The federal government’s announcement this week about the new Canada Disability Benefit sent Cate Rivers into a flurry of anger, despair, grief — and determination.
“I wish I had words for how I feel today,” she said from her home in Cape Breton, N.S. on Wednesday afternoon. “I’ve laughed, I’ve cried, I’ve laid down and tried to have a nap. I have hugged my cat.”
Rivers, 51, has waited for the Canada Disability Benefit, a national financial benefit for Canadians with disabilities between 18- and 64-years-old, since 2020, when the government first announced it would create one. Rivers, who previously worked in retail and the media, has been unable to work since 2017 due to several autoimmune conditions.
Now, she expects to wait to see if the government will improve its new Canada Disability Benefit.
She spent Wednesday morning writing sample letters people can send to their MPs urging them to improve it. “They’ve got to fix this. It just needs to make more people’s lives better and easier.”
Rivers watched Tuesday’s budget announcement during dinner, her phone propped up against her pepper grinder. She was elated when Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said the benefit was in the budget — “you could have knocked me over with a feather” — but she quickly became enraged at the details.
According to the budget, the maximum benefit amount is $2,400 a year, $200 a month. Only people with the Disability Tax Credit are eligible. The Disability Tax Credit is a non-refundable credit that lowers the amount of income tax disabled people — or relatives who support them — pay. Many people who cannot work because of their disabilities do not apply for the credit because they do not pay income tax.
Canada Disability Benefit payments will begin July 2025. There will be phase-out rates, but they have not been determined.
The budget estimates 600,000 people will receive the benefit. Statistics Canada estimates 27 per cent of Canadians older than 15 have a disability. In 2021, the most recent statistics available, 16 per cent of Canadians with disabilities — 1.5 million people — lived in poverty.
In 2022, the annual amount of provincial social assistance for a single disabled adult ranged from $10,884 in New Brunswick to $21,319 in Alberta, a report from anti-poverty advocacy organization Maytree says. The territories provided more social assistance.
The Parliamentary Budget Office released a report last fall on the benefit. It said the benefit needed to be up to $14,356 to bring disabled people up to the poverty line, depending on their province. It also estimated the benefit would need to be up to $22,701 to lift disabled people out of poverty if accounting for the extra expenses associated with being disabled.
The $2,400 benefit announced in the budget is 16.7 per cent and 10.5 per cent of these figures, respectively.
“Almost no people are going to be affected by this,” said Rivers, who receives the Disability Tax Credit. “Not one person will be lifted out of poverty with $200 a month at a maximum.”
“It is a slap in the face,” said Bret Wills, 39, a part-time writer in Mississauga who has spina bifida and hydrocephalus. Wills receives the Disability Tax Credit. He does not think the Canada Disability Benefit will materially change his circumstances — not when a tank of gas costs him $100.
‘Mostly useless’
Canadian Affairs heard from dozens of Canadians with disabilities. They all shared their frustration with the benefit’s low amount and high eligibility restrictions. Many mentioned it would be easier to qualify for medical assistance in dying (MAID) than to qualify for this benefit.
The Canadian Human Rights Commission has warned about disabled Canadians turning to MAID because of poverty. Many experts say there needs to be more oversight for MAID when people do not have terminal conditions, as Canadian Affairs has previously reported.
Many people contacted for this story critiqued restricting eligibility to those with the Disability Tax Credit.
The credit “is mostly useless unless you work,” said Jeffrey Salisbury, who got the tax credit in 2020. Salisbury, 39, has a developmental disability and depression and has advocated for Ottawa to support disabled Canadians while they wait for the Canada Disability Benefit. He does not have a job. He applied for the Disability Tax Credit so he could open a Registered Disability Savings Plan, a savings account specifically for people with disabilities. Only people with the tax credit can open these accounts.
Rabia Khedr, national director of Disability Without Poverty, a group that advocated for the benefit, echoed these frustrations.
The benefit falls “horribly short of what it needs to be,” she said. “We are heartbroken for all those people that were waiting and now feel hopeless and abandoned and devalued.”
The organization will continue to advocate for improvements to the benefit and for all recipients of provincial and territorial disability assistance to be eligible for the Disability Tax Credit.
“The government let us down,” Khedr said.
“We understand the disability community’s call for more support,” Laurent de Casanove, spokesperson for Kamal Khera, federal minister of diversity, inclusion and persons with disabilities, said in a statement to Canadian Affairs. “We are committed to expanding support for persons with disabilities, including enhancing their financial security.”
Khera’s office did not say how the government plans to do that.
“This moment is crucial as it lays the groundwork to get this benefit into Canadians’ pockets,” the statement says.
The government is budgeting $6.1 billion over six years, beginning in 2024-25, and $1.4 billion annually after that for the benefit. The regulations for the benefit still need to be created.
In a statement, the Department of Finance called the new Canada Disability Benefit “significant.” It said the benefit is meant to supplement provincial and territorial benefits. “Helping Canadians living with disabilities is not something the federal government can do alone.”
Bonita Zarillo, the NDP’s disability and inclusion critic, called the benefit “woefully inadequate,” in a statement. “At $200 a month the benefit doesn’t even cover the cost of groceries let alone rent, medications or other expenses. It’s disappointing that the government is once again failing to live up to their own promises.”
The Green Party decried the benefit in a statement hours after the budget was released, saying it was not adequate.
MP Tracy Gray, the Conservative Party’s disability critic, did not respond to a request for comment.
‘Confiscation machine’
Policy experts have also panned the announcement.
Michael Prince, a researcher on social policy and professor at the University of Victoria, announced on X on Thursday that he had resigned from the federal government’s Disability Advisory Group because of how inadequate the benefit is.
Restricting eligibility to those with the Disability Tax Credit is problematic, says Jennifer Robson, an associate professor in political management at Carleton University.
The Canada Revenue Agency processes the applications and decides who is eligible. But the agency “is not set up to be a benefits-delivery agency,” says Robson. “They are a tax collection agency. They don’t have specialized expertise in the adjudication of the Disability Tax Credit.”
Robson, who advised Disability Without Poverty on benefit design, had strongly advised the government to not restrict the Canada Disability Benefit to people with the tax credit.
Applying for the credit can be expensive. Doctors need to fill out medical assessments at patients’ expense.
The Ontario Medical Association suggests doctors charge a minimum of $150 to complete these forms. Dr. Christopher Leighton, a retired oncologist in Windsor, Ont., says he thinks it is unlikely that doctors would charge more. Some doctors, he says, may not charge fees if they know the patient cannot afford it.
The budget says the government will give $243 million over six years, beginning next year, to offset the doctors’ fees people pay for Disability Tax Credit paperwork.
Department of Finance officials said Wednesday financial eligibility for the Canada Disability Benefit will be determined based on family income, not the applicant’s income.
An applicant could be disqualified from receiving the benefit because of their spouse’s income, Robson says. “If their income counts, it is more likely [the benefit applicant] is going to get bounced above the threshold,” she said.
John Stapleton, a policy consultant in Ontario, agrees the benefit offers too little. And using it to top-up social assistance programs ignores the problems with those programs.
Social assistance programs are a “confiscation machine,” he said. They are reduced if a person works or receives federal benefits, such as employment insurance or the Canada Pension Plan. There needs to be a better program to replace provincial and territorial social assistance programs, he says.
The federal government is urging provinces and territories not to reduce social assistance if people receive the Canada Disability Benefit, the budget says. But, so far, that is not required.
Disincentives to work
The federal government “did not prioritize Canadians with disabilities,” Robson said. Ottawa chose to focus on social policies like child-care, dental care and pharmacare. “This benefit became an afterthought.”
The government should encourage disabled Canadians to work, says Renze Nauta, who researches topics related to work at Cardus, a public policy think tank. “The government really needs to ensure that there are not disincentives to work built into the benefit,” he said.
Clawbacks on social assistance can penalize people with disabilities who are able to and want to work, he says.
“There are people who cannot work and for those people, it is important for government to support them to ensure that they can live a dignified life,” he said. More needs to be done to encourage employers to make work accessible for disabled people who can work, he says.
Work increases people’s social connections. The “inherent dignity and value of work should be recognized,” he said.
In Cape Breton, Rivers would take a job “in a heartbeat,” she said. “I feel unfulfilled.”
Advocating for improvements to the Canada Disability Benefit is harder now than she expected. But she is determined to keep trying.
“It’s a battle, not a war,” she says. “I think there’s still progress that can be made.”
(Editor’s Note: Meagan Gillmore, who wrote this story, worked on contract in 2021 for Disability Without Poverty, writing for their website. She had no involvement in planning their advocacy efforts nor advising the government on the benefit design.)
Editor’s Note: This article was updated to clarify that eligibility for the benefit will be based on family income. A previous version of this article said eligibility will be based on household income.
Leave a comment