“People with disabilities need more money to live. The federal disability benefit is too small, and applying for it is too hard. The federal government should automatically accept people who already have provincial disability status instead of making them prove it twice.”

“Mr. Speaker, nobody is feeling the cost of living crisis more than people on fixed incomes, namely seniors and people living on disability. I will talk about people living on disability. They are getting a meagre $200 disability benefit from Canada, which is not a lot of money in today’s world. We have long called for a universal basic income, starting with people living with disabilities and seniors. To get the disability benefit, one needs to get the disability tax credit form approved. Good luck doing that. It also takes away a million patient visits a year from doctors. My question is about a proposal that we have put forward. If someone is living with a disability in a province or territory, why would the federal government not acknowledge that instead of making people in a province or territory prove that they have a disability again?”

“The disability benefit of $200 a month is too small. People with disabilities need enough income to live above the poverty line. We should also cut the red tape. People should not have to see a doctor twice to prove their disability. If their province already says they have a disability, they should qualify automatically.”

“Mr. Speaker, I am going to try this again. We know that the people feeling the cost of living crisis more than anyone are those on fixed incomes, such as people living with disabilities. I spoke to my colleague earlier about this. Right now, the disability benefit is a meagre $200 a month. I believe that people living with a disability should be getting a universal basic income so they are living above the poverty line. Instead, they need to apply for the disability tax credit to access the disability benefit. They have to get a health professional to approve it. It consumes about 250,000 patient visits a year for doctors, and a bunch of CRA time. Does my colleague agree to get rid of this red tape and make it easier for people living with disabilities? The government should not make people prove twice that they have a disability in their home province or territory. If it has already been deemed that they have a disability, they should automatically qualify.”

“The Liberals have run the government for 11 years, but homelessness is still growing. About 65,000 people are homeless every night, and we do not have enough affordable housing. The government still has no plan to fix this. I want to know when they will make ending homelessness a top priority.”

“Mr. Speaker, I have a lot of respect for my colleague. However, the Liberals have been in government for 11 years. There are 65,000 people who are homeless on any given night across this country. In 11 years in government, they have yet to present a plan on how they are going to address homelessness, and it is growing. We are at 3.3% non-market housing. The Liberals talk about their major projects list. When is ending homelessness going to make it to the major projects list?”