It is time for Canada to end poverty among persons with disabilities

The Canada disability benefit proposed by the Liberal government could make a difference but instead it’s just an aspirational statement.

This article was orginally published on Ipolitics

Saturday, Dec. 3 is the UN International Day of Persons with Disabilities. It is a day to promote understanding of disability issues and fight for the dignity, rights and well-being of persons living with disabilities.

Since this day was proclaimed in 1992, successive Liberal and Conservative governments have achieved little for the disability community. In Canada, close to one million people living with a disability live in poverty. This is inexcusable in a country as wealthy as ours.

As housing, food and transportation costs skyrocket, the well-being of persons with disabilities is declining even further. The federal government failed to deliver the help they need to get by and end the legislated poverty for people living with a disability.

In 2020, the Canadian Human Rights Commission led a survey of Canadians with disabilities, the organizations that advocate for them, and their families and caregivers. The results showed that 85 per cent of respondents felt that Canada was doing a bad job of promoting and protecting the rights of persons with disabilities — and poverty was the top concern.

Right now, the Liberals have an opportunity with Bill C-22, an act to establish the Canada disability benefit, to eliminate poverty among persons with disabilities for good. New Democrats want to seize the opportunity to improve the bill to finally make a difference in people’s lives.

But, as it stands, the Canada disability benefit proposed by the Liberal government is an aspirational statement to reduce poverty rather than an actual commitment — backed by funding — to eliminate it. It lacks the most basic of financial protections to ensure people can make ends meet.

Done right, Bill C-22 has the potential to uphold the human rights and dignity of persons with disabilities and truly ensure they do not live in poverty. And what’s the key to making this bill work? It’s to include an adequate income — a commitment Canada made in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and in Canada’s own Constitution.

Canada’s human rights obligations must be implemented and respected. Now is the time to act. Chronic government underfunding in supports for people living with a disability has resulted in insurmountable barriers to full and equal participation in civic life.

I have heard from so many people living with a disability describing the dire financial circumstances they are living in, including inadequate, inaccessible and unaffordable housing; reliance on food banks; barriers to education, employment and social inclusion; and rising costs — all while receiving support payments that were inadequate years before the current inflation crisis. A massive number of Canadians with disabilities are trapped in an excruciating cycle of poverty and despair. Many of them are now starting to see medical assistance in dying as their only escape — not because they want to die, but because they can’t afford to live.

Urgent government action is needed now.

New Democrats believe the Canada disability benefit must address poverty head-on. It must define a benefit amount that is enough to meet the basic needs of persons with disabilities, and that amount must be embedded in the law.

There can be no legitimate conversation on human rights and dignity when people’s most basic needs, such as housing, food, clothing and medication, are not met. Governments say that everyone has equal rights, yet successive Liberal and Conservative governments have failed to offer people with disabilities equal protection under the law, including the income supports they need to survive.

This is long-standing discrimination that needs to be corrected.

Canada aspires to be a world leader in the eradication of poverty, and Bill C-22 is our chance to make that a reality for persons with disabilities. This is a historic opportunity to hold the government to account to enact the first federal law in Canada that legislates people out of poverty.

New Democrats will continue to fight to make that happen.

Bonita Zarrillo is the NDP member of Parliament for Port Moody-Coquitlam and her party’s critic for disability inclusion.