Disability advocates say Alberta needs to do more to support people with disabilities than simply restrict medical assistance in dying (MAID).
In March, Alberta proposed legislation to ban MAID for people whose deaths are not reasonably foreseeable, known as Track 2 MAID.
Disability advocates have welcomed this move, noting Track 2 MAID devalues the lives of people with disabilities by making them the only Canadians eligible for assisted death when they are suffering, but not dying.
But they also worry the government is making it harder for people with disabilities to live good lives in Alberta.
On March 23, the Alberta government voted against a private member’s bill that would have mandated the province improve accessibility for people with disabilities. And this summer, the government will roll out a new social assistance program for people with disabilities that could see people receive less money to live.
“It’s a very mixed message the government is sending,” said Heidi Janz, a disability advocate and adjunct professor at the University of Alberta, who calls Alberta’s proposed MAID reforms “phenomenal.”
“It’s the first glimmer of hope we’ve seen that the runaway train that is MAID in Canada can be slowed down,” she said.
But the government’s other decisions affecting people with disabilities leave her in despair.
“I’ve never been more conflicted in my life,” said Janz, who has cerebral palsy. “They’ve totally broken my trust in them.”
A new disability program
In July, Alberta will launch a new program, the Alberta Disability Assistance Program, which will provide individuals with up to $1,740 a month. This is $200 less than they receive under the current program, the Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped program.
Most of the nearly 78,000 people who receive support under the current program will be moved onto the new program.
However, people can still apply for the Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped, including those who are set to be moved off it in July. But only individuals that a group of medical adjudicators deem permanently unable to work will be approved for this program.
“There are a great many questions and unknowns, and it’s generating a lot of fear and confusion about what exactly this means for people’s lives,” said Bruce MacKay, past board president of Inclusion Lethbridge, an organization that supports individuals with disabilities.
MacKay knows the uncertainty personally. His daughter receives funding under the current program and the family does not know what the change will mean for her.
What he does know is the uncertainty is making some people with disabilities contemplate MAID. Inclusion Lethbridge has received calls from people who say they are considering MAID because they worry the new program will not provide for their needs.
MacKay supports repealing Track 2 MAID, in Alberta and across Canada. Track 2 MAID implies a “lack of worth and lack of value for people with disabilities,” he said.
But he says many of the government’s recent decisions do not show that the government values Albertans with disabilities.
He cited examples such as the province cutting funding to self-advocacy organizations for people with disabilities, and increasing rent for people who receive disability supports and live in community housing.
Alberta is also the only province that claws back social assistance from people who receive the Canada Disability Benefit, a new federal benefit that provides up to $200 a month to eligible low-income Canadians with disabilities.
MacKay is also concerned about Alberta’s decision to link eligibility for the Alberta Disability Assistance Program to an individual’s ability to work. He says this suggests people are only valuable, or are more valuable, if they can work.
“These determinations based on medical diagnosis and ability to be employed diminishes that recognition of human value,” he said.
Some doctors are raising concerns, saying the new program will harm the well-being of Albertans with disabilities.
“Often, these are folks that haven’t been adequately supported by the system, and now the system is threatening to take more away from them,” said Dr. Sarah Bates, a family doctor in Calgary. She has filled out many medical forms for her patients who receive Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped.
Decreasing their monthly support is “the difference between making healthy food choices and economical food choices,” she said. “It’s the difference between buying a new hat or gloves in the middle of winter.”
She also raised concerns about having people re-apply for the Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped program.
“People are on these programs for very good reasons,” she said. “There has been a rigorous medical assessment that has put them there in the first place, and to go through the whole process all over again, seems wasteful.”
Enabling work?
The government says it is creating the Alberta Disability Assistance Program to encourage people with disabilities to work, and to allow those who work to keep more of their income.
But Janz says it is not clear whether employers will be supported to make workplaces accessible or accommodate employees with disabilities.
“There’s very few jobs that provide the accommodations that would allow disabled people to be able to work to their full potential and that’s a big part of what’s missing with [Alberta Disability Assistance Program],” said Janz, who has been on-and-off social assistance her entire adult life depending on her employment status.
Alberta reduces social assistance payments for people with disabilities the more they earn.
Recipients of the current program, Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped program, can earn $1,072 a month before their benefits are reduced.
The government has said that under the Alberta Disability Assistance Program, people will be able to earn $700 a month before their payments are reduced.
The amount of these reductions will be set out later, but they will be lower under the new program than they are under the Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped, the government told Canadian Affairs in an email.
The Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped has steep reduction rates. Reductions begin at 50 cents for every dollar earned between $1,072 and $2,009. Benefits are deducted dollar-for-dollar for every dollar earned above $2,009.
Still, some social policy experts say the government could have encouraged people with disabilities to work by adjusting the current program, not making a new one.
“The way they’re designing [Alberta Disability Assistance Program] and what they say [are the program’s goals] are at odds with each other,” said Gillian Petit, a research associate at the University of Calgary who studies taxation and social assistance policies.
Employment is important for people with disabilities, she says. But social assistance applications focus too much on describing what people cannot do.
“It reduces the dignity of clients,” she said. “It’s demeaning whenever we’re having to prove our incapacity instead of our capacity.”
Even though Alberta’s disability social assistance is the highest in Canada, it still leaves people who rely on it living below poverty levels.
“This shouldn’t be a race to the bottom,” she said.
