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In September 2020, the Government of Canada committed to creating a new benefit – the Canada Disability Benefit. The promise of lifting disabled people out of poverty in Canada started to become a possibility, with a benefit that would significantly reduce disability poverty.

Currently there are at least 1.4 million disabled people living in poverty in Canada. They represent 41% of the people who live in poverty, which is a disproportional amount, as 22% of the population of Canada are disabled people. The support for lifting disabled people out of poverty is strong, as 89% of Canadians agree that this is the right thing to do.

Disabled people and their allies have long recognized that this is an unacceptable situation. Belonging to the only minority group that anyone can join at any time often means never being employed or being underemployed – never having a career or earning a wage and all that comes with it, not accruing benefits for the future, not achieving those societal expectations of being a “worthy contributor to society”, being constantly dependent rather than independent.

All too easily, the word benefit becomes synonymous with money – but that’s a small part of the story here. Instead, a benefit that takes a human rights perspective, that sees poverty reduction as a strategy that delivers dignity, autonomy, inclusivity, and independence to disabled people, offers genuine, substantive meaningful change to disabled people living in poverty.

It allows disabled people to be included as full members of society, by ensuring they have funds to cover the basic necessities for life, by ensuring that they have the goods and services they need, and by ensuring disabled people are seen as active, engaged, contributing members of our society, where they are respected for the skills they bring to a vibrant, diverse Canada.

So – what are our priorities?

The development of the benefit must

• Include disabled people in all aspects of the design of the benefit.
• Balance thorough examination of the situation with a speedy response to get the money into the hands of disabled people as quickly as possible.

The benefit itself:

• The new benefit must be in addition to any current federal, territorial and provincial benefits and services, and private insurance payments that disabled people receive. The complexity of supports needed by disabled people means that a suite of supports are needed, including housing, health care, equipment provision, community care and so on. No single benefit can cover these needs. Hence, there must be no claw backs, financially or of goods and services.

• The Canada Disability Benefit must be an individualized benefit, so that disabled people have financial independence. The Canada Disability Benefit should belong to the individual disabled person, not be means tested across a relationship or a family, giving disabled people their own income, and the autonomy that this brings. 

• Access to this benefit must have the fewest hoops – disabled people who already receive a federal, territorial or provincial benefit get immediate access to the benefit.

• Those disabled people who do not receive a federal, territorial or provincial benefit need a separate application to apply, one that also gives them speedy access to the benefit.

• Accessibility must also include disabled people whose level of disability changes – because  disability is permanent or temporary, stable or progressive or episodic – and they must be able to access this benefit as their situation changes.

• There must also a generous earnings exemption, so that disabled people who are able to work have the chance to keep the money they earn. To make work pay for these disabled people, they must benefit from the wages they earn, rather than lose it paying for the supports that they need to live.

• Finally, the Canada Disability Benefit must actually lift disabled people out of poverty, by being part of a system of benefits that provides an income that is above Canada’s Official Poverty Line, so that is takes into account the additional costs of disability.

Michelle Hewitt

November 2021