Christine Brunsden Explains Why Many Eligible People Do Not Receive The Disability Tax Credit

The Disability Tax Credit is one of those Canadian programs that sounds simple until you’re staring at the forms, your medical records, and a list of criteria written in a language nobody uses in real life. We talk with Christine Brunson, CEO of Benefits2.ca, about why so many people who qualify never apply, and why the system often feels like it demands the most effort from people who have the least energy to spare.

Christine breaks down what the CRA actually wants to understand: functional limitations, day to day impacts, and patterns over time, not just a diagnosis. We dig into the biggest Disability Tax Credit myths, including the idea that it’s only for wheelchair users or that working disqualifies you, and we get honest about why doctors often don’t document limitations in a way that fits the DTC. We also talk about audits, the growing push for supporting medical records, and the practical difference between describing your “best day” versus the hard days the form is really asking about.

The conversation gets personal as Christine shares how years of trying to help her own family exposed a market where people sometimes pay a steep percentage of their refund just to get guidance. From there, we explore alternatives, who can sign the DTC forms, and how tools like AI can help draft clearer answers and reduce executive function overload, without letting software make the decisions for you. If you’re navigating disability benefits in Canada, the RDSP, the Child Disability Benefit, or you’re just trying to understand what supports you might be missing, we hope this one will you know you are not alone in the confusion. 

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Transcript

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Audio Glitch And Guest Setup

SPEAKER_02 0:14

Welcome to the afternoon pint. We lost the intro of this week's episode due to some audio problems we were having during recording, but we still had a lot of clips and bits of it, and we wanted to share that with you. Today's guest is Christine Brunson, and she is CEO of a company called Benefits2.ca. Now, this organization helps folks that are trying to navigate through the disability tax credit system and want to make sure that they're putting their application in correctly. So if that's you and you you suffer through these types of issues, or if you just want to kind of understand what people go through when they're trying to file their disability tax credit, it might be a good episode for you to tune into and to judge for yourself if these services could work for you.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Spend my time helping Canadians get the disability tax credit and other benefits that they really should have been told about, but never knew existed. So this is really, and I kind of started because I was trying to help my own

What The Disability Tax Credit Does

SPEAKER_00 1:19

family, and there's a story built into that, but it's just because I realize that so many people just don't even know what exists.

unknown 1:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:28

And when you're talking about what exists, you're talking for folks with disabilities and such, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Yeah, it could be it, it mostly it is attached to disability type of conditions, but it really could be almost anything. I mean, there's 200 plus benefits out there. Many of them are related to health. And if we think that our doctor is going to remember the criteria for all 200 and bring this up to us, I think we're we're sadly mistaken.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

That you have to kind of really be an expert in that field to know criteria of so many different things, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:05

Yeah. And and oftentimes the criteria they're looking for in these different benefits is with regard to functional limitations, but doctors are not taught how to write medical records from a functional

Why Doctors Miss Functional Impacts

SPEAKER_00 2:20

limitations perspective. Most of this from the clinical presentation and treatment plan, and you know, we're gonna try this medication for this. And but they don't often talk about, you know, how does all this affect your day-to-day living? But this is what a lot of these benefits want to understand is well, in order for us to approve you, we need to know how this is affecting your ability to do all these different day-to-day functions.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

And I mean, realistically, that makes sense though, because it's not really their job. Their job is to like find the cause, diagnose the cause, like do the testing. When it comes to the action plan afterwards, that's not necessarily their you know lane, right?

SPEAKER_00 3:01

Well, I mean, Matt, look, when's the last time you went to a doctor's appointment?

SPEAKER_01 3:07

Well, fairly recently, because I just got on meds for ADHD. So I actually went to a doctor's appointment because I had to get the physical done and you know checked out to make sure it wasn't gonna send my heart pounding out of my chest. So that's the last time. It was actually just last week.

SPEAKER_00 3:21

Was that doctor's appointment more than uh 12 minutes or 15 minutes?

SPEAKER_01 3:27

Probably not.

SPEAKER_00 3:28

No. So I mean, if I was gonna ask you about all of the areas of mental functioning that you could be affected by with ADHD, would probably take us the better part of an hour to go through all of those. Could you imagine a doctor doing that with each of their patients that is eligible for some sort of benefit walking through an hour-long conversation about, okay, so tell me, how does this affect your ability to adapt to change? How does this affect your ability to remember things when you're walking out the door in the morning? They're not gonna talk about it from that perspective. And you're gonna give them some color as to what you're experiencing and how it how it's affecting you. And then they're gonna do their testing, they're gonna come back with some sort of diagnostic on it, and then they're gonna say, okay, so what do you want to do? You want to try meds, you want to try this, you want to try that, you want to try counseling? And they're gonna give you kind of a laundry list of things you could do about it, but they're never really kind of gonna sit down and and run through this full hour-long battery of all the different ways that you may struggle in your day and talk about those things. You know, this is not they're not set up to do that. The time doesn't allow them to do it either. I mean, if we did that, patient care would be worse than it is today. I would have bashed the system, but it would be a lot worse than it is now.

SPEAKER_02 4:54

Going through your process, Christine. I mean, I learned so much going through those forums about myself. It's pretty, it's it's really like relevating. Is that the word? Relevating, revealing, like a revelation. You had a revelation, revelation, yeah. Um, anyways, I I learned a lot about myself, and I was just like, holy cow, I really do struggle in a lot of areas, and I could see it going back so far in my life, and a lot of things made so much more sense now. And I would really like to know your story behind this, though. You said your family and yourself. So, like, what's the story of Christine? Like, how did you get into this work? What did you recognize happened in your family?

SPEAKER_00 5:41

I have six family members who all have this credit or in various processes of getting the credit. And and a doctor

Christine’s Family Story And Wake Up

SPEAKER_00 5:49

was never the one who brought it up to any one of them. You know, I went I lived in a family. I was born into a family, it's a sister who lived her life in a very precarious state. She she had no sight, she couldn't sit up on her own, she was strapped into a wheelchair every day, she had no ability to feed herself, you know, no cognition of any kind. So it's not like this was my first foray of disability. It was my own child, actually, who I saw struggling. And I saw her struggling from an early age. I mean, we used to we used to joke around because she would say things like Princess Finoia for Fiona and Ogurt instead of yogurt. And there was like switching letters around and and all kinds of different things. And I tried to get her help, and we went through the Living Disabilities Association of Ontario, and then at the beginning of grade two, she was still reading below a kindergarten level. And I ended up going and getting her assessed, but the assessor said, Listen, like I can't even get a good read on the testing because she's so far behind. And I said, Well, what can we do? Because as a parent, that's my that's my only thing I want to know is how can I help her to be, you know, launch in life and be successful and all of those things. And he he said, Well, I don't really specifically know, but given that your your husband is dyslexic, why don't we treat her for dyslexia and go start there? Maybe it'll help her. And so I said, Okay, you know, and so twice a week I was taking these sessions and we were working through things and and she finished off that program in grade five, reading at a grade eight level. And I'm thinking, okay, but now what? Because I'm like I went from here to here, and now like there's nothing, you know, and I put her into some other programming and stuff, you know, throughout this entire time, I think there's still something not right. And she would go to the doctor, and the doctor said, Well, you just you walked in here just fine, you're not gonna qualify for that. And I thought, well, walking is not the only criteria in this credit. Like, how is it you you're only going towards walking? But frustrating me, and she couldn't really articulate it. Then in 2020, when the world slowed down and I had a lot of time to think, and we ran a summit that year, it was five days of summit. It was all about legacy building, actually, but the fifth day was about legacy planning for people with disabilities. And I had a gentleman who was running a company, an unnamed company that takes percentage of people's refunds, working along with a doctor who again was like an advocate for people in this area. And I listened to their talk on the disability tax rate. And I thought, well, now I know for sure she qualifies, but why can't I get the help that I need from the doctor to apply for this thing? So I thought, well, the

Paying A Percentage For Help

SPEAKER_00 8:42

worst I can say is no, I'm gonna ask them if they can help her. So I went to them and I said, Do you guys think you could help her with this application? Because, you know, been struggling with this for 14 years. And they're like, Yeah, sure. Like just give us all the assessments, we'll have a conversation with you, with her, and we'll figure it out. So they did that. They sent it in and three weeks later she was approved. And I thought, wow, like if I'd only known it was gonna be that easy, then I would have done it this way a long time ago. But I also didn't know this existed. Like it took a long time for me to find this resource. And but then the bill came for like 20% my friends and family discount of 20% of my refund. And that I did sign the contract to say that I was giving up a percentage of my refund, but I didn't really know what that meant because I had no idea what to expect.

SPEAKER_02 9:30

We didn't realize how much money that was.

SPEAKER_00 9:32

Oh no clue, no clue.

SPEAKER_02 9:34

And how much money was that did you sign off to on this credit for this person that helped you through it? How much money did you give away?

SPEAKER_00 9:41

Quite a bit, quite a bit. Yeah, yeah. And I I just I kept thinking, gosh, like I had no idea, but I that was the only way I was gonna get help. So it was like it was like a trade-off kind of thing, right? Like, you know, what do I do? Not bother or or bother and give up a percentage of refund, which I think is a a lot of people are faced with that same dilemma, is like, well, I could stay doing what I'm doing, which is not helping me at all, not getting anywhere with it, or I could get help with it and give up a percentage of refund. It's just that you know, there weren't companies like us that exist anyway. So I went to Dr. Wayne and I said, you know, Dr. Wayne, who is also in Nova Scotia, I said, you know, a lot of this seems like to me, it's semantics, it's you have to know what to write in these applications, you have to have a willing doctor to be able to review and sign off on things for you. I said, But don't you think we could like make this process easier for people somehow and not take like a percentage of refunds? I said, that seems kind of predatory. And he said, Yeah, I've often thought it could be like an app or something, but I'm a doctor. What do I know about app building? I said, Well, I don't know anything about app building either, but I had very passionate about this, and maybe there's something we could do together. So we started building something out. We eventually turned it around and got the right team involved, and we launched our minimum viable product back in 2023. So we're three years in. You know, we've helped thousands of people with this credit.

SPEAKER_02 11:09

And it's only through thousands of applications that went through you at this point, eh? Yeah, yeah, cool.

SPEAKER_00 11:16

Right? And it's only through it. I I I wouldn't have believed all of the stories that have come to me without

DTC Myths And Real Criteria

SPEAKER_00 11:24

sitting in this chair. I mean, I've I've told these stories numerous times, but I, you know, a lady who's 88 who has a walker and wears, you know, incontinence products, and she asked her doctor to fill it out. The doctor says, You're 88 years old. People lose mobility to start peanut pants. I'm not signing that. I'm thinking, buddy, that's what it's that's what it's designed for. Like it's designed for people are spending money buying incontinence products, and this is not a huge amount of money. Why not sign it for her and let her give get back some of the money so she can buy more incontinence products? I mean, it's not like it's his money. And then I had other patients who would say, Yeah, I talked to my doctor, and he said, No, it's for people who are in a wheelchair and can't push it themselves, or you know, I talked to my doctor, and doctor told me no, he can't sign it because for sure he'll be edited, he'll be audited by the government, or you know, there's all kinds, like all of the misconceptions around this. And even in the in one of the latest articles, there's a CBC article out there that talked about the spring economic update, and it was full of misconceptions. It was like tied to working and stuff. And working has absolutely nothing to do with credit. That is one of the biggest misconceptions. It doesn't matter whether you work or not work with this credit, it's all about do you have a limitation that is affecting you generally 90% of the time? And it takes you three times longer to perform any one of these activities of daily living. That's what the criteria is. A lot of doctors don't understand it. So I just find that it's very frustrating and it must be even more frustrating for people who are asking for this help to be met with this kind of rhetoric that is like not helpful, and and it seems, you know, it probably stops them in their tracks, and then just the conversation just ends there and they never pursue because where what are they gonna do until they meet up with someone like me and they're like, Oh, there is help out there.

SPEAKER_02 13:23

I did the application the first time by myself. There's no indication of what type of answer you should put in. It's a real maze. We all want to believe we're as capable as we can be, not as incapable as we can be. We

The Application Maze And “Spoons”

SPEAKER_02 13:37

often want to talk about our best day, but uh, I mean, really, this application, the way that they want is you you almost have to talk about your worst days. They want to really understand the mechanics of all the times where you you couldn't you couldn't perform your task.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

You could debunk it if you wanted to go through and read the tax code and the tax act, you you could debunk all of this stuff. But I mean, listen, the system demands the most of the people with the least amount of spoons. So we have all of the people with disabilities with again a lack of spoons, and and yet the government is you know putting processes in place that require them to have, you know, put a lot of effort into figuring things out. And and most people just want somebody to guide them through. I mean, if you're a parent of a child with a disability, it's like just just help me. Listen, I've been in this situation. Not only do I have my own child with a disability, but I also I'm raising her three children now, who two of them have significant disabilities. And and there's times where I'm like, hey, like I don't want, I don't want to sit down and figure this all out. I'm going, I will, but I just don't have time, like right at this second. So if you could like walk me through this, that would be great. And and I just think about even the application for assistance for children with severe disabilities and the special services at home. And I went through one of those applications with a social worker at one of the hubs that I deal with, and it took us like an hour to go through it. And then I didn't realize that I used the same email as I used for the first one. And apparently back then you couldn't use the same email, but nobody told me I couldn't use the same email, and the whole application went into ether. And I thought, oh my God, I've just spent an hour of my time that I didn't already have, and now I have to redo this thing again. And one of the things I did is I used my knowledge of AI actually, and I built out a whole model of the three-year-old, never giving identifying information. But I, you know, I described her, her limitations,

Using AI To Write Better Forms

SPEAKER_00 15:39

how it affects her on a day-to-day basis. And then I went through and redid the application using my large language model. And I tagged the person at the hub and I said, Here, can you just go in and make sure that I'm on the right track? And she picked up the phone and called me. And she said, Oh my god. She goes, Who did this application for you? And I said, Well, it was me. And I said, I also use some AI. She goes, and there was no mucking around with like changing and to ampersands to get the 500 character limit and all that. I no, no, no, I just told the large language model exactly what I needed, and it did it. And she was like, honestly, the guy, I couldn't even write an application this this good. Wow. You have to know, you have to know some stuff. You can't just go in there and say, hey, you know, write this application.

SPEAKER_02 16:30

You understand the criteria, yeah, where the average person does it.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

On top of that, I find it hilarious, in you know, I guess tragic sense, that you ask somebody who has like you know, task paralysis to do this gigantic task and you know, decipher it. It's like catch 22 kind of thing, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:56

And hopefully, hopefully, Mike, the questionnaire I gave you, which I designed specifically for you, took away a little bit of the the gigantic amount of work.

SPEAKER_02 17:06

What your style did for anyone listening that's ever going through this, you gave me the ability to just tell stories. I needed to know what stories to tell. But but you know, when you see all of the things and all of the times where you're actually at a disadvantage, you you can really you can really kind of make it make the story quite different from the way you might interpret yourself from reading a question off of a page.

SPEAKER_00 17:30

I think the government doesn't necessarily know how to structurally fix the problem. And that's what that's what I'm focused I'm hyper focused on that now, is like I understand the structural problem.

The Structural Problem With Benefits

SPEAKER_00 17:44

So now I can actually build out an actual solution to fix that. They I think they try to fix things procedurally, but just fixing a procedure doesn't help more people find it. And that's where the that's where the biggest cog in the wheel is is how do you know? Like have you ever phoned up CRA and said, hey, like, you know, all these benefits and credits that you guys have here? Could you explain them all to me? I just want to know if I'm gonna be eligible for any of these things. And like we could have a you know, a couple hour conversation. I know I've already waited on hold for two and a half, but you know, maybe we could have an hour-long conversation, but all these, like, no one is gonna do that. It's not necessarily designed to be prohibitive, but I think the whole process and the way that it's the structure of how it's set up, I think that makes it prohibitive. I often liken it to like navigating a camouflaged maze, and all the doors are camouflage and there's hidden keys, and you have to kind of like find the right people in the maze that have some of these keys that are hidden, and be like, hey, you know, I was trying to navigate back there and I was struggling. And and sometimes people say, Hey, like, did you just come from over there? Did you know there was a door back there? I'm like, No, I had no idea that door was there. And they'll say, Oh, well, come on, I'll I'll help you open the door. You know, I've I've been very blessed and I'm very grateful for all the people I've met on my journey that have helped me along the way because I don't know that I would have ever found some of these resources if I hadn't met up with these people.

SPEAKER_02 19:21

Yeah, I mean, I see the government side of it. They they need to protect, you know, they don't want people taking advantage of these programs. And I'm sure that's probably what made this problem the way it is. Like, was it easy at a certain point to do this, or was it always complicated, or do you know?

SPEAKER_00 19:37

Um I think parts of this in the past would have been easier, and now there's another level of complication, and that is those records I was telling you about where you know, now I we would never we didn't see nearly the degree of request for medical records that we're seeing from CRA now. And I think, I don't know, did they they must know that you know doctors don't record a lot of the limitations the way that they're looking for them to be recorded. I know that they try to implement something different in the last spring economic update where they, oh, well, we have a pre-approved list of 44 conditions now that will be eligible for a streamlined application. Oh, great, because the doctors didn't understand the criteria before. And now you're gonna put another list of 44 conditions they got to try and remember. I mean, who's gonna remember all these conditions? And you think they're gonna go and look them up every time? They're not gonna do that either. So I think, you know, again, they try to fix things structurally, but they're trying to, you know, they they fix maybe a part of the procedure, but they've gotten a lot of applications. There's other, there's so many other benefits. This disability tax credit opens the door to many other benefits, right? Whether it's the registered disability savings plan, whether it's the Canada disability benefit, whereas the child disability benefit, the Canada Workers Benefit. They're like the there's a list of benefits and credits that you're eligible for once you get this one. It's like Pandora's box. And so, you know, for for people navigating in there, the government knows that it opens the door to all these benefits. They're trying to make sure they do their diligence and make sure that the people who are getting these credits are truly eligible for them. And so now they're asking for all these records, but you know, a lot of the records just are not set up and designed to give them the information they're looking for. So there's times where I say to people, your medical records are not sufficient enough. It's if it's going to be audited by CRA, you're probably gonna not be successful. I would suggest that you even go back and talk to your doctor, talk about these limitations. You know, some like the assessment I gave you, imagine taking that into your doctor and saying, look, it I struggle with all of these things. You know, now help me out. Let me get this back into my medical record so that if CRA comes asking for these records, my doctor now is a record of all the things that I told them that I'm struggling with.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

Very smart. So with with with this, does it have to be your family doctor? That fills this out or that helps you, or can it be like a psychiatrist that helps you with it?

SPEAKER_00 22:20

So if there's a whole list of who can sign off on what, and the government

Who Can Sign And Finding Providers

SPEAKER_00 22:24

did open up the ability for additional medical professionals to sign off on the credit. And it doesn't even have to be that. I mean, the doctors that we work with, and we have a list of them, they're they're through what we call a service called ability docs, but they're just Canadian family physicians who feel that Canadians shouldn't be left without the ability to apply just because they don't have a medical practitioner or their medical practitioner doesn't believe in doing the credit, I would show you a sign I found in a doctor's office that says, please be noted that you know, Dr. So-and-so does not complete a disability tax credit application. So if you're left without representation in that in that domain, then these doctors, as long as you bring your medical records and they can review the medical records and understand your condition and how it's affecting you and all these things, or they can go and get the medical records from your practitioner, then they can sign off on the application. But they do have to do their due diligence, they have to store those records, they have to answer any additional questionnaires coming from CRA. But there are as long as they are eligible to sign off, and it could be a medical doctor, it could be a nurse practitioner, those two can sign off utterly on any part of the credit.

SPEAKER_02 23:39

And then I'm so sorry, I lost you for a second there, Christine. Yeah, you can't do that.

SPEAKER_00 23:43

I think that's because my phone was ringing. Sorry about that. So, what I was saying was that an optometrist can sign off on vision, a physiotherapist could sign off on walking. And, you know, so there's a number of different professionals and they're trying to they're trying to open the you know, the number of people or the number of professionals that can sign off on applications. But again, if the medical professionals don't understand the application, don't understand what qualifies, then opening up, you know, so that more of them can sign off doesn't really fix the problem.

SPEAKER_01 24:16

Yeah, because I mean, like I think about my medical like family doctor. I mean, I was with the same family doctor, like clinic for 38 years, and then I they I got dropped, right? Like as a lot of people lose their doctor, whatever retires, and whatever. Now, thankfully, I found a family doctor just 10 months later, but that he doesn't know me from a hole in the wall, basically, right? Like the only time I really saw him was for him to accept me as a patient, and then after that, it was literally to help me get a referral to talk to a psychiatrist, and then I talked to the psychiatrist. She's the one who diagnosed me with ADHD. She actually suggested that I go through this 14-week ACT course kind of thing, like group therapy session type of thing. Yeah, and I'd went through all that with her, and then she basically said, like, sending you back to your doctor to get the actual medication. Yeah, so he was really not that involved in this journey with me at all, other than like, I'll send you somewhere and then vice versa, right?

SPEAKER_00 25:26

Like, I'll I'll send you somewhere, Matt, for that referral because my understanding in Nova Scotia is access to medical health professionals, especially like psychologists, psychiatrists, is the wait times are extremely long.

SPEAKER_01 25:41

I guess maybe if you're paying for it privately, maybe the way I gotta say, my wife's a teacher, so she had like she knows that it can be long and stuff like that. If you go private versus public, like private, obviously, you spend thousands of dollars over, but shout out to our system in this case because I got referred, I got a phone call four months later, and I had an assessment four months after that. Okay, well, that's great. So the same for me, yeah, within a year, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:14

Yeah, that's great. So I'm I'm I'm encouraged to hear that. I know that there's some people who have been waiting for professionals for therapy and things like that in Nova Scotia for years.

SPEAKER_02 26:24

So oh, yes, very true.

SPEAKER_01 26:26

I think, and I think it was very bad for a long time because uh my wife dealing with kids and stuff going through this, like she teaches grade three. She was like, because I've been talking for eight years that I should go get and get my official diagnosis and everything. She was like, You're gonna wait, you like you're gonna wait a while, and I think that's some of it what what made me kind of be hesitant to go and do it because she was like, You're either gonna pay like three grand and you can get it done in three months, or you're gonna be forever, like three years if you go through the and so I think that's really what held me back for a little bit from trying it, and honestly, the how fast Mike got in was actually what triggered me to kind of go, like, you know what? I'm gonna see if I get the same result with the disability tax credit.

SPEAKER_00 27:40

I'll ask you both who who was the one who told you that that thing existed.

SPEAKER_01 27:46

Mike told me, and I haven't even done it yet.

SPEAKER_02 27:48

So, I mean, like, I will probably I learned through Daleen Allen, who is a networker who knew Wayne, Dr. Wayne McLeod. Yeah, and he sent me your email, and then I've been your nightmare ever since.

SPEAKER_00 28:00

Yeah, I think of my mom. Like, my mom, I told you I have six family members, all discredit. My mom was in a in a car accident, left catastrophically injured in a wheelchair. Do you think the doctor mentioned it to her? No, it was like years later, and it was the person who prepares her taxes who said, you know, I really think that you should approach someone and talk about the disability tax credit because you certainly should be eligible for that. But it was the tax preparer. In the case of my dad who has dementia, it's me who said to my mom, like, we need to get this done for dad. You know, and and in the case of the kids, like I think about the the three-year-old, she's she's got autism level three, she's got physical disabilities, she's got structural brain abnormalities, like there's a lot of things going on with this little one. And the pediatrician was not the one who brought it up. I actually said to her, you know, do you want to sign off on this paperwork or do you want me to take it elsewhere to get it signed off? Oh, no, no, no, she'll definitely qualify. But if you could fill it out for me, that would be fantastic. I'm like, lucky for you, I am who I am, and I know how to do this. Because if you said that to another parent, they had to try and figure out like there's no way she had almost every area of the application, you know, filled out.

SPEAKER_02 29:14

Wow. Crazy. You have a very big future vision. Tell everyone about this kind of ability ecosystem, or what is the ability ecosystem that you kind of want to create, Christine? What's your goal here?

SPEAKER_00 29:29

Yeah, when it comes to that, I know like it's it's a really it sounds really big. And I guess it's just like everything I'm building is all about the same thing. And it's really getting people the support that they're entitled to and removing any excuse that the system has for not telling you about these things. One part helps people actually claim benefits, one part helps with the doctors who have to sign off, another part would train advisors, and there's a kind of a charity side for families who will need it the most. So same mission, just different doors into the system.

Building An Ability Ecosystem Vision

SPEAKER_02 30:08

How are you going to manage like the data element of it? Because you'd have a lot of private information and stuff like that, I imagine, especially feeding it all into an AI entity, right?

SPEAKER_00 30:17

Yeah. So, I mean, from this perspective, I believe that the data should sit and be owned by the people whose data is being collected. So if I'm being honest, the data would be owned by this person with a disability. They would profit off their own data. It's a new, it's a model that has not been deployed. Usually it's the big companies, the insurance companies, the other companies that are profiting off the backs of these people. But what I'm thinking is really a shift, a major structural shift where they each own their own data and and they profit from their data. And data is not sold with, you know, where it's identifying an individual, it'd be all anonymized data, uh, that kind of thing. But yes, it would be clearly uh articulated as to what the data is, and each and every person whose data is owned gets a say in what it is, what's collected, how it's used, all of that kind of thing. But it could actually be a really great way for individuals to come and engage that population. You know, I'm thinking about there's a there's a current court case with a law firm in Toronto and they are going after the the Revenue Canada tax code, specifically for individuals with conditions that are deemed episodic. In this particular case, it's chronic headaches and and conditions like that. And so if they wanted to get information like what they're collecting right now, and they're giving away a reward for that information, they could simply come to us and I could use through the use of AI, I could you know, identify all the people and just say, here, you know, this law firm is looking for the following things. If you want to opt in, opt in here.

SPEAKER_02 32:01

What do you think, like, what do you think AI should not do in this space? I guess. Well, what do you what do you I mean in terms of how how deep should it go? I mean, should it make recommendations but not decide?

SPEAKER_00 32:12

Or I mean, certainly if it's I mean, it can make recommendations. I wouldn't, I wouldn't say the decision. I mean, if if we're talking about medical stuff, like it's not we're not there yet. But if we're talking about identifying a benefit, there's probably still questions that's going to be have to ask of the individual. Like I could say, listen, based on the diagnosis that I see in your records here, it's likely that you're eligible for this, but you know, I have to ask a few qualifying questions first before I can send you down the path of applying for that benefit. So I think right now it's more of an identifier than it is of a decision

Data Ownership And AI Boundaries

SPEAKER_00 32:52

maker. Um I think also when it comes to what AI should not do in this space, again, the the UN would tell you, I mean, the whole disability motto is nothing for us without us. And I believe in the AI part of this as well, where it shouldn't be used to make the system disparaging to individuals with disabilities. It should augment them and their voice and give them more access to a system that was never really designed for them. But there's a disability economy too. It's a $1.3 trillion economy. And I think a lot of people think that people with disabilities just don't have any much, much resources. But there's a lot of money spent on disability. You know, you think about, I think about even now, the youngster that I have, she's got, you know, ankle-foot orthotics. And the last set of orthotics we put in place, they were, you know, a little over 3,000 this year that jumped over 5,000. So, you know, there's a lot of money spent in the disability space, whether it's the individual that has access to the money or not. But it's, you know, it's there's a it is a big economy. And I think they don't nobody really treats it as that. And to be honest with you, we'd all be in a better situation if the world was more accessible. Like nobody ever said, oh, well, having something be more accessible is not not a good idea. No, accessibility opens up the doors for many other people, and probably people even without a specific disability or you know, not fully into you know, wheelchairs and other devices, but there's there's certain things that have come about because of accessibility that have opened the doors and and made life better for other people.

SPEAKER_01 34:42

Yeah, I was thinking like a lot of these, like if we can help people out in you know in meaningful ways, we they might be able to like some people may not be able to work at all. And if we help them, they might actually be able to go back to work and and find like some sort of purpose in their life and contribute, pay taxes, like all these things that if you want to get into the dollars and cents of it all, that's where helping people, you know, pays for itself, essentially, right?

SPEAKER_00 35:14

And it's funny, I I watched a program one, it was a 60 Minutes program, I think, at one point with Anderson Cooper, and they were talking about kids with autism, and they had Anderson performing against a gentleman with autism, and they were given a diagram, and they had to reproduce the diagram with colored blocks. And the gentleman with autism had it done like in no time at all because of the way they recognized patterns, and Anderson was like struggling with it. So if if we started actually putting out job postings, knowing that like there's a whole subset of people that think differently and probably in a better way for that role, if we actually do those people, like and look at like me entrepreneurs, like what entrepreneur is not AHD? Like, there's so so many of them, it's because they have to, they have to be looking at a lot of different pieces all at the same time, and and you're you know, it's not for the faint of heart. So I think if if anything else, I mean we could there's definitely things we could do to make there's certain jobs that fit really well for people with different neurodiversity, and and there's I mean, if we if we really went to a step further and said, hey, we want to, you know, take our our working environment and make it more accessible.

SPEAKER_01 36:34

And I I just uh a point to make there is like I think that's where people miss the idea of diversity being a strength, is you know, if you have diverse points of view and diverse opinions and things, you just you are able to not miss more things, right? So, you know, if you're a if you are an entrepreneur, you have a company, you want the the ability to get different points of view to understand it from because I mean if you want to sell a product, you want to sell a product to as many people as possible. If you in your like line of work of as an entrepreneur is only selling the product from your perspective, and there's a whole range of people out there that won't buy it for XYZ. This is where that strength comes in, where you can get other people's opinions and say, like, hey, you know what? Have you ever thought about it? Like, your product doesn't work because I won't buy it because whatever, you can fix it.

SPEAKER_00 37:29

You mentioned something about like that's another another thing with people with disabilities is that they solve problems that other people don't have to solve, so they are probably naturally better entrepreneurs, plus, they've had to deal with a whole bunch more mountains than other people had to climb, right? So they make they make really good business owners because they are able to problem solve for something that somebody else may not even know exists as a problem.

SPEAKER_02 37:54

Do you think we like the general public? Do you think they misunderstand supports systems like the tax credits? Do you think they like see them as handouts and when they should see them more like a possibility to provide better infrastructure?

SPEAKER_00 38:10

Yeah, I mean, I still see a lot of you know, the older population who say, Oh, I'm not gonna apply for that. I'll I'll leave that for those who are more deserving than me. You know, they opt themselves out and they don't like the D-word. You know, I'm I don't I'm not disabled. I don't have disability. I I have I struggle to do that, but I'm I don't have disability. You know, so and they don't they they do look at that as kind of a handout, but you know, I can generally change their opinion on that because I ask them, like, do you

Handout Mindset And Missed Supports

SPEAKER_00 38:45

spend money on this? Do you spend money on that? I mean, this is not this is not gonna pull anybody out of poverty the amount you're getting in this credit. Like it's a little bit of money back in the hands of the person or the family members of the person with a disability because the credit can also be transfers. I mean, there's mechanics of the credit as well. And one of that is one of the mechanics is that you can transfer it to a qualifying family member. I myself claim the credit for a number of different people, you know, but it's designed to put money back into the hands of those that are spending it. And money that you wouldn't necessarily spend because you have this limitation.

SPEAKER_01 39:22

Right.

SPEAKER_00 39:23

And I think about incontinence as being one of those ones, right, where you're you're on you're constantly buying incontinence supplies. Well, it's costly over the over the course of time. So why not get some of that money flowing back to you so you can use it to buy more products and services that are helping you?

SPEAKER_01 39:40

So this might be a left field question, but in your opinion, should there be a tax credit for women because they have to go through their menstrual cycle every month? Well, because technically they're buying things that you know are out of their control, right?

SPEAKER_00 40:02

Yeah, I mean, uh I think on a blanket basis, I mean, I'm I'm more about helping the underdog, and I think you know, can do we help everyone or do we help those that need it? And I think we help those that need it, right? And not and not as a hand out, but as a hand up. And I think we if we give to everybody the same way. I mean, this credit is designed that way. It's just it's a blanket. Here you are, here's what it is. Now, it is tied to income. So if you're paying taxes through employment, then you're gonna potentially get back more than if somebody is not paying any taxes and doesn't have a qualifying federal they can transfer it to that that pays taxes, they get no benefit from it. But there's other benefits associated, like it would give them access to the Canada disability benefit. So I don't know. I mean, it it's hard to say. When you're whenever when it comes to designing these benefits, somebody's gonna be left out, somebody's gonna be left in, you know. And I did hear a previous podcaster who was on yours, uh, it was of a gentleman in politics who said, I think they he was talking about a $50 grocery credit and they decided just to give it blanketly to everybody because for a while, like, well, I didn't I didn't get it, I I got it. How come you didn't get it? You know, yeah. If we're talking about something like that, it's a different story, but you know, I don't know, maybe we have to stop giving away so much money to all these other projects and look more look after more of our people here at home. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 41:37

Yeah, what's the support that you think families often miss?

SPEAKER_00 41:41

Oh man, there's so many. I mean, this is a big one because I think people just don't know about it. I'm doing everything I can to try and increase awareness. And I'm working with an entire school district, so they basically bring me in for every child who is eligible for this thing. And I'm kind of I'm kind of prejudiced to my own province. So I know a lot more about the benefits here in Ontario than I do in other provinces. Um but I would say this is definitely one of them. And then that when it opens the doors to all these other benefits and credits, it's that it's the associated ones too that get missed. I think the the expanded list of medical expenses that one can claim when they have a disability tax credit, I think that's not widely known or understood either. I mean, my mother, who is a celiac, in addition to all the other things that she has going on, could definitely claim her groceries for all of her, you know, food free products and things like that. But she's like, oh, it's just too much work and energy, Christine. I don't, I don't, I don't have that kind of work and energy. I'm looking after your father with dementia, looking after myself. Like, I just don't have the time and energy to collect up all my receipts and and put it in as a as an expense. So I don't know. I mean, it's there's just so much. I think to really understand all of this, most people would need a some sort of guide who's gonna like, you know, hey, okay, so now you're eligible for this, now you're, you know, you can open the door, the LGBT for this, you know, the child disability benefit is one of those. I think the credit too, uh, you know, if you click in the box, and we we didn't talk about that, Mike, but if you're ticking the box and asking Sierra to adjust your returns, that's okay if you're claiming the credit yourself. But I think if you're claiming the credit on somebody else's behalf as a qualifying family member, there's things that the that Revenue Canada will calculate, there's things they're not gonna calculate. They're never gonna calculate the Canada caregiver credit for you, which is another one of those benefits that go always open with this door. And then the child disability benefit, they're gonna go back, you know, base years, and then you're gonna have to write a letter to taxpayer relief to ask for the rest of the money you're owed. You know, there's so much to know. And I think most people are gonna need some sort of guide. But luckily with AI, I think we can build out AI guides as time goes on, and I think they'll become better and better at helping to guide people. Um but there probably will still be always a subset of population who's gonna want like a physical hand holding kind of situation of like guide me down this path.

SPEAKER_02 44:15

100%. And I and I think that's fair too. I think it's a weird thing to navigate through, and you want to make sure you're given the right answer. I think I think it's sometimes your most honest people that are gonna want that hand holding, right? Because they're just afraid that they're gonna say something that's inaccurate. So it's not always a bad thing, but they they want that human, human touch. But I think AI will also help tremendously. So, Matt, if you're cool with it, we're getting into 50 minutes or did you want to do our 10 fun questions? Let's go. Let's do that. Before we do this, this is a this is a silly part of the show, Christine. But is there anything you wanted to kind of like plug or say just before we jump into it about advocating for yourself if you feel you need a support?

SPEAKER_00 44:54

No, I I don't think so. I mean, listen, this has this has allowed me to help, and it's allowed me to fulfill my legacy mission statement in ways that I could have never even anticipated I would do. So I mean, I feel like I'm living I'm living my best life every single day. Yeah, there's things that are definitely challenges. I want more time, but like nobody's gonna manufacture more time in a day.

SPEAKER_02 45:23

So that's right. All

Ten Fun Questions Lightning Round

SPEAKER_02 45:25

right, Matt, you go ahead, man, and kick off question one if you got them handy.

SPEAKER_01 45:28

Yeah, I got them. So all right. So we got our 10 questions. So here we go. So if you woke up as prime minister tomorrow, what would you what would you do first to help folks that need the disability tax credit to help receive like help them receive it better, better, faster, whatever?

SPEAKER_00 45:47

I'd have a conversation with me and understand exactly what I want to do to change the system. And I would make sure that the resources were there to implement what I think will help this population.

SPEAKER_02 46:00

Okay, good answer. All right. If you were forced to explain the DCT to a room full of golden retrievers, what would your opening line be?

SPEAKER_00 46:12

Oh man. Well, obviously, nobody in this room struggles from an eating standpoint. So let's just forget about that side of the credit. Let's move on to the other forms of the credit that might be eligible.

SPEAKER_02 46:24

You might be eligible for the correct answer was bark, bark, you know.

SPEAKER_01 46:29

Just joking. All right, Matt, go ahead, buddy. All right, question number three. So you're stuck on a tropical island, and all of your food and shelter needs are met, but you can bring one item that we'll call a luxury item because it's not the basic needs. What's that item?

SPEAKER_00 46:47

Oh man. One you know what? I'm a I'm a huge fan of podcasts. Can I bring something that I can listen to podcasts on?

SPEAKER_02 46:56

There you go. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, sounds cool.

SPEAKER_00 46:58

I think I'd be bored. I think I'd be bored. So I'd have to have some sort of something to listen to. And I'm not a good reader, so yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:07

That makes three of us. Yes. That's right. Yeah. What's a book or movie, if you don't like books, that you recommend people check out? Something you just something you've experienced. It could be a book or a movie or whatever, television show. Oh man.

SPEAKER_00 47:25

And I, you know what? I've read some really good books. I think I'm gonna plug my friend Cody. Everyday Legacy was a book that I read, and I I thoroughly enjoyed it because it made me think, man, like I could make a big impact in the world with something pretty small.

SPEAKER_02 47:45

Everyday Legacy. Cool. Everyday legacy. Okay, love that question. I've never heard of that book. I'm gonna I'm just gonna plug it here now. That's awesome. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:54

So, question number five. So, what is one thing you wish you could change about yourself?

SPEAKER_00 48:03

Being able to set better boundaries because I'm not good at setting boundaries. I take on a lot of stuff I shouldn't probably take on, but yeah, if anything, I try to help a lot of people, and it's probably my my own worst nightmare is that I just take on too much and I need to be better at setting those boundaries for myself.

SPEAKER_01 48:23

Good answer. That's yeah, I relate.

unknown 48:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:26

Question number six. What is more confusing? Disability tax credits or quantum computing?

SPEAKER_00 48:33

For me, quantum computing would be way more difficult. But for the average person, I mean, I might be able to come up with quant with quantum computing. But even if you were to look up a description of the disability tax credit online, still not going to give you all the ins and outs. There's too many, there's too many, there's too many nuanced things to know about this credit that are not available on the internet.

SPEAKER_01 48:58

That's fair. Question number seven, and you can give us past or present in this one, but who is your celebrity crush?

SPEAKER_00 49:08

Oh wow. I am so not a person that crushes on anyone, including celebrities. Man, but back in the day, like when I was young, my sister and I used to watch like Days of Our Lives. And I remember thinking that Shamar Moore was pretty uh was pretty good looking. Maybe that, maybe that, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 49:29

I mean, that's a pretty solid answer. That's that's a pretty solid answer. I think a lot of people are gonna say Shamar Moore for things. Yeah, yeah. That's a pretty safe answer.

SPEAKER_02 49:39

Question number eight, Code. Put on your philosoph philosophical, you can't talk today. Okay, yeah, philosophical. Do you think we're heading to a more peaceful world or a more hostile one?

SPEAKER_00 49:55

I think that depends on whose hands AI gets into and what they do with it. I'd like to say it's AI for good and that we're all gonna use it the right way, but I can't say that that's 100% gonna happen. I hope it does. And if I think if it does, I think we are set up for some really cool things that are gonna happen. I think everybody's you know, so upset and afraid of all kinds of different things, but I think about it in the future when we have access to to droids and stuff like that who are coming in. I I thought, man, if I could get a droid in here, a robot, that I could like upload all the Lego sets to and like all the instructions. And every night when I went to bed, it would just come in and clean house and put all the toys back in the right order. I'd be like, thank you. But even like dishes. I I think about all these things, I think we're heading in some pretty cool times, and I I think it'll give people's minds an ability to like calm down and so they can actually spend time doing the things they really like doing, and I think that's gonna open up so many creative outlets for people.

SPEAKER_01 51:09

I love that. AI love that too. Yeah, question number nine. So, in your opinion, when are people not deserving of the ta the disability tax credit?

SPEAKER_00 51:22

If they don't qualify, I don't think they're deserving of it. You know, most people underrepresent, right? You have a few people who who overrepresent or try to get access to things that they're not entitled to. Then it's always the few bad players that ruin it for everyone else. But you know, I don't I don't see that happen a lot in my in my line of work. I mean, very, very few times have I seen somebody grasping and saying, like, oh yeah, I I really I really deserve this when they don't.

SPEAKER_01 51:52

So well, that's that's good to hear, actually. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 51:56

We got another prime minister question. Okay, yeah. So if you woke up as prime minister tomorrow, what would you declare as our new national dish? So pick a food that you think all Canadians would have to celebrate. So maybe your favorite Canadian dish.

SPEAKER_00 52:12

Well, if it was my family, they would tell you that we need to we need to celebrate national roasted garlic mashed potato day. Okay. Um, because that's the recipe I get requested to make the most often. I don't know. I I think as Canada, I mean it's got to be something with maple or something in it, who knows?

SPEAKER_02 52:34

Okay, cool. Maple something, something, mashed potatoes. Love it. All right, all right. Now the last part, Matt, it's your your turn, buddy.

SPEAKER_01 52:42

All right, so last call question. So, what is one piece of advice that you were given that you'd like to share with us and our listeners?

SPEAKER_00 52:51

Teach your gift.

SPEAKER_01 52:54

Oh, we haven't got that. That's good.

SPEAKER_02 52:57

Teach your gift, yeah. Yeah, hey kids, you want to learn how to you lose your glasses? I'll figure out a gift, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:08

And you know what? The the lesson that I teach here in this house to the youngsters that are here is you know, they all say, Oh, money makes the world go round. We all have to have I said, No, no, no. Your your true your true design in the world today is to bring value to the world, bring value to the world, and the money will flow.

Teach Your Gift And Farewell

SPEAKER_02 53:35

It's a great answer. Yeah, really good. Yeah, heartfelt cheers to you. Thank you for helping myself out, so many others. I think you're a really great guiding compass, and I I love your honesty, and I love the fact that you're trying to help people and just make it a better world. So cheers to you, my friend, and uh best of luck for everything that happened this year.

SPEAKER_00 53:57

Oh, thank you, and cheers to both of you. I wish you guys excellent ADHD journeys. Let me know how it's going. Geez, I have one who has the same kind of problem in my house. So I'd love to hear your you know how your kinds are are going through the experience. And you know, does med work? Does this work? And you know, hey, I had I thought this really I've got this really cool person that's helping me with the executive functioning. You know, there's so many resources up there. I think the best thing to do is share. Share, share, share.

SPEAKER_02 54:25

Appreciate that. Thank you very much again, and uh yeah, have a have a great day. See ya.

SPEAKER_00 54:30

See ya.