'Heart breaks': Advocates say new disability benefit still leaves people in poverty

‘Heart breaks’: Advocates say new disability benefit still leaves people in poverty

A new disability benefit that was supposed to be a historic move to lift people out of poverty turned out to be a disappointment in the federal budget, advocates say.

“My heart breaks for people who are waiting for this benefit as a lifeline,” Rabia Khedr, national director of Disability Without Poverty, said in an interview on Wednesday.

“This was hope. This was the light at the end of the tunnel. People were hanging on saying, ‘OK, I don’t have to access medical assistance in dying if this benefit comes through.'”

The Canada Disability Benefit, announced in Tuesday’s budget, will provide a maximum of $2,400 a year — or $200 a month — for low-income people with disabilities starting in July 2025.

About 600,000 people between the ages of 18 and 64 are expected to receive the money, which is “intended to supplement, not replace, existing provincial and territorial income support measures,” the budget says.

But there are more than 1.5 million people with disabilities living well below the poverty line and the equivalent of about $6 a day falls far short of what they need, Khedr said.

The Canada Disability Benefit Act became law on June 22, 2023, with the stated intent of creating a benefit to “reduce poverty and support the financial security of working-age people with disabilities,” according to the Government of Canada website.

“We were very excited. It was a tremendous milestone,” Khedr said.

“We thought we were on the brink of making history, creating systems change. Although it was framework legislation, we had faith in the system that we would establish a robust benefit that would end disability poverty in this country.”

But in practice, the benefit only meets the spirit of the legislation “very nominally,” she said, and will meet the needs of “very few.”

A November report by the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer estimating the costs of the benefit said that, based on what people with disabilities receive from provincial and territorial income assistance programs, it would take up to $14,356 a year per person to bring them up to the poverty line.

It also noted that the national benefit amount could go up to $22,701 a year to take into account the “additional costs associated with living with a disability.”

A benefit of $2,400 a year is “wholly inadequate” to help people who need disability income support to get out of poverty, said Neil Hetherington, CEO of the Daily Bread Food Bank.

“What the government has signalled here is that they are content with charities like the Daily Bread Food Bank feeding individuals whose right to food is not being realized,” he said in an interview.

“They’re content with charity making up the difference.”

The federal budget allocation for the Canada Disability Benefit is $6.1 billion over six years, then $1.4 billion per year after that.

That includes the cost of working with health-care staff and tax professionals to do the paperwork needed for the disability tax credit certificate that would make people eligible for the benefit.

The Canada Disability Benefit is a “major milestone” that happened “thanks to the relentless advocacy of the disability community,” said a press secretary for Kamal Khera, minister of diversity, inclusion and persons with disabilities.

“For the very first time in Canada, there is a benefit designed to support the needs of low-income persons with disabilities and fill the gap between existing supports for persons with disabilities between the Canada Child Benefit and the Old Age Security,” Laurent de Casanove wrote in an email to The Canadian Press on Wednesday.

The amount of the benefit is expected to increase over time, he said.

“We aspire for it to grow to the level of Old Age Security and Guaranteed Income Supplement, but we need to get this in people’s pockets as soon as possible because we know every dollar counts, especially now.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 17, 2024.

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Nicole Ireland and Sarah Ritchie, The Canadian Press