Advocates and researchers say the government’s promised Canada Disability Benefit has the potential to significantly reduce the country’s overall poverty rates, but there is still a lot riding on the design process and on Disability Inclusion Minister Carla Qualtrough’s negotiations with the provinces and territories.

Bill C-22 lays out a framework for creating a monthly payment to low-income people with disabilities aged 18 to 64, and instructs the public service to begin the lengthy process of designing the specifics of the benefit. The bill has passed third reading unanimously in both chambers of Parliament, and is now back in the House where MPs will decide whether to accept amendments made in the Senate.

Disability groups and poverty reduction organizations have been calling on MPs to approve Bill C-22 before the House rises for the summer on or before June 23. Government House Leader Mark Holland (Ajax, Ont.) told the House on June 8 that Bill C-22 would be one of the bills given priority in the House the week of June 12.

Leila Sarangi, national director of the child and family poverty group Campaign 2000, told The Hill Times on June 7 that there is such a “huge number” of people with disabilities living on low or very low incomes that a well-constructed federal benefit would “make a huge dent in [Canada’s] overall poverty rate.”

Katherine Scott, senior researcher at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, told The Hill Times on June 7 that a new federal benefit for people with disabilities will “most certainly” reduce poverty levels because this group has historically had rates of poverty at least twice that of people without disabilities.

“There are hundreds of thousands of people with disabilities who rely on provincial social assistance programs for their primary source of income, which ensures that they live in deep poverty,” said Scott, because most provincial and territorial disability social assistance payments are capped “literally thousands of dollars below the poverty line.”

Leonard Baker, president and CEO of the charity March of Dimes Canada, told The Hill Times on June 8 that 25 per cent of working-age people with disabilities in Canada are living below the poverty line. He said it is too early to say how successful the CDB will be at meeting its stated objective of lifting this group out of need, or how this will affect Canada’s overall poverty rate.

“Our hope is that the government does indeed provide a benefit that meets at least that minimal standard,” said Baker, but added that this will depend on how much the government makes available to meet that objective. “And we don’t know what that dollar figure is going to be yet.”

Disability Without Poverty and Campaign 2000’s first annual Disability Poverty Report Card, released on June 2, found that people with disabilities are twice as likely to live in financial difficulty as those without disabilities, and that this often means living in deep poverty, 30 per cent below the poverty line. The report card also says that all provincial disability payments leave their recipients below the poverty line.

“Those numbers are so staggering,” said Sarangi, adding that she hopes Parliamentarians look at the report and “are shocked by what they see” and realize “we can do something about this right now.”

Sarangi said Canada has already seen how government pandemic supports helped the country meet and exceed various poverty reduction targets. But, she said, where these effects were temporary and have already declined as pandemic supports were removed, “a Canada Disability Benefit can sustain that reduction of poverty if it’s done properly.”

Forty-three per cent of working-age people living under poverty line also have disabilities, says researcher

Scott said Statistics Canada data shows that 43 per cent of working-age people (16-64 years) living under the poverty line in Canada are people with disabilities. She added that according to the government’s official poverty line, which uses the market basket measure, there were 805,0000 people with disabilities aged 16-64 living in poverty in 2021. Under a different measurement of poverty called the low income measure after tax, Scott said that number is closer to a million.

But she said it is difficult to produce a precise estimate of how the promised new federal benefit would affect Canada’s overall poverty rate because of the limitations of existing datasets, questions about who will be eligible and how much they would receive, and because it is not yet clear if provinces and territories would allow the federal money to flow directly to its intended recipients without clawing it back or cutting other supports.

Green Party MP Mike Morrice (Kitchener Centre, Ont.) said in a June 7 email to The Hill Times that the “bare bones framework” the Liberals used for Bill C-22 means that “the extent that the Canada Disability Benefit will reduce poverty rates in Canada will entirely depend on decisions that will be made in the regulations to follow—from the amount of the benefit to who will be eligible.”

Morrice introduced successful amendments to require the benefit to be inflation-indexed and for a clear definition of the term ‘disability.’ He said these amendments, which were supported by advocates from the disability community, “give us a better chance of the benefit truly reducing poverty.”

Two recent reports—a May 31 publication from March of Dimes Canada and Prosper Canada, and the June 2 disability poverty report card from Disability Without Poverty and Campaign 2000—intend to demonstrate the need for the benefit and the importance of getting it right.

March of Dimes Canada and Prosper Canada’s May 31 report, Benefit Without Barriers, focuses on providing the designers of the CDB with guidelines for how to avoid the mistakes made by other disability support programs.

Baker said the report conveys the frustrations of people with disabilities who have given up on the application processes for other benefits after having to tell their story multiple times to different bureaucrats, or having to provide the specific medical information that will convince a healthcare professional acting in a gatekeeper role, or having to fill out complicated online forms that come with unnecessary barriers. 

Amanda MacKenzie, national director of public affairs for March of Dimes Canada, told The Hill Times on June 8 she hopes the CDB does for people with disabilities what the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) has done for seniors and what the Canada Child Benefit has done for children. The government has said the GIS will be the model for the new disability benefit.

MacKenzie added that one of the key guiding principles of the CDB should be to do no harm. She explained that, in developing the Benefit Without Barriers report, staff heard many times about the “stress and shame” that people with disabilities, family members, and caregivers have experienced while applying for government benefits. “People shouldn’t feel they’re doing something wrong” by applying for programs that are intended to help them, she said.

NDP MP Bonita Zarrillo (Port Moody—Coquitlam, B.C.) told The Hill Times on June 8 she was happy to see the Senate amend the bill to say the benefit must address additional disability-related costs of living. These can include increased costs for accessible transportation, housing, and other needs.

Independent Senator Ratna Omidvar (Ontario), chair of the Senate Social Affairs Committee, wrote in the committee’s report on Bill C-22 that the government’s official poverty line, as defined by the Market Basket Measure, “is not a representative indicator of disability-related living costs and would not achieve the objective of reducing poverty among Canadians with disabilities.” She urged the government “to consider these additional costs” when writing the regulations that will flesh out the CDB.

Zarrillo said community members have made it clear that provincial programs have not been enough to allow them to pay their bills or find adequate housing. “The NDP has always said the benefit needs to be adequate to cover the necessities of life,” said Zarrillo.

Tara Beauport, press secretary for Qualtrough (Delta, B.C.), shared a May 23 statement from the minister that said Qualtrough was glad to see the bill pass third reading in the Senate, and that she was reviewing the Senate’s amendments and looking to ensure the bill’s “swift passage” through the House.

Morrice and Zarrillo both said they wanted to see Bill C-22 pass as soon as possible, with Zarrillo adding that she believed the House and the Senate as a whole want to see the bill passed before the summer recess.

Scott added she, too, is hopeful MPs will pass the bill before the summer recess. “I know Minister Qualtrough is probably working very hard to make sure this happens, but these sorts of things aren’t always in Minister Qualtrough’s hands,” she said.

kphilipupillai@hilltimes.com

The Hill Times

 

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