Hon. Éric Forest: My first words will be to thank you from the bottom of my heart for agreeing to sponsor this bill, which is so important and speaks to our values of solidarity and equity.

My concern is a bit on the periphery of the bill because there are still many things to define, including eligibility criteria and what this eligibility will entail. The devil is often in the details, and I hope that this complementary information will be delivered quickly.

In listening to you, we realize that there are persons with disabilities who benefit greatly from the love and support of the people around them, and you yourself are a living example. However, we know that in Canada, more than 10% of taxpayers don’t even file a tax return. Many of those people are isolated and have disabilities. They are the most vulnerable members of our society.

This may not be germane to the bill, but I really want to know if we will be able to create certain tools in order to identify these people. We are currently unable to reach them because we don’t know who they are. What’s more, they get lost in administrative limbo because they don’t file tax returns, yet they’re the most vulnerable people in our society today.

[English]

Senator Cotter: Thank you, Senator Forest. It’s a very legitimate question, and an important one.

One provision of the bill provides access to the bill’s implementation and delivery to income tax information, so people who are obtaining tax credits, for example, will be able to be identified. You are right that there is a black hole of people disconnected from government in all kinds of ways, largely through their impoverished circumstances and disability. I think the bill — if it does not fail — will not achieve its objectives unless it can reach out to those people.

What has happened with respect to this bill and the conversations that have been going on for too long, really, in the last couple of years, in particular, is that the disability communities at the national, provincial and local levels are unbelievably engaged with this bill. I hope, perhaps, with support from the government, there is a way in which outreach can be made to those folks so that they will know about the bill. There’s a commitment in here that making application, and the like, is intended to be disability barrier-free, so hopefully it will be possible through that kind of outreach.

Speaking from my own personal experience with Inclusion Saskatchewan, with whom I’ve worked a little bit over the last number of years, it feels to me, in a really lovely way, that they have their fingers on — I don’t want to say every family in Saskatchewan that has someone with a disability, but I think the local communities know, and their commitment to this bill is so powerful that it won’t be a perfect success; yet, I think, it will be a far greater success than one might think, sitting in Ottawa, reflecting about it.