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A government bill aiming to lift Canadians with disabilities out of poverty is working its way through the Senate after MPs voted unanimously to pass it earlier this week.
If it clears the Senate, the Canada Disability Benefit Act, or Bill C-22, will provide a tax-free, monthly payment to low-income Canadians with disabilities under the age of 65. It would be the first federal guaranteed income supplement for working-age Canadians with disabilities and is meant to top up inconsistent provincial and territorial benefits to bring people at least up to the poverty line.
Precisely how much the benefit will be and who will be eligible to claim it has not yet been specified. That, and more, will be decided when regulations are developed, which will happen within a year after the legislation comes into force.
“This legislation will make a major, major difference in many people's lives,” said Al Mills, executive director of Extend-A-Family Waterloo Region, on behalf of the organization and the 2,000 adults and children with developmental disabilities that use its services. “Disability should not equal poverty in Canada … but it currently does for many, many people,” Mills told Canada’s National Observer.
Nearly 917,000, or 23 per cent of working-age Canadians with disabilities, live in poverty, according to the most recent Canadian Survey on Disability, from 2017.
“We often hear about (how) Parliament is so divided … But for disabled people, the sense that everybody was behind us, and we've seen them do it twice now, for second and third reading, is just a wonderful testament that Parliament can come together to do the right thing,” Michelle Hewitt, co-chair of the board of Disability Without Poverty, told Canada’s National Observer in an interview Feb. 3. Hewitt has fairly advanced multiple sclerosis and is a full-time power wheelchair user.
She says the delay to work out the details will ensure the new benefit is done right. The development of regulations allows time and space for people with disabilities and organizations that serve them to be consulted on the workings of the bill, which would not have been possible to the same extent if everything was laid out in the legislation.
“It's a massive leap of faith,” said Hewitt. “If there is not a fulsome involvement of disabled people when it comes to regulations then disabled people are going to feel sold down the river.”
The mantra of disabled people around the world is “nothing about us without us,” and the 2019 Accessible Canada Act was built on the premise there must be “full consultation and involvement of disabled people in anything the government does that involves us,” she said.
Developing these regulations will be the first real test.
Hewitt said she is “trying very hard” to remain optimistic that disabled people will be invited to the table with bureaucrats to craft the rules.
Hewitt and Mills both acknowledged federal Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion Carla Qualtrough’s commitment to engage people with disabilities in the process.
Qualtrough has been legally blind since birth, and Hewitt says the minister “has worked like mad” to get Bill C-22 passed with support from the disability community, Green MP Mike Morrice and NDP MP Bonita Zarrillo.
Disability advocates, Canadians with disabilities and disability-serving organizations across the country led the charge to strengthen and pass the bill, Morrice told Canada’s National Observer in an interview.
While the bill passing the House represents a big win, there’s a “really unfortunate” eligibility limitation, Morrice noted.
“The Canada Disability Benefit is going to end at 65. The fact is, though, that poverty doesn't end for a person when they turn 65. And neither should the Canada Disability Benefit,” he said.
One certainty, however, is that the benefit will be indexed to inflation, something people with disabilities pushed hard for and Morrice successfully introduced as an amendment in December.
Ensuring the benefit is indexed to inflation was key because the Ontario Disability Support Program hadn't been increased for about a decade, until this year, he pointed out.
Morrice and Zarrillo are calling on the federal government to fund the benefit in Budget 2023. At the same time, organizations are starting up a letter-writing campaign encouraging folks to urge Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland to fund the benefit, said Morrice.
On the same day MPs across party lines voted in favour of Bill C-22, Justice Minister David Lametti announced the expansion of the medical assistance in dying (MAID) law to cover people suffering solely from a mental illness would be delayed until 2024.
MAID and the Canada Disability Benefit are in stark contrast with one another, said Hewitt.
On one hand, you have assistance in death, and on the other, a benefit so people can live a better life with dignity, she said.
“I know which one I prefer … I prefer the life that's lived with dignity,” said Hewitt.
“We hope that the Canada Disability Benefit, rather than being a piece of legislation for the government that's aimed at disabled people dying, we hope that this is going to be the start of our country recognizing that disabled people need to live in dignity, and that the money that people get from this … will stop people accessing MAID for social reasons.
“Yesterday was our day for celebration. Today, we go back to work,” said Hewitt.
Natasha Bulowski / Local Journalism Initiative / Canada’s National Observer
Comments
in cbc radio interview Qualtro explained they are trying to figure out rega that wont let DOUG FORDclaw back all the money from the feds cheque. they have taken away the gst rebate for WELFARE recipients this year, just so ya know what cruel jerks they really are
Is this the general GST rebate? That's kinda bizarre, but they've always clawed back GST rebates for ppl who were on assistance and self-employed.
They don't have to do any fancy figuring: all they have to do is state that provinces/territories can't claw it back. That's what they did with the benefits that apply to children.
that is, fords gov garnished the tiny rebates from the feds to welfare recipients for gst. nice eh?
That would be to deal with "overpayments," then. It's not just taxing back.
The feds, one would think, should be able to simply refuse to play Sheriff for Ford.
If the Feds had intended the provinces to get the benefit of the gst rebate they could have issued one big cheque to the province for everybody who qualified. But they didn't, they issued many cheques to the people who needed that rebate of a seriously regressive tax. PC's never saw a regressive tax they didn't love - so much so they scooped up that money that did not belong to them. Theft, pure and simple as a political snoot cocking to the Federal liberals, and by extension to the "welfare" recipients they have been trying to decimate with homelessness, shrinking benefits, hoping they would all die prematurely. Between COVID, criminally negligent for-profit long term care, and predatory capitalism destroying private pensions - our scamming, fraudster political parties have been ripping off senior citizens in lethal ways. The growing aging population is rich pickings for the asset strippers. The shrinking generations following have been cut off at the knees by student debt, predatory capitalism, the gig economy, and now by capitalist enabled inflation. What a cockeyed world!