Disappointment widespread over budget's proposed $200-month disability benefit funding
Advocacy groups across Canada are expressing widespread disappointment about the amount of funding earmarked in the 2024 federal budget for the long-awaited Canada Disability Benefit.
On Tuesday, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland revealed that the Liberals were finally ready to roll out funding for this federal income supplement.
The government has allocated $6.1 billion over six years and $1.4 billion ongoing, including the costs to deliver the benefit. This funding would provide for a maximum benefit amount of $2,400 per year.
However, as stakeholders have been quick to realize, with the benefit estimated to be offered to 600,000 people with disabilities, the proposed maximum benefit would be just $200 per month, or as March of Dimes Canada estimates, "just $6.66 per day."
"This budget doesn't begin to fulfill the government's promise to lift people with disabilities out of poverty, let alone the 'promise of Canada' – a fair shot at a prosperous future," said March of Dimes Canada's President and CEO Len Baker, in a statement.
While celebrating the important step taken to launch this benefit, Daily Bread Food Bank CEO Neil Hetherington said there remains a "clear need" to increase payments.
"It is imperative that this program helps people with disabilities live above the poverty line," he said in a statement.
Forty-one per cent of low-income Canadians live with a disability and 16.5 per cent of the disabled people in Canada live in poverty, according to Disability Without Poverty. Reacting to the budget, the group's national director Rabia Khedr said this benefit was supposed to "offer real hope" but has instead fallen short.
Last week, an Angus Reid Institute survey indicated overwhelming support for the benefit but that just one-in-20 respondents were confident the government would follow through.
Green Party co-leader Elizabeth May called the inclusion of this funding in the budget "check-box politics."
"It's there… But when you look at the details and say 'what, $200 a month? And not starting until July 2025, with further conditions for eligibility?' We called for an end to legislated poverty for people with disabilities. That's not in here," May said in her post-budget reaction press conference.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has also said he wants to get some clarity from the government on this funding before determining whether his party will back the Liberals on this budget.
"People waited for a year and a half for the disability benefit, and it's only $200, at a time when the cost of living is so high? What's the plan to increase that?" Singh said in an interview on Â鶹´«Ã½ Channel's Power Play on Tuesday.
In exploring the potential costs of the new benefit, Canada's Parliamentary Budget Officer estimated that it would take up to $14,356 a year per person to close the gap between current social assistance people living with disabilities receive, and the poverty line.
Groups are also concerned about the threshold for eligibility as outlined in the budget, warning that it will only cover fewer than half of those currently receiving disability income support.
Under the plan, low-income persons with disabilities between the ages of 18 and 64 who have a valid Disability Tax Credit (DTC) certificate will be eligible.
"Using the DTC as the only access point… is concerning when there are other valid ways to verify disability," said Baker added. "Asking people with disabilities to jump through additional hoops to access financial security benefits they’re entitled to is harmful and traumatizing."
Hetherington said expanded eligibility "will be necessary to effect meaningful change."
, the government plans to issue the first payments in July 2025.
The budget also vows coverage for the cost of medical forms required to apply for this financial assistance, and to consult people with disabilities on the benefit's maximum income thresholds and phase-out rates.
However, "the benefit design will need to fit the investment proposed in Budget 2024."
Work has been underway on making this new stream of financial assistance a reality, for years.
After passing legislation in June of last year, by September Minister of Diversity, Inclusion and Persons with Disabilities Kamal Khera still couldn't say when it would come into effect, stating her focus was on getting it "right." This prompted petitions for an interim "emerge relief benefit" that never came to fruition.
Faced with questions on the subject on Parliament Hill on Wednesday Khera defended the plan as a "major milestone" and a "key benefit," but conceded it is a "starting point."
"There's always more to do but I will say, you know, if you look at the budget this is the largest single item that you will see, $6.1 billion. This is around building a social safety net around persons with disabilities," she said.
When pressed on whether the federal government will increase the benefit in the future, Khera wouldn't say.
The government has framed this federal income supplement as a legacy social policy that will help hundreds of thousands of low-income, working-age people with disabilities, meant to supplement existing provincial and territorial benefits.
However, ambiguity remains about the potential for cross-jurisdictional claw backs, with the federal government stating they are still calling on provinces and territories to agree to exempt the Canada Disability Benefit from counting as income in relation to qualifying for other supports.
On the premise that "every dollar matters to those living with a disability," the government states in the budget that it "aspires to see the combined amount of federal and provincial or territorial income supports for persons with disabilities grow to the level of Old Age Security (OAS) and the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS)."
Questioned on her way in to a Liberal caucus meeting, MP Pam Damoff said the government is aware that advocates are disappointed and while she too would have liked to see additional funding, "it's more than we had before."
"It does open the doors of conversations with provinces and territories as well… They need to come to the table on this," said Damoff, who was who had written to Freeland before the budget asking for it to include funding for the benefit.
"This isn't a sole federal responsibility to make sure people are not living in poverty. And I do get a little frustrated when everything is dumped on our backs. Provinces need to step up for some of the most vulnerable people in the country, and we're working to fill that gap, but it's not solely on our shoulders."
IN DEPTH
Jagmeet Singh pulls NDP out of deal with Trudeau Liberals, takes aim at Poilievre Conservatives
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has pulled his party out of the supply-and-confidence agreement that had been helping keep Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's minority Liberals in power.
'Not the result we wanted': Trudeau responds after surprise Conservative byelection win in Liberal stronghold
Conservative candidate Don Stewart winning the closely-watched Toronto-St. Paul's federal byelection, and delivering a stunning upset to Justin Trudeau's candidate Leslie Church in the long-time Liberal riding, has sent political shockwaves through both parties.
'We will go with the majority': Liberals slammed by opposition over proposal to delay next election
The federal Liberal government learned Friday it might have to retreat on a proposal within its electoral reform legislation to delay the next vote by one week, after all opposition parties came out to say they can't support it.
Budget 2024 prioritizes housing while taxing highest earners, deficit projected at $39.8B
In an effort to level the playing field for young people, in the 2024 federal budget, the government is targeting Canada's highest earners with new taxes in order to help offset billions in new spending to enhance the country's housing supply and social supports.
'One of the greatest': Former prime minister Brian Mulroney commemorated at state funeral
Prominent Canadians, political leaders, and family members remembered former prime minister and Progressive Conservative titan Brian Mulroney as an ambitious and compassionate nation-builder at his state funeral on Saturday.
Opinion
opinion Don Martin: Gusher of Liberal spending won't put out the fire in this dumpster
A Hail Mary rehash of the greatest hits from the Trudeau government’s three-week travelling pony-show, the 2024 federal budget takes aim at reversing the party’s popularity plunge in the under-40 set, writes political columnist Don Martin. But will it work before the next election?
opinion Don Martin: The doctor Trudeau dumped has a prescription for better health care
Political columnist Don Martin sat down with former federal health minister Jane Philpott, who's on a crusade to help fix Canada's broken health care system, and who declined to take any shots at the prime minister who dumped her from caucus.
opinion Don Martin: Trudeau's seeking shelter from the housing storm he helped create
While Justin Trudeau's recent housing announcements are generally drawing praise from experts, political columnist Don Martin argues there shouldn’t be any standing ovations for a prime minister who helped caused the problem in the first place.
opinion Don Martin: Poilievre has the field to himself as he races across the country to big crowds
It came to pass on Thursday evening that the confidentially predictable failure of the Official Opposition non-confidence motion went down with 204 Liberal, BQ and NDP nays to 116 Conservative yeas. But forcing Canada into a federal election campaign was never the point.
opinion Don Martin: How a beer break may have doomed the carbon tax hike
When the Liberal government chopped a planned beer excise tax hike to two per cent from 4.5 per cent and froze future increases until after the next election, says political columnist Don Martin, it almost guaranteed a similar carbon tax move in the offing.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
BREAKING Liberal government survives confidence vote
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has survived his first confidence vote of the fall sitting. Members of Parliament voted on Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre's attempt to bring down the Liberal government after question period on Wednesday, and the non-confidence motion was defeated.
'It is time to leave': Joly to meet with Lebanese PM amid Israel-Hezbollah conflict
Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly says she will meet with Lebanon's prime minister in New York on Saturday amid the escalating conflict between Israel and militant group Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
A man who "systematically isolated, manipulated, deceived, abused, and exploited" an elderly North Vancouver woman has lost his ownership stake in her home.
Trudeau accuses Conservatives of 'casual homophobic comments' in question period
With a confidence vote looming, debate in the House of Commons devolved on Wednesday into a heated exchange of accusations, seeing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau suggest Conservative MPs made 'casual homophobic comments.'
Ontario Premier Doug Ford says he wants to build a tunnel under Highway 401 that would stretch from Brampton to Scarborough.
Yogurt recalled in Canada over risk of illness
A major yogurt maker is recalling one of its brands in Canada over concerns that it may cause illness in immunocompromised people.
Pope expels a bishop and 9 other people from a Peru movement over 'sadistic' abuses
Pope Francis took the unusual decision Wednesday to expel 10 people – a bishop, priests and laypeople -- from a troubled Catholic movement in Peru after a Vatican investigation uncovered 'sadistic' abuses of power, authority and spirituality.
GRAPHIC WARNING: A woman accusing Jacob Hoggard of sexual assault in northern Ontario told his trial the musician raped, hit and choked her before urinating on her in a hotel room after she attended his band's concert and an after-party eight years ago.
Amadeus? Amadeus!: Lost childhood manuscript of Mozart discovered in Germany
Careful listeners of Mozart may notice an unfamiliar melody attributed to his childhood works in their streaming feeds this week.
Local Spotlight
An Indigenous artist has a buyer-beware warning ahead of Sept. 30, the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
Police are looking to the public for help after thieves broke into a Lethbridge ice creamery, stealing from the store.
An ordinary day on the job delivering mail in East Elmwood quickly turned dramatic for Canada Post letter carrier Jared Plourde. A woman on his route was calling out in distress.
Fire has destroyed a barn and 17,000 plants at a family-owned business in Lower Coverdale, N.B.
Before influencers on social media, Canada’s Jeanne Beker was bringing the world of high fashion down to earth and as Calgary’s Glenbow Museum gets a major make-over, it will include a new exhibition showcasing the pop culture icon.
A sea lion swam free after a rescue team disentangled it near Vancouver Island earlier this week.
A Nova Scotian YouTuber has launched a mini-truck bookmobile.
Cole Haas is more than just an avid fan of the F.W. Johnson Wildcats football team. He's a fixture on the sidelines, a source of encouragement, and a beloved member of the team.
Getting a photograph of a rainbow? Common. Getting a photo of a lightning strike? Rare. Getting a photo of both at the same time? Extremely rare, but it happened to a Manitoba photographer this week.