QUESTION PERIOD — Employment and Social Development
Canada Disability Benefit
December 11, 2024
Senator Gold, the Canada Disability Benefit was introduced as a promise to lift low-income Canadians with disabilities out of poverty. As our colleague Senator Seidman and co-author Rabia Khedr pointed out in a recent Montreal Gazette article, this promise is undermined by requiring those people to qualify for the Disability Tax Credit. That qualification process is overly complex, costly and excludes many of Canada’s most vulnerable people. Inclusion Canada stresses the need to expand eligibility beyond the Disability Tax Credit by automatically qualifying anyone currently receiving provincial or territorial disability benefits.
Senator Gold, why has the government chosen to hinge its access to the disability benefit on this exclusionary system? Will eligibility be expanded to include people currently receiving provincial or territorial disability benefits?
Thank you for your question, senator, and for your continued advocacy on this important matter, as well as the advocacy of others in this chamber, who were mentioned earlier today.
The benefit, as we all know, is being created to reduce poverty and support the financial security of working-age people with disabilities. We all acknowledge, as I did earlier today, that much more work needs to be done, and we all hope that will be done. My understanding is that the Canada Disability Benefit Regulations will make it possible for the benefit to be paid to those individuals who were meant to receive the benefit.
Hopefully, they will expand the access.
Senator Gold, the government estimates that at its current maximum level of $200 per month, the Canada Disability Benefit will lift about 25,000 people out of poverty. However, this represents only a small fraction of the 1.5 million Canadians with disabilities currently living in poverty.
Senator Gold, the government says it wants to spend money on a $250 affordability rebate. Why not demonstrate the same commitment to disabled Canadians by raising the Canada Disability Benefit to a meaningful level?
Thank you for your question.
As we all understand, the level of the benefit of $2,400 a year for low-income persons with disabilities was a significant step forward, with an eye toward cementing this program so that it’s available for generations to come. As with all progressive programs that this government has delivered, they’re built to be enhanced and expanded, and the government has so indicated in the budget. I understand the government hopes to grow this benefit to the level of Old Age Security and the Guaranteed Income Supplement, but the government’s focus has been to get it out immediately.
