I just want Mr. Komarnicki to understand that I understand what's going on. Frankly, I have to say I'm disappointed.
We have a motion brought forward in all sincerity by Mr. Lessard that is obviously very important to a very at-risk and often marginalized group of citizens in our society today, and a very serious question that he wants addressed, not only for his own constituents but certainly for mine and for all our constituents. To relegate it to a time further on, when we've done the poverty study, and to only have one day on it is, to me, to be dismissive of it.
This brings me to the major point I want to make: that is, as a committee, we really do need to somehow find a way to deal with issues of the disability community. We have a responsibility. It's in the committee name itself that we deal with people with disabilities here, but we never do. We don't ever get to it because, as is happening today, we're allowing the government, in this instance, to push it off to a later date, for one day.
That should be totally unacceptable to anybody around this table if they have any concern or respect for or desire to help those who are disabled in this country to participate in the communities they live in and to participate in the economy. I find it very disappointing and disturbing that this is what we're doing.
I've suggested this on a number of occasions here as we've dealt with this issue and other issues, and you will remember this, Chair, because you were chair back in 2004-05 when we struck a subcommittee of this committee to look at issues of disability. They then were able to get their teeth into some pretty major and important initiatives and brought back a report to the larger committee to be discussed by us and to be forwarded to government.
I would suggest that one way of dealing with Mr. Lessard's motion, and also other issues of disability because there's a lot.... This is just one piece that I think needs to be addressed. For example, some of the enabling accessibility funds come to an end in May and won't be available any more to groups out there to use to fix up their places so that disabled people can participate. We have other issues. This is only one issue that is of concern to the disability community out there across this country.
We need to get serious about it, we need to deal with it, and we need to deal with it in a timely fashion. I suggest that one way to do so, if the committee is interested, is to strike a subcommittee so that it would be the full focus and whole focus of that committee to actually get it done.