SPER Committee Meeting

37th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION

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

COMMITTEE EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Tuesday, February 5, 2002

¹

1545

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

Ms. Kathy Turner (Director General, Benefit Programs Directorate, Assessment and Collections Branch, Canada Customs and Revenue Agency)

Ms. Bennett

Mr. Larry Spencer (Regina--Lumsden--Lake Centre, Canadian Alliance)

Ms. Kathy Turner

Mr. Tom Kissner (Manager, Disability Programs Section, Assessment and Collections Branch, Canada Customs and Revenue Agency)

The Chair

Mr. Tom Kissner

The Chair

Mr. Tom Kissner

Mr. Spencer

Mr. Tom Kissner

Mr. Spencer

Mr. Tom Kissner

Mr. Spencer

Mr. Tom Kissner

Mr. Spencer

Ms. Kathy Turner

The Chair

Ms. Kathy Turner

The Chair

Ms. Kathy Turner

The Chair

Ms. Kathy Turner

The Chair

Mr. Larry Spencer

¹

1550

Ms. Kathy Turner

Mr. Larry Spencer

Ms. Maureen Tapp (Director, Special Programs and Partnerships, Assessment and Collections Branch, Canada Customs and Revenue Agency)

The Chair

Ms. Maureen Tapp

Ms. Kathy Turner

The Chair

¹

1555

Mr. Robert Dubrule (Senior Tax Policy Officer, Business, Property and Resource Income and Corporate Reorganizations, Tax Policy Branch, Department of Finance)

The Chair

Mr. Spencer

Mr. Serge Nadeau (Director, Personal Income Tax Division, Tax Policy Branch, Department of Finance)

Mr. Larry Spencer

Mr. Serge Nadeau

The Chair

º

1600

Mr. Serge Nadeau

The Chair

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral (Laval Centre, BQ)

º

1605

Ms. Maureen Tapp

Ms. Kathy Turner

º

1610

Mr. Serge Nadeau

The Chair

Mr. Serge Nadeau

The Chair

Mr. Serge Nadeau

The Chair

Mr. Tony Tirabassi (Niagara Centre, Lib.)

º

1615

Ms. Kathy Turner

Ms. Maureen Tapp

Mr. Tom Kissner

Mr. Larry Spencer

º

1620

The Chair

Ms. Kathy Turner

The Chair

Mr. Tony Tirabassi

Ms. Kathy Turner

Mr. Tony Tirabassi

Ms. Kathy Turner

Mr. Tom Kissner

The Chair

Ms. Davies

º

1625

Ms. Kathy Turner

Ms. Davies

Ms. Kathy Turner

Ms. Davies

Ms. Kathy Turner

Ms. Davies

Ms. Kathy Turner

Ms. Davies

Ms. Kathy Turner

º

1630

Ms. Davies

Ms. Kathy Turner

The Chair

Ms. Kathy Turner

The Chair

Ms. Kathy Turner

The Chair

Ms. Maureen Tapp

The Chair

Ms. Maureen Tapp

The Chair

Ms. Kathy Turner

Ms. Maureen Tapp

Mr. Tom Kissner

Ms. Davies

Ms. Kathy Turner

º

1635

Ms. Davies

Ms. Kathy Turner

Ms. Libby Davies

The Chair

Ms. Libby Davies

Ms. Kathy Turner

Ms. Maureen Tapp

Ms. Kathy Turner

Ms. Maureen Tapp

Ms. Kathy Turner

Ms. Maureen Tapp

Ms. Kathy Turner

Ms. Andrée Houde (Senior Tax Policy Officer, Personal Income Tax Division, Tax Policy Branch, Department of Finance)

Ms. Davies

The Chair

Ms. Kathy Turner

Mr. Tom Kissner

º

1640

The Chair

Mr. Larry Spencer

Ms. Kathy Turner

Mr. Larry Spencer

Ms. Kathy Turner

Mr. Larry Spencer

Ms. Kathy Turner

Mr. Larry Spencer

Ms. Kathy Turner

Mr. Spencer

Ms. Kathy Turner

Mr. Tom Kissner

Ms. Kathy Turner

Mr. Tom Kissner

Mr. Serge Nadeau

Mr. Larry Spencer

º

1645

The Chair

Mr. Larry Spencer

The Chair

Ms. Anita Neville (Winnipeg South Centre, Lib.)

Ms. Kathy Turner

Ms. Anita Neville

Ms. Kathy Turner

Ms. Anita Neville

Ms. Maureen Tapp

Ms. Anita Neville

Mr. Tom Kissner

º

1650

Ms. Neville

Mr. Tom Kissner

Ms. Anita Neville

Mr. Tom Kissner

Ms. Anita Neville

Mr. Tom Kissner

Ms. Anita Neville

Ms. Kathy Turner

Ms. Anita Neville

Ms. Maureen Tapp

Ms. Anita Neville

Ms. Maureen Tapp

Ms. Neville

The Chair

Ms. Kathy Turner

º

1655

The Chair

Mr. Tom Kissner

Ms. Anita Neville

Ms. Kathy Turner

The Chair

Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell (Nunavut, Lib.)

Ms. Kathy Turner

»

1700

Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell

Ms. Kathy Turner

Mr. Serge Nadeau

Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell

Ms. Kathy Turner

Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell

The Chair

»

1705

Mr. Serge Nadeau

The Chair

Ms. Maureen Tapp

Mr. Serge Nadeau

The Chair

Mr. Serge Nadeau

The Chair

Mr. Serge Nadeau

The Chair

Ms. Maureen Tapp

The Chair

Mr. Serge Nadeau

The Chair

»

1710

Ms. Andrée Houde

The Chair

Ms. Andrée Houde

The Chair

Ms. Kathy Turner

The Chair

---

CANADA

Sub-Committee 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 014

l

1st SESSION

l

37th PARLIAMENT

---

COMMITTEE EVIDENCE

Tuesday, February 5, 2002

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

¹  (1545)  

[English]

    The Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett (St. Paul's, Lib.)): We'll begin the fourteenth meeting of the Sous-comité de la condition des personnes handicapées du Comité permanent du développement des ressources humaines et de la condition des personnes handicapées.

    We are thrilled to have with us today the people with all the answers as to why we're here. We trust you've been following with interest the hearings to date and have all the perfect answers for us.

    We're going to start with Kathy Turner, the director general, benefit programs directorate, assessment and collections branch of the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency. We'll introduce her colleagues: Maureen Tapp, the director, special programs and partnerships, assessment and collections branch, and Tom Kissner, the manager, disability programs section, assessment and collections branch.

    Bienvenue. Go for it.

     Ms. Kathy Turner (Director General, Benefit Programs Directorate, Assessment and Collections Branch, Canada Customs and Revenue Agency): Well, I don't actually have anything planned to say, because we were told not to prepare opening remarks. It was merely a question and answer session.

    The Chair: Okay. I thought that was just for Serge. I thought he got off, but you had to come ready to answer.

    We're more than happy to ask the questions as always, as our tiny perfect committee. Does anybody have any opening remarks, or can we go straight to the questions?

    Mr. Spencer.

    Mr. Larry Spencer (Regina--Lumsden--Lake Centre, Canadian Alliance): Thank you, Madam Chair.

    I would like to know who benefits most often directly from the DTC. What I'm getting at is the following. Would it be the person with the disability or would it be a caretaker of that person who most often receives the financial consideration?

     Ms. Kathy Turner: In the majority of cases it's the person claiming the disability for themselves--what we would refer to as a self-claim. That's the highest number of people. After that, of course, are people who are claiming for another person.

    I can ask Tom, who probably has the breakdown of the numbers.

     Mr. Tom Kissner (Manager, Disability Programs Section, Assessment and Collections Branch, Canada Customs and Revenue Agency): Generally speaking, in round numbers it's about 400,000 self-claims, about 100,000 spousal transfer claims, and about 100,000 dependant claims that are transferred to somebody else.

    By and large, as Mrs. Turner said, it's mostly the person with the disability who would be making the claim and receiving the direct benefit.

    The Chair: If I'm correct, the 106,000 letters that went out were for a third of the people who claim.

     Mr. Tom Kissner: No, it's less than that.

    The Chair: We thought that 106,000.... Didn't you just say...? How many did you add up there?

    Mr. Tom Kissner: I said 600,000.

    Mr. Larry Spencer: Okay, so the 600,000 is the person himself--self-claim. Is that correct?

     Mr. Tom Kissner: That's correct. No, I'm sorry, of the 600,000, 400,000 would be self-claims.

    Mr. Larry Spencer: That would be 400,000 self-claims and 100,000 spousal claims--

    Mr. Tom Kissner: And 100,000 dependant claims.

    Mr. Larry Spencer: Oh, I'm sorry, 100,000 dependant. Okay, so about two to one.

    Mr. Tom Kissner: That's right.

    Mr. Larry Spencer: I understand that you received a happy little letter from the happy little committee, to use the chair's language here. Somebody in Customs and Revenue Canada was supposed to have received this, or the minister responsible received it. Have you heard about the letter? If so, have there been any changes made in reaction to that?

    Maybe they'd like us to read them the letter.

    Ms. Kathy Turner: We haven't seen the letter ourselves.

    The Chair: So obviously you haven't acted on the letter.

    If the minister receives a letter, what level would see the letter?

    Ms. Kathy Turner: If the minister receives the letter, I don't know whether the letter would go first to his office, but the letter would go to a ministerial correspondence area that would assist in preparation of a response to the letter.

    The Chair: So it's treated as a piece of correspondence, a letter from a committee?

    Ms. Kathy Turner: I can't really speak to that, because I have to say honestly that I don't know the process for a letter from the committee as opposed to a letter from the public, or a letter from....

    The Chair: It's our education too. Say there's a committee report that's tabled in Parliament. You see that the same day. Is that correct?

    Ms. Kathy Turner: We would see it the same day if we went on and looked at the parliamentary record. But in terms of the committee report, if it's tabled in Parliament, given the process that would get it to whoever responds, say it's us, that wouldn't be the same day. That would be a period of time before it got to us to assist in preparing the response.

    But, yes, if it's tabled in Parliament, normally we would know in advance that it was going to be tabled, so we would look for the parliamentary record the following day.

    The Chair: We're putting our notice that there will be a report, and we hope you'll look forward to it. We hope there will be some actionable items that....

    Carry on, Mr. Spencer.

    Mr. Larry Spencer: We can assume then that communications move a little slowly and you haven't even heard a rumour over there that something had happened. It is somewhat disappointing that it hasn't reached your area yet.

    One of the elements most in question here of course is the form that was used. We heard last week in our committee from a former director of Statistics Canada that there were quite a number of discrepancies between the form T2201 and the Income Tax Act. There are discrepancies between the act itself and the form in order to qualify people to receive benefits from the act.

    Are you aware at all of what involvement the Department of Finance and CCRA had in that form? Did your people help develop that form, or who did that?

¹  (1550)  

    Ms. Kathy Turner: The form was originally developed many years ago. In its current version...there were some pretty major revisions done in 1996, and I think we talked last time about the process for those revisions that were done in 1996. Since that time it's been revised, as we look at it every year. If there are legislative changes or other changes affecting it, we revise it every year. I wouldn't say revisions since 1996 have been of a real substantive nature. They've been where the legislation has been expanded. We may have added something to the form to include new qualifying criteria.

    So the last major revision was 1996. Since then it's been because of legislative changes, and when those happen we consult with Finance and we work with them on the new legislation, or the new policy, and what the intent is, to properly understand. For example, the recent change--was it last year?--where the speech pathologists were becoming qualified persons to certify the condition, we would have worked with Finance at that time and with associations and so forth to understand the certification process of speech pathologists.

    Mr. Larry Spencer: I apologize that I do not have the copy I marked last week of what some of the discrepancies were, but--

    Ms. Maureen Tapp (Director, Special Programs and Partnerships, Assessment and Collections Branch, Canada Customs and Revenue Agency): I have looked at the blues from the last meeting and I have a couple of points of clarification on the information that was provided. One of the references I believe that you're referring to is the reference to all, or substantially all, of the time that an activity has to be restricted. That indeed is in the legislation, contrary to the testimony that was provided--

    The Chair: I think the 90% rule was the one we didn't understand. All or substantially all--some people can say that's 51%. Where did the 90% come from? That was our issue.

    Ms. Maureen Tapp: The 90% refers to “substantially all of the time”, with “all” obviously being 100%. The “substantially all of the time” is 90%. The other item that was referred to, also in the legislation, was the box on life-sustaining therapy, and that also is a legislated change that was made for the 2000 tax year. It reflects a legislative change to bring in a provision to allow individuals who are receiving life-sustaining therapy to indicate such on the form.

    Ms. Kathy Turner: The previous witness may have been looking at an earlier version of the legislation or the form prior to that amendment. But in looking over the blues--and we haven't finished our review--we're noting where she identified a discrepancy between the form and the act. As Maureen has explained, in some cases there is actually no discrepancy.

    The Chair: Who decided on 90%? Where does “all or substantially all”...? Is that from a medical committee? We understand it in terms of the quality of life of these people or how much help they need.

    The word “substantial” is, I think, what Ms. Furrie's point was. “Substantial” is not necessarily 90% all the time. “Substantial” is a very subjective view. Yet when you fill in the form and come back, you are rejected because it's not 90%. We just want to know, what's the process for coming to 90%?

¹  (1555)  

    Mr. Robert Dubrule (Senior Tax Policy Officer, Business, Property and Resource Income and Corporate Reorganizations, Tax Policy Branch, Department of Finance): I guess, Madam Chairman, one cannot simply look at the word “substantial”. We have to look at “substantially all”: “all or substantially all” is an expression that is commonly used in the Income Tax Act. Of course, there are other contexts--for example, where a business uses all or substantially all of its property for the purpose of carrying on a certain activity that maybe gives rise to tax assistance.

    Given the jurisprudence in all of those cases involving the Income Tax Act, “all or substantially all” has been interpreted as meaning 90%. Of course, it doesn't mean that if somebody is 88% disabled, he would be disqualified. One has to look at the set of circumstances or at what's at hand, really.

    The Chair: I think we're just having trouble with this referring to a human being, not a set of numbers.

    Go on.

    Mr. Larry Spencer: So “all or substantially all” is a part of the legislation, which would lead us to the same question I asked someone last week or so. What is the real purpose of this benefit? If you reserve it for only those who are at the extreme end, 90% and above, it seems to apply to a very small group of people, comparatively speaking, who really should be receiving it. It seems to me that the requirements are very restrictive down through here for people to qualify for this.

    I think our feeling on this committee, if I can read it, is that we feel it's really so tight and restrictive that we wonder, what was the deal here?

    Mr. Serge Nadeau (Director, Personal Income Tax Division, Tax Policy Branch, Department of Finance): Thank you for this question. I admit it's more policy than administration.

    Well, you're right; 90% is a lot. However, as for any other tax measures, there's a trade-off that must be made among the fiscal cost, the fairness, and also how easily it can be administered, because the tax system is a very blunt instrument. Ninety percent or “all or substantially all” is a very clear test. If you had 50%, for example, then would it be fair for someone who is disabled or who has difficulty in their basic daily activities to receive the same credit as someone who is disabled 90% of the time? I guess someone would say it's not really fair.

    The person who is disabled or who has difficulty--

    Mr. Larry Spencer: Excuse me for interrupting, but you're saying that it's fair to give it to the guy with 90% but not fair to give it to the guy with 80%.You're making the distinction even finer. So that's a hilarious comment.

    Mr. Serge Nadeau: No. My point is that it would mean that the credit probably would also have to be adjusted in terms of the length of time the person is disabled. This would be much more difficult to administer. There's also the issue of the fiscal cost, which would be much more substantial. Already the disability tax credit expenditures are close to $500 million, or something like that. This is a trade-off that needs to be made.

    The Chair: So if a person with Alzheimer's remembers to turn the stove off only 20% of the time, that's okay. In these stories we've heard, somebody really is disabled if 20% of the time they forget to turn the stove off. Somebody has to be supervising them. If 80% of the time they don't remember to turn the stove off and they're at risk of setting the place on fire, we see that as a serious disability.

º  (1600)  

    Mr. Serge Nadeau: I just want to understand better. The point is that even if someone is disabled 20% of the time, sometimes it may necessitate care for 100% of the time.

    The Chair: They're not safe on their own.

[Translation]

    Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral (Laval Centre, BQ): Thank you, Madam Chair.

    Before asking any questions, I have a comment to make. The department of Finance and the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency are not there to listen to good souls. Your duties are very clear: you have to collect taxes from people who make money. Before you agree to help people in dire straits, you have to be 125% sure that you're not mistaken. I think this is part of your organizational culture and nothing will ever change that.

    But, as Ms. Bennett said, we're talking about human beings. I think that when you make decisions regarding the condition of a person on the basis of a piece of paper, you're not showing any respect for this person.

    I've been sitting on this committee for several years now and I try to attend meetings as much as I can. When I'm not here, it really means it was impossible for me to attend. But there is one thing that’s very clear: when I entered politics – and I think this is true for most of the people around me – I did it to help those who need it most. Please don't take this personally but I have a job to do.

    Any form has its limitations. So, when you decide to return the form to many people whose condition will not improve, how will these people or those who help them on a daily basis react to that? They will consider it as contempt, and you know that contempt can destroy people. For years, we've been hearing that people with disabilities deserve our respect and are citizens with full rights. We need action on that front but they are still waiting. They are waiting for major budgetary initiatives. Now we're deciding that if they're 75% disabled, they're not entitled to the credit. They're only entitled to it at 90%. If you really get to think of it, when you're sleeping, you're not really disabled. This is 50% of the time. And if you're lucky, you may sleep a lot.

    Thus, in the case of this form and of the accompanying letter, which caused some turmoil, was the idea to have the form redesigned approved by people who are aware of the actual needs of claimants or was it essentially approved by people who decided that no review was made for so many years and that it was time for one now? You never know when someone with Down’s syndrome is going to be cured, right? There are still miracles out there, for instance when you need one for a beatification. So this is one thing I have my doubts about.

    But there’s something else. Someone said that when people can claim the credit for themselves, it means they have an income. They may have an income because their disability is due to an accident and they had a salary insurance. However there are many others who are in a totally different situation. I think that when you have an income, it means you have some kind of independence and you're better off when you have to face problems. But what can you say about people with no such independence who find themselves totally dependent? Who will care for them? I'm also thinking of parents of disabled people, especially those with a mental disability often due to a difficult delivery or to an early childhood disease. We all care for our children, but when they're 20, they leave and then we can breathe a little easier. No such luck for these parents.

º  (1605)  

    So they have to struggle with government departments who have a responsibility not to waste taxpayers’ money. There’s so much waste. You could show a little more compassion for these unlucky people and perhaps use your skills to help other workers around you to understand that.

    I have to admit I was surprised to learn that you didn't hear about the letter that was sent to you. In her letter to the Minister, Ms. Bennett wasn't speaking only in her own name. She was representing all members of the Committee. She asked the Minister to send a letter of apology to these people. Even disabled people have a right to be considered as full persons.

    This was a long statement, but it’s because I was not here last week. I would like to have your feedback on this philosophy, which is my way of seeing things.

    Ms. Maureen Tapp: Thank you. Allow me first to give you a clearer idea of where the Agency stands. We do recognize the importance of this program and of this tax credit. The program was created at the Agency, not in an area that collects money, but in the benefit programs Directorate which is responsible for the child tax benefit, the disability tax credit and the GST tax credit.

    We do recognize how sensitive and important this is and we want our officials to be aware of the needs of low or middle income people. These people are not necessarily in the tax system. We have nothing to do with tax collection and so on. Our financial year isn't the same as the taxation year. We have our own year, which is the benefit year.

    Our staff members issue benefit payments. This is why the program is located where it is. The staff responsible for the credit, both at head office and in taxation centres, are very much aware of the situation. I understand what you're recommending, but I think it's worth mentioning that the program was located in the Agency because of its importance and its delicate nature.

[English]

    Ms. Kathy Turner: I'd like to add that the testimony we heard before Christmas and more recently, with the different witnesses who have come and talked about particular situations and cases, does illustrate how very complex this particular program is. The mere fact of having a disability is not in itself what qualifies you for the particular credit. Being disabled and being eligible for the credit are not entirely the same thing. I think the testimony is certainly helping to improve our understanding. As you know, of course our role is to administer the legislation, and in many cases we do have to be guided by what is actually said in the legislation.

º  (1610)  

[Translation]

    Mr. Serge Nadeau: There's another thing I'd like to add at the policy level. Today I was reading an article in Public Policy. It was a policy analysis about the tax system and the support provided to people with disabilities, The article said that between 1996 and 2000—what came after that is not included—there were 23 programs for the disabled. By comparison, there were 14 programs for students, 12 for families and I think only two or three for retirement savings.

    In last year's economic statement, the disability tax credit was increased from $3,500 to $6,000 and so on. Thus, I still believe that many things were done in the past few years in order to help the disabled.

    Of course, the Minister has his own views on this matter. With more financial resources, it's obvious we'd do more but keeping everything in perspective, you do recognize the limited capacity of the disabled to pay taxes.

[English]

    The Chair: On Madeleine's point, the yes/no questions she talked about, from a perspective of policy and your interpretation of the act, one of our concerns is that there are some people who are very disabled by having 50% of all of the above. They are seriously disabled, but if you apply the linear 90%, they're not 90% of any one thing. There is no question that if you're 50% hearing, seeing, remembering, and walking disabled, you are seriously disabled in various ways.

    We know there are lots of people who get CPP disability, a full pension, who don't qualify for this because it's to do with employment. That's a separate day, dealing with definitions and all that. But we are still having trouble with the actual form in the “yes/no on each of the above” section. Is it your interpretation of the legislation that there's really no provision for being partially handicapped in all these ways?

    Mr. Serge Nadeau: No. The legislation states--and I will borrow Kathy's copy of the legislation--that “...an individual's ability to perform a basic activity of daily living is markedly restricted only where all or substantially all of the time....” So from our point of view, the form is consistent with the legislation.

    The Chair: But you know what I mean.

    Mr. Serge Nadeau: I understand that, and I made a note of it, in fact.

    The Chair: I believe somebody is substantially unable to fulfill the activities of daily living because they're partially unable to do all of the above. They are substantially unable to do their activities of daily living because the combination of two and two and two makes ten. It really is exponential in terms of their disability if they're partially disabled in many things. That's just my interpretation.

    We'll go over to Tony, who has been waiting around, and then we'll come back.

    Mr. Tony Tirabassi (Niagara Centre, Lib.): First of all, Madam Chair, I have to express some disappointment with my colleagues here. We went through an exercise late last fall. We expressed some discontent with a particular cover letter and form. We held the press conference. We issued a letter. I still feel we're owed an explanation as to where the disconnect was. I'm certainly not at all laying blame on these people, because I don't know how this structure quite works yet. But knowing that this meeting was going to take place, I don't think it was any secret we may have expected some answers to the letter. Or why are we here? Now we're starting to go around and spin our wheels on something that, although it may be very complex in administration--this form and all the criteria--is a very simple issue. We're dealing with a form. I think we're starting to really make this very complicated, and it's becoming very frustrating. If this is what it's going to take on one form, how are we going to tackle the whole issue of disabilities?

    We were told back on December 11 that some 55 different associations--advocacy groups--were consulted on the creation of this form. Last week we had the CMA here, and they did admit, I believe, to some extent that they were consulted in a very ad hoc fashion. There may have been some communication sent to the CMA's office or to the doctors' offices. You know what's going to happen when that's done. The doctor is very busy and he's dealing with enough forms and questionnaires as it is. Maybe something a little more sincere could have been done.

    I want to ask this. Exactly what was the process, as you saw it, in consulting with these groups, before the revisions to the form work? More importantly, the people I've dealt with in my constituency office seem to be content with how the form was before. Of those groups you consulted that were happy with the 1996 form, did the CCRA, the finance department, go back to those groups to see if they were again content with the current changes? Do you see where I'm coming from?

º  (1615)  

    Ms. Kathy Turner: Yes. As I said, the major consultation was in 1996, when it was extensively revised, and that was with 55 associations and with the CMA. At that time, we also went back to the 55 and we went back to 900 associations to ask for their commentary on the revised form.

    Since then, whenever it has been revised--not necessarily every year, but when there has been a change--we haven't gone out in a blanket way to the 900 associations. We've gone to the ones affected. I keep going back to the speech pathology example. We would not be necessarily consulting with the CNIB on the change we were making on the speech pathology. If it was a major revision, we went back to everyone. If it's just a matter of a particular area then we deal with associations involved with that particular area.

    Ms. Maureen Tapp: I would just add that we did consult extensively with the CMA.

    Wasn't that two years ago?

     Mr. Tom Kissner: It was actually the summer of 2000.

    Mr. Larry Spencer: We held extensive consultations with the CMA on the form and on the clarification letters that we send out to doctors if further clarification is required after we have received the form. We received extensive input from them and changed the clarification letters extensively as a result of those consultations. We also held focus tests across the country. We received input from persons with disabilities, as well as from health professionals--general practitioners and specialists. We received their input on the forms. There is a copy of that survey available.

    A part of that survey indicated that physicians appear to prefer the yes/no format and that all the information related to that specific eligibility criteria be included in the question, rather than having to flip back and forth, and be into a more narrative scenario. It was at the suggestion of the physicians canvassed that we went to the yes/no format, including a lot of the information and the criteria right in the questions. They indicated that they didn't have the time or the wherewithal to be flipping back and forth to find the explanation and come back to the answer. They wanted it all in the one question, and then here's the criteria you have to meet. Do you meet it? Yes/No.

º  (1620)  

    The Chair: I was just going to say, they may have thought that, but I think when they came to fill out the form on the “can you think, perceive, or remember?”, with the idea that you're going to have to say yes, even if it's in technicolor, the physicians we talked to felt they were almost in the position to have to lie in order to get the person the credit they think they need.

    Ms. Kathy Turner: I would like to add that I'd like to be clear that we're not suggesting we think the form is perfect and that the form doesn't need any changes. Clearly, there has been testimony, and suggestions, because of your committee's work, that have shown there's certainly room for improving the form and improving the instructions that go with the form and having some more clarity or guidelines around how--

    The Chair: I think we had some volunteers for an advisory committee last week.

    Mr. Tony Tirabassi: I'm going to read a brief excerpt from the submission that was made from the CMA. Have you seen all the submissions that were made?

    Ms. Kathy Turner: Yes.

    Mr. Tony Tirabassi: So you do have a copy of that letter. Again, in the letter it states:

The impression the subcommittee may have...

    --that is, this subcommittee--

--is that the CMA have been consulted extensively and on an ongoing basis. In fact, these meetings, although productive, have only occurred on an ad hoc basis.

    --which is the term I used.

I think at best our working relationship could be described as hit and miss.

An example of this spotty relationship is the recent letter sent by the CCRA minister asking current DTC recipients to requalify for the credit. The CMA was not advised or consulted about this letter. If we had been advised, we would have highlighted the financial and time implications of sending 75,000 to 100,000 individuals to their family physicians for recertification.

    I think this is something we're going to have to look at when we come up with recommendations. Again, I don't want to get into a blaming thing here, but we're hearing testimony from witnesses, and then we're hearing department officials, and where there's a difference we're going to have to try to resolve that.

    Ms. Kathy Turner: Of course, we don't want to debate with the previous witness, who isn't here to have the debate, on whether or not the consultations were extensive, but they were certainly ad hoc in that we didn't have a standing process of consultation with them on everything we do. At specific periods when we did consultations, and when we had a specific thing--the example in the year 2000--yes, we have consulted with them. That has been ad hoc. There hasn't been a standing process of consultation with the CMA.

    Mr. Tom Kissner: Basically, we conducted focus testing at the end of 1999 with doctors and specialists, as Maureen said. That led to some questions that we wanted to clarify with the Canadian Medical Association, so we met with them personally in the summer of 2000. I'm glad they said it was productive. We also had a number, two or three at least, of conference calls with them to discuss the form to discuss the letters we use, the questions we ask, just to see what they thought of them.

    The Chair: Good.

    Shall we go to Libby and then Anita?

    Ms. Libby Davies (Vancouver East, NDP): Thanks, Carolyn.

    I'm actually sitting in for Wendy Lill, who couldn't be here today, so if I ask any questions that you've already been asked, my apologies.

    It seems to me at least there's one sort of positive thing in all of this in that it's very illuminating to tell us how government works or doesn't work in terms of when a change happens. It's actually incredible. If it weren't so serious, this disconnect would be almost funny in some respects.

    But you're all here today, and I assume that at some level information reaches you, that you have a sense that here you have five political parties all united on a subcommittee who are feeling pretty strongly that what happened here was just awful and that it's had a huge impact for tens of thousands of people. We've all felt that in our constituency offices. We all have stories of people coming in, phoning or whatever, and complaining about the change.

    The thing I don't quite get or understand is whether or not this is taking place at a more administrative level. Is this something you do within the department in terms of examining the legislation? You say there were some minor changes to the form, but this is something that is more substantive. Or does it come from some much higher sort of ministerial level? The question I have is, what is the department or the agency at this point going to do? Is this a vacuum where we spout off and say, this is terribly frustrating, but in actual fact there's going to be no response from the agency?

    Are you waiting for the minister to tell you that, yes, it should be changed, or is this something that is within the agency that normally you can sort out, respond to, correct? That's one question.

    Secondly, what happens for this tax year that people are now dealing with, 2001, for people who are now not qualifying, and how many people are involved in that? I'm not quite sure, if there is going to be a change or if you're contemplating any further changes, when that would happen. How does that get communicated?

    I really wanted to get a sense of whether the agency is on top of this, or are you waiting for something to come from the minister before you can do anything?

º  (1625)  

    Ms. Kathy Turner: Perhaps I could answer those two questions, but I will start by saying that I think we ourselves get a lot of confusion around talk about the new form or the changed form. This is the form we've been using for seven or eight years with the 170,000 people every year who apply for it for the first time, and as we said, there are about 600,000 people currently getting it. So it's not a new form or a changed form in that sense. This is the form we've been using.

    We've certainly heard a lot of testimony and representation over the last few months that has suggested that there is room for improving the form, and that's what we're doing at the agency end. We're looking at planning what kind of process we can have to take this input and do other consultation and get the body of input we need to see where the form can be improved to balance all the concerns around that.

    For example, one of the things we'll be doing is meeting with colleagues in Human Resources Development Canada to look at the CPP disability benefit to see if there's anything we can learn from the administration of that program, for example. We're looking at what type of additional advice we can get and how we can get that advice on changing the form.

    In terms of the current tax year, we're in the current tax year. The guides are out there and these are the forms; any new applicant will be using this guide and this form to apply for the benefit.

    Ms. Libby Davies: What about all the people who got the letters then?

    Ms. Kathy Turner: From the people who got the letters...we've had many of those letters come back to us, and they've already been reviewed. Some of them will perhaps be waiting until they file their return to send the form back because they didn't have to send it back in October when they got the letter. They have a few months to send the form back to us. At whatever point we get it we'll review the claim and a determination will be made as to whether it's allowable or not.

    Ms. Libby Davies: Have you reviewed a number of those claims to date?

    Ms. Kathy Turner: Yes.

    Ms. Libby Davies: How many? And how many people are now disqualified as a result of the review, or do you know?

    Ms. Kathy Turner: We don't know how many are now disqualified, because they're not all in. We're expecting that a fairly high number will be qualified. Typically, when we get new claims, about two-thirds of the people qualify and about one-third don't. With this population for the review, we think the qualified number is going to be higher than the normal two-thirds every year, simply because these are people who have been getting the credit for many years. The condition isn't new.

    Ms. Libby Davies: So why do they have to go through the review then? I don't think that's being very clear, unless everybody else is clear on this. There are people who were considered to have a permanent disability. Who or what caused the review to take place?

    Ms. Kathy Turner: We undertook this review of people who first claimed the disability amount between 1986 and 1996, and had been receiving it ever since. I think we talked about this at our December 11 meeting with the committee. Those files had never been reviewed. Since 1996, every new claimant is reviewed. So 100% are reviewed when they first apply for it. But this population of older recipients had never been reviewed.

º  (1630)  

    Ms. Libby Davies: So that's the 106,000 that went out?

    Ms. Kathy Turner: Yes.

    The Chair: Could we have those numbers for the record? How many letters went out, how many did you get back, what percentage qualified? It would help us, I think.

    Ms. Kathy Turner: We don't have a firm number, because of course it's changing daily. Of the 106,000 letters, about half of them are back already. As we are soon entering the new filing season for the current tax year, we expect that many more will be coming in that timeframe. The files are being processed in our field offices.

    The Chair: And you think that number is greater than 66%? Do you think it's at 80%? Where are we in those numbers?

    Ms. Kathy Turner: I think it would be a little difficult to speculate.

    The Chair: How many of those got the irritating second form?

    Ms. Maureen Tapp: The second form? This would be the letter of clarification that went out to doctors?

    The Chair: Yes.

    Ms. Maureen Tapp: In cases where there's not sufficient information on the form that comes in initially, the T2201, we will ask for clarification from the physician or from the certifying person to clarify that indeed the person does qualify.

    I can't tell you what percentage of clarification letters, as we call them, would have gone out at this point. But as Mrs. Turner indicated, we have approximately 50% of the 106,000 back now, and we anticipate that many more are going to come in within the next two months, over the filing period, because a significant number of people will wait until they file their return to attach the new form.

    The Chair: What I'd like to do is provide you with a copy of the letter from Mr. Cantlie, who testified. Unfortunately, the day after he returned from testifying here, he got that second letter, and he had some very interesting comments that we will put into the record as part of the testimony. He had some real concerns with the hard of hearing in terms of these letters and why both the audiologist's signature and the family doctor's signature are required, and a whole bunch of other stuff. I'll provide that to you and we'll enter it into the record as read.

January 22, 2002

Janice McNamara, Executive Director, Canadian Hard of Hearing Association, 2435 Holly Lane, Suite 205, Ottawa, Ontario,K1V 7P2

Dear Jan,

Please note the attached document. I received it today (Tuesday). The questions are enraging as per our presentation in Ottawa in December in front of the House Standing Committee. Secondly, why were these questions not asked on the initial form? This is a waste of time of the doctor or professional. I consider this a witch-hunt and I am furious over the contents of the document and the implication. The first form appears to be just the invitation to ask more questions of “the applicant”.

Lastly, the doctor is trained to be a doctor not an administrator. This second form is taking his valuable time from patients. The Tax department now says any charge is the responsibility of the applicant or the representative. Potentially this can cost the consumer $100 (2 visits at $50.00/each).

Please pass along, with my compliments, the document. The last time I was challenged, I never had to endure the poorly worded questions from the bureaucrat in a second go-around. Yes, consumers are mad, especially this one.

Q1: That answers needs to have both my family physician and audiologist reply as my hearing loss is complex (hard of hearing, Ménière’s Disease, discrimination and ceiling/floor threshold limitations).

Q2: I fail to understand the rationale for this question. People do not buy technology to be in the “one upmanship category”; they are used to hear.

Q3: I will say no more about the quiet room other than to add, the person speaking to me must be clear and raise his/her voice. I get my queues by my eyes and other parts of the conversation, not necessarily the discussion that is spoken at the moment. This question is insulting and insensitive!

Q5: The answer is subjective not objective, that is why we have audiologists who are professionally trained to determine the patient’s limitations, another rather insensitive question.

Q8: What is meant by this? I saw my doctor over 20 years ago when I suspected a hearing loss. How does this doctor know when I have only been going to him for the last 14 years and my start is in another city in Canada?

Q9: I believe I have a vote in this question. Do I want a surgical procedure? It is not up to the doctor to tell me but rather to inform me. Who in the government suggests taking away my right to choose? How dare them and damn them!

Q10: This question was asked before when I was last challenged. Why ask over and over again? Is it to trick the tax-payer, the doctor, the professional. In my eyes, IT WILL NOT GET BETTER. How many times do they need to HEAR it? How do I say it “crystal clear” for them to understand?

The last question, it is none of their business. My doctor is a trained professional and should not be discussing my medical situation with anyone other than medical authorities and with my consent. How dare a bureaucrat ask that question without some form of authority!

Yes, I am rather warm under the collar and I am asking the government to stop this form of intimidation. It is a cold and faceless way of putting citizens down. I find this disrespectful and degrading not to say it will cost (the consumer). Some citizens cannot afford this unnecessary cost at the whim of our benevolent government bureaucrat.

I am furious with S. Wruck, who just happened to get my file, of the Winnipeg Tax Centre. The time spent on this file to re-qualify me is nonsensical and costly for everyone when there is a history on me already that identifies my permanent situation.

Yours truly,

Colin Cantlie, President,Canadian Hard of Hearing Association

    Do we know what percentage of this 50% have been accepted? We don't know that yet?

    Ms. Kathy Turner: No. We know it's about one-third and two-thirds.

    Ms. Maureen Tapp: It's approximately 25%.

    Mr. Tom Kissner: For new applications we deny between 15% and 20%, so you'd expect it to be higher for this project because it's a cumulative total.

    The returns that were selected for this project are those for people who were never reviewed in the past. We do 100% review now, so it shouldn't be a surprise that there are going to be people who should not have received it in the first place.

    Ms. Libby Davies: Well, I'll just go back to my original question. What is the agency planning to do? Is this sort of a non-issue, from your point of view, or one that just needs a few changes? Or do you see this as a significant exchange, that there are some serious problems? Does the agency have a plan on how it's going to respond to this?

    Ms. Kathy Turner: It's absolutely not a non-issue. We are now, as I said, listening to or following the testimony, and we will be looking for input from other sources as well to look at how we can address--

º  (1635)  

    Ms. Libby Davies: What other sources?

    Ms. Kathy Turner: There are agencies and organizations that may not have testified. We would be going to the organizations we talk to on a fairly regular basis and looking for input from them as well. Also, we may be looking at other government programs and how they're administered to see if that can inform us as to how we might improve the administration of this program.

    I don't think there's a quick overnight solution--we'll just do one thing and it'll be perfect.

    Ms. Libby Davies: Could I just have one tiny follow-up question?

    The Chair: Yes.

    Ms. Libby Davies: So 106,000 people received the review letter. As a result of this review they may get turned down. Also as a result of this process you may realize that other changes do need to be made, i.e., some things could have been done differently; but a whole bunch of people have basically lost out.

    Can you give any assurance that whatever changes take place, those folks would have a chance to be reviewed again?

    Ms. Kathy Turner: If the criteria change so that a person who doesn't now appear to be eligible becomes eligible, then, yes, we can go back and reassess to allow this person the credit.

    Ms. Maureen Tapp: But it wouldn't only apply to those individuals.

    Ms. Kathy Turner: It would apply to them and to--

    Ms. Maureen Tapp: It would apply to everybody else as well. If the legislation were to change to other or broader criteria, then it would not only apply to these 106,000, it would apply to the population as a whole.

    Ms. Kathy Turner: Yes, and we would have to develop a communications strategy to get this information out, to tell people about the new qualifying criteria and how, though they may not have qualified in the past, they may now because of the new criteria. We would develop some communications around this.

    Ms. Maureen Tapp: There are criteria that have been brought in in the last couple of years. I mentioned earlier the life sustaining therapy, introduced in 2000 for the 2000 tax year. There was a communication plan in the guides and so on around this criteria. It explained that if indeed you couldn't possibly qualify for the credit in the past under other criteria, but if under these new ones you would qualify, then you were invited to apply and indicate it on....

    Ms. Kathy Turner: In these examples Maureen is talking about, it would also be very important for us to talk and work directly with the associations because they also have good communication networks. We would work with a particular association that could also get the information out on their website or in their newsletter to let their members know as well, because not everyone is thinking perhaps of going first to the tax agency for information when they're dealing with a condition or a disability.

     Ms. Andrée Houde (Senior Tax Policy Officer, Personal Income Tax Division, Tax Policy Branch, Department of Finance): I would like to add, just to make sure it's clear for the record, that there has not been any legislative change. This process has nothing to do with a change in the legislation.

    Actually, in the 2000 budget a change was made to extend the credit to those who have to follow an existing therapy, for example. But this process has nothing to do with any legislated change that took place recently. They are two totally different things. It's an administrative process and it has nothing to do with legislation.

    Ms. Libby Davies: I think that makes it more difficult, because if it were a legislative change, it would be very clear where the change was coming from. But if it's not...and when Ms. Turner says, well, if there were a legislative change, we would go back if someone had been disqualified....

    But we're not talking about a legislative change. So it's really not clear to me who's calling the shots here, and whether you're just reinterpreting what you see in the act or if it's the way you've designed the questions. All we know is that a whole bunch of people stand to lose the credit they had, and there's a very strong argument to believe they legitimately should have it.

    The Chair: If they ask for it, they win.

    Ms. Kathy Turner: What I'm trying to say is that if there's a legislative change that changes the criteria, or if there's something else that changes the criteria, we would respond in the same way. I wasn't suggesting the law had to change for the....

    Mr. Tom Kissner: With most of these people, we are applying the criteria for the first time, because they've never been reviewed in the first place. So that's what's different between the people who are making a first-time application right now and the people who were approved prior to 1996. Those claims were not reviewed, by and large, in the past because the process was different. In the past, things were accepted on assessment, and a small number were reviewed after the fact.

    So if you want to look at it in a fair way, the criteria that exist for any new applicant are being applied to people who were never reviewed in the first place.

    We did conduct a pilot project on this last year, and we found many instances where people should not have been approved in the first place, or people whose condition you would have expected would have improved by now. So that led us to do this review.

º  (1640)  

    The Chair: With the indulgence of my colleague on this side, Mr. Spencer has one little question before he goes to a meeting, and then you will have tons of time.

    Mr. Larry Spencer: I have a couple of quick ones. Just give me really quick answers.

    Are the appliances, devices, and aids that enable someone to meet the 90% standard all tax deductible? Or would they be paying for them without a tax deduction, which then rooks them out of another tax deduction?

    Ms. Kathy Turner: I'm sorry, but that's a question we couldn't answer. Are they all tax deductible? We'd have to see. There's a huge list--

    Mr. Larry Spencer: Well, not down to the last leather string, but you know in general. You could answer in general, I'm sure.

    Ms. Kathy Turner: There's a huge list of things that are tax deductible, and I guess I'm not sure what's in your mind when you say “all”. I know there's a long list of devices, and especially--

    Mr. Larry Spencer: Well, take people who have to buy special hearing devices, for instance, to be able to hear 30% of the time they're at home.

    Ms. Kathy Turner: That's deductible. We'd almost have to go at it one by one, because there's a long list.

    Mr. Larry Spencer: Okay. I have two other quick questions. That's sufficient.

    You've also answered the other question I had as to why you chose the people you did to review. That's fair enough.

    The other thing is, I would like to make a request. Could you document or record for us the specific instances in which you disagree with last week's testimony of the discrepancies in the legislation, and get that to our committee so we can see those places where you refute that?

    Ms. Kathy Turner: Yes. We've looked initially at the testimony from the witness who was a former statistician, and I think she was the one who made the point about the difference between the legislation and the form. So we'd be happy to get that to your committee assistants, anything in particular that we've noted and where we think there's not a discrepancy.

    Mr. Larry Spencer: Okay. I have one last two-part question.

    What would be the average annual income of the DTC recipients, and what is the actual cost, then, of these tax benefits? It's not $6,000, because it's 16% of $6,000. That's only $960 max. Do you have any idea of what the average taxable income is that we're talking about, and what the total cost is to the government?

    Ms. Kathy Turner: Sorry, I was still making a note from previous....

    Tom, I think you have the number on the average amount of the benefit.

    Mr. Tom Kissner: I was going to say the answer is no, actually.

    Ms. Kathy Turner: No, the average amount of benefit. I know we had that number.

    Mr. Tom Kissner: I don't have it off the top of my head.

     Mr. Serge Nadeau: It can be transferable. Although the person with the disability may not be able to claim the whole of $960, it can be transferred to a parent or spouse, so indirectly the $960 is claimed.

    On average that comes to...the tax expenditure is $400 million, and the number of beneficiaries is 437,000. So if you divide...it comes to about $960, or $900 or so. That's off the top of my head.

    In terms of statistics on the income of these individuals, we don't have this here, but it's probably possible to find.

    Mr. Larry Spencer: I just want to say a word of thanks to you. I think you've enlightened us a lot. I'm going to have to leave. I think we've discovered the problem is more with poor legislation than it is poor tax people. We congratulate you for convincing us of that.

    My apologies to Tony. I thought our inquiry was to be a little bit broader than just the form. I thought we were going to look at this whole thing, actually.

º  (1645)  

    The Chair: Yes, that's absolutely true.

    Mr. Larry Spencer: With that, I apologize that I must leave. I'm late already. Thank you.

    The Chair: That's great.

    Anita, and then Nancy.

    Ms. Anita Neville (Winnipeg South Centre, Lib.): I have not been as regular an attendee as I should be, because I'm on too many committees. So I may be asking some questions that were asked before, and I apologize.

    Let me just ask you first off, have all of the letters gone out now, or are there more letters to go out for those who were assessed prior to 1996?

    Ms. Kathy Turner: This project was going to be done over a period of a couple of years, and the letters have gone out to the people who had...well, let me back up a little. We had—I hate saying numbers without having the sheet of paper in front of me—approximately 200,000....

    Ms. Maureen Tap: I have it here somewhere. Here it is.

    Ms. Kathy Turner: Thank you.

    There are approximately 200,000 claims that were the pre-1996 pool of people.

    We reviewed 135,000 of those files, and of the 135,000, we sent out 106,000 letters. So there were 135,000 files reviewed; 106,000 letters went out. And the 29,000 balance were files where there was sufficient documentation on the file that showed they had been reviewed and they qualified.

    Back to the full 200,000, the remainder, which would be 65,000--200,000 minus 135,000--are claims that are not self-claims. Those are ones where the person was claiming the spouse or dependant. That would form part of the next phase of the review, and we don't have specific plans yet on how or when that would take place. Obviously, we're learning a lot from this process.

    Ms. Anita Neville: That leads me to my next question. Did you, before you sent out all of these letters, do any kind of development or public relations--information that this was going to happen--or did a letter just arrive cold saying you're being reassessed? Were members of Parliament...I mean, it could have gone over me. Or community organizations.... Did anybody know this was happening and that these letters were going to start arriving in people's mailboxes?

    Ms. Kathy Turner: I think the short answer to that is no, we didn't have a comprehensive enough communication plan to let people know in advance that this was going to happen. So indeed, the recipients of the letter would have just received a letter saying we were doing a review of their file.

    Ms. Anita Neville: Something just triggered one of the cases I had in my office. The clarifying letter was to the doctor, is that correct?

     Ms. Maureen Tapp: It normally is, yes.

    Ms. Anita Neville: I had a particular case with a woman who had both physical and mental disabilities. She told me her doctor was feeling harassed and intimidated and would not respond any further. I qualify it. I haven't seen the letter. I don't know the letter. But it created tremendous turmoil in our office in this particular situation. So I would be interested in seeing something about the clarifying letter, or seeing a copy of it.

    Mr. Tom Kissner: Those clarification letters are generally tailor-made to the situation of a particular individual.

º  (1650)  

    Ms. Anita Neville: They are? Okay.

    Mr. Tom Kissner: I'm sad to hear that somebody would feel harassed by receiving one. The point of sending those letters out is so that we aren't making a decision simply based on what's on the form. It's as much to include people in receiving the credit as it is to deny them. The purpose is to clarify it, not to find reasons to refuse somebody.

    Ms. Anita Neville: There may be some disconnection between the doctor and the patient, in terms of how it was relayed and how it was heard, but it was certainly significant.

    In looking at this particular credit, are you applying greater scrutiny to persons with disabilities than you are to others? I was struck by Libby's comment about tens of thousands of individuals, and I would add another adjective there--tens of thousands of already vulnerable individuals--who are receiving these letters.

     Mr. Tom Kissner: When Mr. Tirabassi was reading from last week's testimony, if he'd gone one more paragraph, he would have quoted what the CMA said: “Unfortunately we cannot change what has happened, but we can learn from it”. The same criteria are applied across the board to the people who were selected for this review and to the people who are applying at any given time. There's not a special treatment or a harsher treatment or anything else; it's the same.

    Essentially, the approach we took was that the year 2000 will be the last year you receive the credit. If you're applying for it in 2001, you have to file anew. But the same approach will be taken. That's about it, I guess.

    Ms. Anita Neville: Well, that leads to my next question, which is about the advice that some of those who are being reviewed have been given. I'm not sure where the advice is coming from, whether it's from Canada Customs and Revenue or private consultants, but they are being told simply to file their 2001 returns under the old criteria and let it go forward that way.

     Mr. Tom Kissner: If they have not submitted a new form, they won't receive the credit. There are no new criteria. Essentially, they're receiving the form or they must have the form completed, and the criteria are as they have always existed. If someone were unable to walk in 1990, for instance, and they're still unable to walk and they're completing the form or sending in the form, we'll review it. If it's accepted, they receive the credit. If they do not send in the form, they will not receive the credit.

    Ms. Anita Neville: If they send it in with their current tax form, I'm assuming they will do it assuming they're going to get the credit. Are you following me?

    Ms. Kathy Turner: Are you suggesting that they're using their old form, their previous form?

    Ms. Anita Neville: Yes, but they're sending in the new one as they file their income tax. So they are filing on the assumption that they're going to get the tax credit once again.

    Ms. Maureen Tapp: While submitting a new form?

    Ms. Anita Neville: Yes, sending them together.

    Ms. Maureen Tapp: Sending it in with the income tax return? Yes, and it will be reviewed prior to the income tax return being sent, when that form comes in.

    Ms. Anita Neville: I'm a little confused.

    The Chair: Who would use it? What are the qualifications you're looking at? When you look at these mental health supplemental forms, what happens if somebody says, “For the year 1999, what percentage of the time was your patient unable to think, perceive, and remember?” If it says more than 50% on the form, how do you know it's not 90%? Who fills this out?

    It says “schizophrenia”. Could your patient understand the concept of time, danger, or money? Probably. Is their ability to operate a motor vehicle restricted? Yes. Would the patient be able to live independently? No. Once you get one of these fancy forms, who reviews it?

    Ms. Kathy Turner: When we get the forms originally, many of them are clear. The forms just come in, and it's absolutely clear that the person qualifies. It's been certified; it goes through.

    If it needs to be clarified, that's when we go back to the doctor or audiologist, or whoever it is who certified that. We go back to them for clarification to make sure we truly understand. It may take the place of that form, as Tom said. When we go back for clarification, it has to be customized to the case. If it's still not clear after the clarification, we would phone the physician. There are many opportunities.

º  (1655)  

    The Chair: But what are the qualifications of the people phoning the physician? Is there somebody who knows anything about health or about disability? Who manages it?

    I'm sorry. I've just confused myself.

    Mr. Tom Kissner: I'd like to think we have a couple of people who know something about how to interpret the forms. The staff we have...these are processed in the taxation centres as part of the general processing system for a T1 return, if indeed it's filed with a T1 return. Within each tax centre we have specific units of individuals who are trained for the DTC. We provide them with instruction from headquarters. We give them policy guidelines. We have an operations manual and so on.

    As Kathy said, obviously a decision can be taken, yes or no, where the forms are clear-cut. For any questions where something requires further interpretation or contact with the doctor, it comes to our operation at headquarters, where we have registered nurses who operate as medical advisers. They would be the ones who would contact a doctor by phone or do some follow-up in response to a letter like that to clarify medical issues.

    Ms. Anita Neville: Yes. I have two quick questions. For clarification, or just so I'm certain, I'm assuming if somebody is deemed no longer to qualify that there'll be no retroactivity with this. Is that fair?

    Ms. Kathy Turner: That's correct.

    Ms. Anita Neville: Okay.

    I have another quick comment. Mr. Spencer was asking about the list of appliances that qualified. May I make a suggestion to you that was brought to my attention about something that does not qualify? Lifelines for persons with disabilities do not qualify. I don't know how prevalent they are across the country, but they certainly are in Manitoba where.... It's the buttons, yes.

    That's it. I'm going to have to excuse myself.

    Ms. Kathy Turner: Perhaps I could just clarify the point about no retroactivity. If somebody has not qualified, we will not be going back. There will be no retroactivity to recover any previous benefit they might have gotten.

    However, I would like to clarify that if a new claimant comes in to claim the disability, someone who perhaps has been disabled for quite some time and didn't previously make a claim, we will go retroactively to when the disability began, which could be a period of years. We will give this claimant the benefit for the prior years they've not claimed.

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Nancy.

    Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell (Nunavut, Lib.): I want to get back a bit to the definition discussion we had the last time we had witnesses before us. They talked about how different departments had different definitions--one of them was prolonged, and I can't quite remember the other one.

    The Canadian Medical Association made recommendations that the definitions become uniform and that those in the CPP disability criteria be used. It gave some examples of Veterans Affairs using a different definition for some of their disability benefits, then we have CPP, and now we have this.

    I found it quite distressing that there would be different definitions within our own federal government; if you apply under one department you might qualify under its definition, whereas it could be different for a different department.

    What are your comments on this suggestion that the CPP criteria be used?

    Ms. Kathy Turner: I'd like to say a couple of things on this. First of all, there are different programs that have different purposes. This is perhaps the main reason for the definitions being different.

    In terms of the specific recommendation that we use the CPP disability definitions, in many instances that definition is more restrictive than the disability tax credit. We wouldn't want to just say, “Okay, fine, we'll adopt that one”.

    I think I said a bit earlier that we will be meeting with colleagues who administer this program so we can look at our programs together and say where they line up, where they differ, when they differ, and why they are different. We want to clearly understand what the difference is.

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    Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell: The other point I made at the last meeting was about that list of six qualified people. I come from an area where we might not have access to those six specific people, but we have nurses manning our health centres. Whether you accept those people signing a certification that, yes, this person is still blind, or yes, this person is still not walking, or whether you ever go into alternative ways of declaring where you would accept the statutory declaration stating the obvious conditions....

    Ms. Kathy Turner: At this point, the people who can certify are specified in the Income Tax Act. That is who we accept, and we don't go beyond who is listed there.

    I did see your testimony from last week, and I do understand the issue of people who may be in remote locations and don't have ready or easy access or perhaps not even very frequent access to a medical doctor who could certify any of these conditions. Certainly in those cases, if there's any delay for them making their claim because they don't have ready access, that's clearly where we would of course go retroactively and make sure that it was allowed back to when the condition started and not at the point they saw the doctor. They would be allowed retroactively.

    Mr. Serge Nadeau: Given, as Kathy mentioned, that this is part of the Income Tax Act and that it's the physicians who are responsible for assessing the physical disabilities of individuals, that is why this is a requirement in the Income Tax Act. But as Kathy mentioned, in practice the access can be made retroactive, and from a practical point of view it won't have an influence in practice for the diagnosis.

    Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell: I'd make the comment I made last time, that the great difficulty in getting these forms signed deters people from even trying to claim the credit. I can see that my job then is to keep encouraging people to try to fill out the forms anyway, to say that it doesn't matter when, because most people get the idea that you have to send it in when you're filing your income tax return. Most people are not going to want to wait for specific forms so they can send off their income tax returns, so I guess it's a bit of communication work we have to do to encourage people.

    They can claim it after?

    Ms. Kathy Turner: Yes, and I think that's an area where we can perhaps be doing better outreach and getting out better information, that it's certainly not tied to filing your form. If it's at some other time of the year, send it in.

    Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell: Well, I do want to give credit to your staff who are working up north, though. They've made a point of trying to do outreach, and they are trying to meet with us northern members to try to figure out a way of working with us in getting the information out. As I've always said, we have to do things a little differently when it comes to remote areas, and they have come forward and tried to be very creative, so I have to commend them for that.

    The Chair: Before Mr. Nadeau has to go, we have been concerned that breathing wasn't listed as an activity of daily living. I think the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation successfully negotiated their case...until we get the box on life-sustaining therapies.

    But I want to know, why didn't we put breathing in there, as had been suggested with the Fillion charter case? Why didn't we do that, read breathing into the act? Why did we move to life-sustaining therapies? Is it just financial? Are we worried about getting all the chronic bronchitics in there or something?

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    Mr. Serge Nadeau: Well, that could be one of the considerations, but what happens is that in practice someone who has a significant breathing problem will also have other difficulties, for example, in walking. That would be one of the consequences of the condition.

    The Chair: If anybody looked at Mr. Gzowski's last interview on TV Ontario, they would consider him disabled, with the nose prongs and the oxygen tank. Yet he wouldn't qualify for this because--well, I don't know. Is the oxygen tank covered? Would that be under life-sustaining therapies--people on oxygen?

    Ms. Maureen Tapp: If indeed the therapy was required to maintain a vital function and such--and I also saw that last interview and it was pretty bad--oxygen would be considered therapy. That therapy was required to sustain a vital function. Yes, it would qualify.

    Mr. Serge Nadeau: I would like to add to that. For example, someone with cystic fibrosis who requires frequent clapping therapy would qualify for a disability tax credit.

    The Chair: Why didn't we just put breathing in as an activity of daily living, and then define it like we do walking, hearing, seeing?

    Mr. Serge Nadeau: Well, that would mean someone has difficulty breathing 90% of the time and is not able to breathe 90% of the time. If the conditions are so bad that the person needs life-sustaining therapy, it's going to be taken care of.

    The Chair: I guess my question would be in terms of the Fillion decision. It did say that you should do that, read breathing into the act. So maybe it's time for the focus group with the doctors or somebody to help with this.

    Mr. Serge Nadeau: In fact we are open to all kinds of suggestions. The legislation has been brought in over time, and if there is a strong case to be made that breathing should be included, of course, we'd be more than happy to look at this.

    The Chair: My issue is that this box suddenly appeared on the form after the interventions on cystic fibrosis. But it's quite clear that this wasn't to do with a whole lot of consultations other than a couple of the interest groups.

    Ms. Maureen Tapp: Actually, that box did appear after the legislation was changed to include the life-sustaining therapy. But that provision doesn't only apply to cystic fibrosis. It also applies to renal dialysis or any other life-sustaining therapy that falls within the three times per week, fourteen hours, etc. It applies to any life-sustaining therapy. You mentioned oxygen. That would be one of them where it's supporting a vital function. So it's not strictly cystic fibrosis. That wasn't custom-designed for cystic fibrosis.

    The box was put on after the legislation was changed, and that provision of the legislation, I believe, was specifically left broad enough to include other types of therapy that could also be life-sustaining therapy.

    The Chair: What was the consultation before that change in the legislation?

    Mr. Serge Nadeau: That came from representations from groups and sectors. There was no formal consultation process.

    The Chair: Okay.

    Are there any other questions? No.

    Obviously, we have some concerns, and you are losing a few cases at tax court. Even before this process of 106,000, we were, ourselves, with our constituents coming to the view that mental illness particularly wasn't well dealt with on this form. With this process of 106,000, obviously we and our constituents feel they're being asked to reapply with what we see is a tighter form.

    We see it as harder to qualify in this new form without a corresponding change in the tax act. I think that's what we heard in terms of Ms. Furrie's testimony.

    I understand the finance committee did do an assessment of the DTC, maybe ten years ago. Is that right? Can you tell us about that?

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     Ms. Andrée Houde: Well, the Department of Finance did an evaluation in 1992 that's available for review.

    The Chair: Okay. Could we have that, in terms of whether it's meeting the policy objectives? That would be helpful.

    Ms. Andrée Houde: Yes.

    The Chair: We will meet as a committee. We hope we will have some helpful recommendations, and we will develop with you the recommendations for an ongoing process, to make sure the people of Canada are well served in terms of the policy objectives of this credit. Maybe we can go on to see what else we can do around definition and some of the other things that will work toward a coherent policy for Canadians with disabilities.

    Thank you very much for coming. We will keep vigilant. We may hear from you when you have your response to our report.

    Ms. Kathy Turner: There were a couple of items you wanted us to let the committee know. Would you like us to work with Mr. Young and provide those to--

    The Chair: --the clerk, yes.

    Thanks very much. The meeting is adjourned.