For more than a decade, Cathy Chirkoff’s friends have told her to return to Australia.
The Vernon, B.C., resident, who moved from Australia to Canada in 2008, has resisted. But she thinks about it “all the time,” she said.
She thinks of it during lunch-hour meetings with social workers and nurses as they discuss her daughter’s needs.
She contemplates it at night as she helps nurses roll her daughter over so she can breathe properly.
The thoughts return during the nearly hour-long drive to Kelowna where her daughter uses a wheelchair-accessible community pool.
And they are her constant companion during the eight-hour trip to BC Children’s Hospital in Vancouver.
Chirkoff’s daughter, Zaria, 16, has a rare genetic condition, pontocerebellar hypoplasia type 2. Like many teenagers, her main priority is having fun. She squeals joyously at the mall, but most people struggle to understand her sounds and facial expressions. Her muscles move uncontrollably. She uses a wheelchair and is fed through a feeding tube.
Chirkoff and Zaria’s father receive government funding to hire caregivers, who enable them to work. “We’re quite happy to work hard, but we also need assistance to support us,” Chirkoff said.
But there is much they do on their own. They frequently renovate their home to accommodate Zaria’s needs, and have fundraised for wheelchair accessible vehicles.
“We need this money to keep a roof over her head, and we’re just making ends meet,” said Chirkoff.
Their financial situation might be different if they lived in Australia, which has a national program to cover disability-related costs for eligible individuals, including home care, accessible vehicles and home renovations.
Chirkoff is one of several individuals who think Canada needs to create its own national disability insurance program.
“If [a Canadian disability insurance plan] covers what Australia’s covers, it would allow us a lot more freedom to help [Zaria] engage in the community,” she said.
But policy experts say even Australia’s program offers no easy fixes. And in the midst of trade tensions, it may be hard to convince Ottawa to invest in a new social program.
Insufficient supports
Launched in 2013, Australia’s national disability insurance scheme was intended to create a unified support program for people with disabilities and their families. It has been operational in all Australian states since 2020, and has supported more than 600,000 people since its launch.
Under the national insurance plan, which is funded through general taxes, individuals receive funding based on their stated goals.
Individuals can use the funding to cover disability-related costs, including personal support workers, assistive technology, transportation and home modifications.
Total funding varies by individual, and is based on individuals’ needs, not income.
In Canada, by contrast, provincial disability social assistance programs and the federal Canada Disability Benefit are primarily available to low-income people with disabilities.
This is also true for some programs that help cover costs for mobility aids, medical devices or other disability-related expenses.
Disability advocates say existing supports in Canada are too modest.
In 2025, the highest annual income for a single disabled adult relying on provincial social assistance was $23,791 — well below the poverty line, a Maytree Foundation study found.
At $204 a month, the federal Canada Disability Benefit has also been criticized for being too small to meaningfully improve individuals’ lives.
Since 2014, the national charity Every Canadian Counts has advocated for Canada to adopt a national disability insurance plan. Hubert van Niekerk, the charity’s executive director, says the first step is for the federal government to study how such a plan could work in Canada.
Progress has been slow. But in recent months, van Niekerk has seen more interest from politicians, researchers and different disability organizations, he said in an interview in June.
A petition to the federal government calling for the creation of such a plan garnered nearly 700 signatures from across Canada. A Liberal MP presented it as a topic for the party to consider at its 2026 convention, although no resolution on the topic was passed. Conservative MPs have also shown interest, van Niekerk says.
More academics are also interested, says van Niekerk who has spoken about the disability insurance model at several conferences. “People are listening,” he said.
Van Niekerk met with staff from the office of Patty Hajdu, minister of families and jobs.
In an email to Canadian Affairs, Hajdu’s office did not say whether the federal government is considering studying a national disability insurance plan. Instead, the minister’s office listed federal programs that are already available.
Confusing and over-budget
Australia’s disability insurance program has benefitted thousands of people and their families. But it has also been plagued with problems.
By 2023, the program’s cost had ballooned to more than AUS$35 billion annually, vastly exceeding initial program projections, an independent review of the program found.
The review further estimated the program would cost $92 billion by 2032-2033 — a number that casts doubt on the program’s long-term sustainability.
One reason for the cost overruns is more people are using the program than anticipated.
In its final report, the review noted the plan’s focus on creating individually tailored supports had made it confusing.
The program has also reduced funding to disability organizations that support people outside the national insurance scheme.
“Governments have come to rely on the [National Disability Insurance Scheme] as the dominant, and in some cases only, source of supports for people with disability — the oasis in the desert,” the report says.
“This is to the detriment of all people with disability, particularly those outside the scheme.”
Australia’s federal government has laid out a plan to improve the program by 2030, including changing the eligibility criteria. The new criteria will mean fewer people qualify for the program.
Van Niekerk acknowledges Australia’s plan needs improvement, but he does not think it should be entirely discarded.
“It’s really just a matter of learning from what’s taken place there, and just make a whole lot better system,” he said.
But not everyone is convinced Canada should follow Australia’s lead.
“I don’t know if you’d get coast-to-coast coverage on it,” said Michael Prince, a retired University of Victoria professor and a leading expert on Canadian disability social policy.
Prince doubts Alberta and Quebec would agree to a national disability insurance plan. And given the federal government’s current priorities, like defence and trade, he doubts Ottawa is interested in creating one.
And even if there was interest, he says Australia’s model provides a “cautionary tale.”
‘Wears people down’
Others say Canada should consider creating a national insurance program that covers caregiving needs, both for seniors and those with disabilities.
A caregiving insurance program and a program for people with disabilities “could be one and the same. It’s a question of design,” said James Janeiro, director of policy and government relations at the Canadian Centre for Caregiving Excellence.
Janeiro, who has studied care insurance programs around the world, is of the view that these programs work best if they are funded by deductions from employees’ paycheques and government contributions.
Like any insurance program, most people who pay into it will not use it, Janeiro says. But everyone could benefit from it, he says. People can acquire disabilities at any age, and many people need care as they age.
“The number of people who actually draw on [care insurance] in a significant way is relatively low compared to the number of people who [pay into] it,” he said.
While Prince does not think a national disability insurance plan like Australia’s is feasible, he agrees that supports for Canadians with disabilities and their families must be improved.
“People think that there’s programs there to take care of people,” he said. “They’re inadequate. They’re underfunded. They’re inaccessible. It just wears people down.”
Cathy Chirkoff in Vernon, B.C., knows this first hand.
It took her family 15 years of advocacy to secure direct funding for care for their daughter Zaria.
“Fighting the system, it’s like another job,” she said, recalling the years spent advocating for care.
“It’s very heartbreaking to have to fight the system for basic needs all the time.”
She feels the heartbreak acutely. Chirkoff’s oldest daughter, Anastasia, who had the same condition as Zaria, died in 2023 at age 16.
Chirkoff is grateful for the care Zaria receives and the team of caregivers who treat her daughter like family. But she wishes this had been available for her oldest daughter.
“I’m happy for Zaria, but incredibly heartbroken for Ana that she couldn’t have had the quality of life that Zaria is experiencing now.”
But she still has hope for Zaria’s future.
“I want her to live a full, joyful and as healthy as possible life.”
She knows her daughter’s life will not be perfect. Yet her daughters have taught her that “life doesn’t have to be perfect to be incredibly beautiful.”
