and say that for people with disabilities, we understand that with conflict and war, one of the big outcomes is more people with disabilities. Peace is a disability issue, and armed conflicts are interventions that disable more individuals and create more need within their society for programs like CPP and whatever they may be trying to struggle with.

    So as the Government of Canada and political parties move to look at the current situation and where we may be in the next weeks or months, we would ask that you keep that in mind.

    Yesterday, Venus Ilagan, who is chairperson of Disabled Peoples' International, was here in Ottawa and met with you, Madam Chair, and other members, and reminded all of us that this is a disability issue, that peace and negotiation to resolve differences is far preferable to dropping bombs on civilian populations or combatants, whoever they be.

    We began creating disability supports in this country with disabled veterans, and we continue to provide good supports, frankly, with disabled veterans. We'd better be ready, both in our foreign aid and our development aid, to support those countries in rebuilding, if we are entering into conflicts, and we'd better be ready to provide those good supports to those Canadians who are serving overseas in whatever capacity.

    We hope it does not come to that, and we would ask that all of you be mindful in whatever deliberations and discussions you have that the outcomes of this are greater numbers of people with disabilities and greater need for supports and services and ways of ensuring that they can be full citizens in whatever society there is.

    I would leave with you today our little peace statement. It was adopted by Disabled Peoples' International in 1983 when they met at Hiroshima. We adopted their statement in 1987. We bring it forward now. We took it to the round table, the town hall held by Minister Graham in Winnipeg last Friday. It will be at the town hall in Montreal next week, and we will have people with disabilities at all of those forums reminding those who are looking at this issue that it is not just an issue of resolving a dispute, but how we choose to resolve this dispute has a huge impact upon civil society and upon individuals' lives and the potential of citizenship.

    Thank you.

»  (1735)  

    The Chair: Thank you all very much.

    It's a very fitting ending, and I think we do reaffirm the role of this committee in pushing as hard as we can full citizenship of all Canadians, and as Laurie has pointed out, also the whole prevention piece that helps us, from workplace safety, to birth defects, to peace.

    I thank everybody. As always, we learn so much at this table, and we thank you all for coming here and understanding the serious role that Parliament has in holding the government to account, and that the reason this committee has tried to be, and hopefully is continuing to be, as effective as we are is because we do take that responsibility very seriously in a totally non-partisan way. So thank you very much.

    The meeting is adjourned.