House of Commons Standing Committee Makes Five Amendments to the Weak Bill C-22, the Proposed Canada Disability Benefit Act and More May Be Coming Today

Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance Update

United for a Barrier-Free Society for All People with Disabilities

Web: www.aodaalliance.org Email: aodafeedback@gmail.com Twitter: @aodaalliance Facebook: www.facebook.com/aodaalliance/

 

House of Commons Standing Committee Makes Five Amendments to the Weak Bill C-22, the Proposed Canada Disability Benefit Act and More May Be Coming Today

 

December 12, 2022

 

SUMMARY

 

At its December 7, 2022 meeting, HUMA, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, started its clause-by-clause review of Bill C-22, the proposed Canada Disability Benefit Act. That is where the Committee decides what amendments, if any, to make to that bill.

 

That review continues today, December 12, 2022 from 3:30 to 5:30 pm. It can be watched live or archived on the HUMA website.

 

This Update gives the AODA Alliance’s summary and analysis of the December 7, 2022 HUMA meeting. HUMA has made five amendments to the bill so far, including one that the Trudeau Liberals opposed. Two of the amendments were explicitly attributed to the AODA Alliance, among other disability advocates. All the amendments help improve the bill. However, we will need to see the final bill before we can assess how much they improve the bill. One NDP motion for an amendment, which the Standing Committee deferred to today’s meeting,  needs a modest fix that we describe below to make it a positive addition to the bill.

 

Here are key points in this update:

 

  • There were troubling disability accessibility problems for those watching the December 7, 2022 HUMA meeting, although there also was a helpful accessibility improvement for which we have been lobbying.

 

  • The Liberals argued consistently against the need for any amendments to the bill. Despite this, they supported and applauded four of the five amendments that passed.

 

  • As the AODA Alliance had forecast, the fact that Canada now has a minority government has worked to the advantage of people with disabilities in the context of Bill C-22.

 

  • The HUMA chair harmfully ruled out of order two important proposed amendments, so the Standing Committee could not even debate them, much less vote on them. This substantially weakens Bill C-22 as a measure to lift people with disabilities out of poverty.

 

  • There had been backroom negotiations and discussions among the parties over what amendments to make to Bill C-22. This is understandable, but the disability community has been frozen out of these discussions. What ever happened to the parties all invoking the disability rights maxim: “Nothing about us without us”?

 

  • Five amendments were passed. These (a) add a broad definition of disability to the bill, (b) require federal/provincial/territorial agreements on the Canada Disability Benefit to be made public, (c) speak of a requirement to index the Canada Disability Benefit to inflation, (d) speak to the need for the application process for the Canada Disability Benefit to be barrier-free, and (e) require Cabinet to consider the poverty line when setting the amount of the Canada Disability Benefit.

 

  • There is a need to revise a proposed NDP amendment on which HUMA has not yet voted. It seeks to put limits on Cabinet’s arbitrary power to make regulations setting every last detail of the Canada Disability Benefit. It is well-meaning, but could have harmful consequences. We offer a helpful way to fix it.

 

  • Two proposed amendments did not get passed.

 

  • A proposed Conservative amendment to prevent federal claw-backs of the Canada Disability Benefit was deferred to the next HUMA meeting.

 

To learn more about these issues, check out:

 

 

  • The November 14, 2022 open letter on Bill C-22, originally signed by 37 organizations (now increased to 41) from six provinces across Canada, that the AODA Alliance tabled with the House of Commons Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

 

 

 

 

  • The AODA Alliance website’s Bill C-22 page, which shows our efforts to strengthen this proposed new law.

 

 

MORE DETAILS

 

 

 1. Accessibility Problems with HUMA Clause-by-Clause Review of Bill C-22

 

Here is a double cruel irony. There were accessibility problems with watching the December 7, 2022 meeting online, where it began its clause-by-clause review of Bill C-22, the proposed Canada Disability Benefit Act. You’d hope that there would be no disability barriers. This meeting was three years after Parliament passed the Accessible Canada Act, a law that is meant to make Canada barrier-free to people with disabilities. HUMA has people with disabilities within its core mandate. HUMA is short for the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

 

The first disability barrier was with the Government’s website for watching Standing Committee meetings. AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky is blind. He uses the popular Jaws for Windows screen reader to operate his computer. After the December 7, 2022 HUMA meeting ended, its meeting video was available on the HUMA website to stream on demand.

 

Lepofsky went to watch the meeting, eager to see what amendments had been accepted or rejected. He could not find the button to play the video. It was not properly labelled to enable a screen-reader to find and press it. This is a basic requirement of website accessibility. Lepofsky had to get a sighted friend to find and click the button using a mouse. They confirmed that the button was on the screen, but not detectable or operable using his screen-reader.

 

The second disability barrier was HUMA’s failure to make public in advance the text of the proposed amendments that the parties had filed with the Clerk of the Committee. The AODA Alliance’s December 1, 2022 letter to the HUMA Standing Committee asked for these to be made public. HUMA never answered this letter.

 

It was a very helpful improvement at the December 7, 2022 HUMA meeting that members of the Committee read out the text of each proposed amendment as they were presented. The AODA Alliance’s December 1, 2022 letter to HUMA and a blizzard of AODA Alliance tweets had asked for this accommodation.

 

We appreciate this new effort by the MPs. They did not mention the AODA Alliance’s request during the December 7, 2022 HUMA meeting. However, it was evident that they must have discussed this request among the parties and decided to all follow the helpful practice of reading their proposed amendments aloud. It was impossible to follow clause-by-clause debate over the Accessible Canada Act four years earlier because MPs did not then read out the amendments they were discussing.

 

While we appreciated this new effort, it was not a complete solution. At times, MPs appeared to read some proposed amendments incorrectly. Moreover, it was hard at times to figure out the precise meaning of a proposed amendment without having its text alongside the text of the bill itself.

 

 2. Liberals Conceded the Benefit of Amendments to the Bill While Repeating Their Party Line in Opposition to Amendments

 

Throughout the public hearings, the Liberal HUMA members repeatedly followed marching orders to talk down any need for amendments to the bill. At the start of the December 7, 2022 HUMA meeting, Liberal MP Wayne Long in an obviously prepared intervention, said that HUMA received 146 written submissions, and only 11 sought amendments. This is misleading. For example, one of those submissions, the November 14, 2022 open letter that the AODA Alliance submitted, was eventually co-signed by 41 organizations.

 

Liberal MP Wayne Long’s claim also disregarded the overwhelming positive feedback that the AODA Alliance has received from people in the disability community and beyond, echoing our call for amendments to strengthen this bill. As well, when amendments were individually presented at the meeting, MP after MP talked about how many groups supported the need for the amendment proposed.

 

Add to this that the 7-minute video and 21-minute video of the November 14, 2022 HUMA testimony by AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky have so far received a combined total of over 1,300 views, and hundreds of more views of excerpts on Tiktok. No one viewing them contacted us to object to our call for amendments to strengthen the bill.

 

The Liberals started these hearings with the agenda of wanting the bill to be passed with no amendments. Liberal MPs avoided asking witnesses about needed amendments, including AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky. The Liberals got to choose as many as one third of the witnesses who were invited to appear, if not more. It was obvious that they were selecting individuals and organizations that favoured their message. Some organizations that testified at the public hearings did not call for amendments in their opening statements, but did so, directly or indirectly in their answers to MPs’ questions.

 

Flatly contradicting the Liberals’ party line against amending the bill, at the December 7, 2022 HUMA meeting, Liberals voted for some of the opposition members’ proposed amendments. Liberal MPs described some of the opposition’s proposed amendments as “excellent” and as clarifying and improving the bill. For example, the Liberal Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister, Irek Kusmierczyk, stated that the Government would support an opposition amendment that added a definition of disability to the bill. He said it “strengthens this bill” and “provides additional clarity.”

 

 3. How a Minority Government Helps People with Disabilities

 

In our spirit of non-partisanship, over the past weeks, the AODA Alliance has emphasized the advantage to people with disabilities of Canada now having a minority government. The opposition parties have a majority of seats on HUMA. They can pass amendments to Bill C-22 even if the Liberal Government opposes it. When the Liberals had a majority Government in 2018, they used their majority to defeat most if not all of the amendments that the opposition parties proposed to strengthen the weak proposed Accessible Canada Act.

 

This advantage became a reality at the December 7, 2022 HUMA meeting. One of the five amendments that were passed on December 7, 2022 was opposed by the Liberal Government. Moreover, Liberals ended up voting for four other amendments that the opposition proposed. No doubt, they saw the writing on the political wall and did not want to be on the wrong side of those votes.

 

 4. HUMA’s Chair Blocked Vital Amendments Needed to Ensure that Bill C-22 Lifts People with Disabilities Out of Poverty

 

The Liberal Government has said over and over that the Canada Disability Benefit will lift people with disabilities out of poverty. The bill’s sponsor Carla Qualtrough said this at the start of her first speech in the House of Commons during Second Reading debates on September 20, 2022:

 

“ Today, I begin with the following declaration: in Canada, no person with a disability should live in poverty.”

 

Yet HUMA Chair, Liberal MP Robert Morrissey, ruled out of order proposed opposition amendments that aimed at doing what Minister Qualtrough said. This prevented any discussion or vote on those amendments. Liberal MP Robert Morrissey read prepared texts, obviously written for him by the Government. He said that these were based on advice from public officials at Parliament.

 

First, an opposition amendment was proposed to Section 3 of the bill, which sets out the bill’s purposes. The amendment would have extended the bill beyond “working age” people with disabilities to all people with disabilities whether or not they were working age. The Standing Committee chair Robert Morrissey did not identify which MP and which party proposed that amendment. He did not read out the wording of the proposed amendment. He ruled that the amendment “seeks to alter the terms and conditions of the Royal recommendation attached to the bill as adopted at the Second Reading by the House.”

 

The result of the Chair’s ruling, to which no HUMA member took exception, is that upwards of one third of people with disabilities 15 or older are automatically excluded from the Canada Disability Benefit no matter how poor they are, simply because of their age. During Second Reading debate, Bill C-22’s sponsor, Disabilities Minister Carla Qualtrough talked about the bill as providing the Canada Disability Benefit to working-age people with disabilities. However, she and the Government also referred several times to lifting people with disabilities out of poverty, without limiting it to working age people with disabilities. Neither the minister, nor the Trudeau Government, nor any witness before the Standing Committee disputed the fact that disability poverty doesn’t end at age 65.

 

Second, the NDP proposed an amendment to Section 5 which it described as the most important one it would present. Section 5 of the bill requires the Canada Disability Benefit to be paid to an eligible person, as defined in the regulations. However, it sets no minimum amount for the Canada Disability Benefit. Section 5 provides:

 

“The Minister must, in accordance with the regulations, pay a Canada disability benefit to a person who is eligible for the benefit, applies or has an application made on their behalf, in accordance with the regulations, and meets any other conditions set out in the regulations.”

 

NDP MP Bonita Zarrillo proposed to amend Section 5 to provide that “A benefit paid under Subsection 1 must be sufficient to ensure that the person to whom it is paid does not live below the official poverty line as defined in Section 2 of the Poverty Reduction Act.”

 

HUMA chair Robert Morrissey ruled this proposed amendment out of order. He gave the same reasons for doing this that he gave for the earlier amendment that he ruled out. He also ruled out of order another identical proposed amendment, without stating which party or MP tabled that duplicate proposal.

 

NDP MP Bonita Zarrillo, who had proposed this motion, stated that she challenged the Chair’s ruling. The Chair stated that it could not be debated. He stated that the House of Commons table officers had ruled it out of order, and that even if it were approved, it would be ruled out of order in the House of Commons. A vote was called on the Chair’s ruling. Only MP Zarrillo voted against the ruling.

 

There is, sadly, only one way to make sense of HUMA Chair Robert Morrissey’s two rulings. Canadians must reject as incorrect the strong, resounding categorical statement by Disabilities Minister Carla Qualtrough at the start of her Second Reading speech in support of Bill C-22, quoted above:

 

“ Today, I begin with the following declaration: in Canada, no person with a disability should live in poverty.”

 

The amendments that the Chair ruled out of order would have converted Bill C-22 to a disability rights bill, one which gave rights to people with disabilities. Instead, the bill is left as one where people with disabilities will have to plead with Cabinet year after year, and government after government, to give them enough money to lift them out of poverty.

 

 5. The Parties’ Backroom Negotiations on Amendments to Bill C-22

 

It is clear from the way MPs were speaking at the December 7, 2022 HUMA meeting that there had been backroom negotiations and discussions among the parties over what amendments to make to Bill C-22. This informal negotiation is neither unusual nor bad. However, it takes place in backrooms. Disability advocates like the AODA Alliance are left out of the discussion.

 

This contradicts the parties’ repeatedly invoking the disability rights maxim “Nothing about us without us!” Some disability advocates have voiced their hope that the Government will “co-create” the regulations under Bill C-22 with the disability community, with the disability community having an equal seat at the table where decisions are made. These secret backroom dealings between the political parties over amendments to Bill C-22, from which we are excluded, demonstrate that those hopes of “co-creation” of the regulations are, at the very least, unrealistic.

 

 6. Five Amendments that HUMA Passed

 

HUMA passed five amendments. All are helpful but limited in scope. Of the five, two were identified as sought by the AODA Alliance among others.

 

First, HUMA unanimously approved an amendment to Section 2 of the bill that added a definition of “disability.” It is the same as the disability definition in the Accessible Canada Act. Section 2 of the Accessible Canada Act defines disability as:

 

“disability means any impairment, including a physical, mental, intellectual, cognitive, learning, communication or sensory impairment — or a functional limitation — whether permanent, temporary or episodic in nature, or evident or not, that, in interaction with a barrier, hinders a person’s full and equal participation in society.”

 

While a helpful addition, this amendment does not ensure that everyone who fits that definition of disability will be entitled to receive the Canada Disability Benefit. The bill lets Cabinet set the eligibility requirements for receiving the Canada Disability Benefit. Cabinet could exclude any people it wishes who fit within that disability definition.

 

Second, Green MP Mike Morrice proposed an amendment to Section 8. Section 8 lets the Federal Government enter into agreements with the provincial and territorial governments regarding the Canada Disability Benefit. The Green Party’s amendment would add the words: “The minister must make public any agreement entered into.”

 

Green MP Mike Morrice stated that this was recommended by many groups including the AODA Alliance. He said this would help build trust with the disability community.

 

Minister Qualtrough’s chief representative on the Standing Committee, Irek Kusmierczyk, raised concerns about this amendment, namely that making these agreements public might risk the spirit of partnership between the Federal government on the one hand, and the provincial and territorial governments on the other. We don’t see why a speculative risk to a feeling of partnership between governments should trump accountability to the public, including the disability community.

 

A public official said that many of the thousands of federal provincial agreements are public. The general standard is to release these to the public where possible. However the official said that they may not do so if, for example, it would facilitate fraud. The Federal Government generally seeks provincial consent to make the agreement public. If the agreement includes a term that it is to be made public, then the federal government doesn’t necessarily seek provincial consent to make it public.

 

This amendment passed on a vote of 6 to 5. All Liberals voted against it. All opposition MPs voted in favour of it.

 

The other three amendments that were passed pertain to Section 11 where much of the bill’s important work is done. Section 11 gives the federal Cabinet the power to make regulations regarding the Canada Disability Benefit.

 

As the third amendment that passed, Green MP Mike Morrice proposed that Section 11(d) be replaced. It let Cabinet make regulations:

 

“(d) respecting the manner in which a benefit is to be indexed to inflation;”

 

He proposed that it be amended to require that the Canada Disability Benefit to be indexed to inflation and respecting the manner in which it is to be indexed. Liberal MP Irek Kusmierczyk called this an excellent amendment, noting that many witnesses pointed to the need for this, so that the bill would require the Canada Disability Benefit to be indexed to inflation.

 

The amendment unanimously passed We. We must study it further to determine whether this amendment does what Liberal MP Irek Kusmierczyk said it does. This illustrates the problem with our not getting the wording of these proposed amendments in advance.

 

Fourth, Green MP Mike Morrice proposed to replace Section 11(f). It now lets Cabinet make regulations:

 

“(f) respecting applications for a benefit;”

 

He proposed that it instead let Cabinet make regulations respecting applications for a benefit, including regulations providing for an application process that is without barriers as defined in Section 2 of the Accessible Canada Act. He stated that this was something that many disability organizations requested, including the AODA Alliance and the signatories to our open letter.

 

This too passed unanimously. Liberal MP Irek Kusmierczyk called this an “excellent amendment.” Here again, we need to study the wording to see if it ensures a barrier-free application process.

 

Fifth, NDP MP Bonita Zarrillo proposed an amendment to Section 11 of the bill that would require that the amount of the Canada Disability Benefit that Cabinet would set would be adequate with regard to the poverty line. She referred to this as being needed to fulfil Canada’s obligations under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. She listed a string of organizations who called for this. Her amendment stated that the federal Cabinet, in setting the amount of the Canada Disability Benefit,:

 

“must take into consideration the official poverty line as defined in Section 2 of the Poverty Reduction Act.”

 

 

Liberal MP Wayne Long said that this is a good amendment, as the intention is to lift people with disabilities out of poverty. Once again, this amendment unanimously passed.

 

Despite some of the MPs’ rhetoric around this amendment, it does not require Cabinet to set an amount for the Canada Disability Benefit that exceeds the poverty line. Cabinet only needs to think about that poverty line when it sets the amount for the Canada Disability Benefit. The HUMA Chair had ruled out of order a stronger amendment that would have gone further, as discussed above. It makes no sense that the HUMA Chair allowed an amendment that requires Cabinet to think about lifting people with disabilities out of poverty, but ruled it out of order to discuss an amendment that would require Cabinet to lift people with disabilities out of poverty, especially when the Government claims that the very goal of the Canada Disability Benefits to lift people with disabilities out of poverty.

 

 7. A Well-Intentioned but Controversial NDP Proposal Deferred to the Next HUMA Meeting and an AODA Alliance Solution

 

Near the end of the December 7, 2022 HUMA meeting, NDP MP Bonita Zarrillo proposed a new provision that would give Parliament some oversight over the regulations that Cabinet makes to implement the Canada Disability Benefit, as follows:

 

“1. The minister must cause each regulation that is provided to be made to be tabled in each House of Parliament.

 

  1. A regulation cannot be made before the earliest of

 

  1. a) 30 sitting days after the proposed regulation is tabled in both Houses of Parliament;

 

  1. b) 160 calendar days after the proposed regulation has been in both Houses of Parliament; and

 

  1. c) the day after the appropriate committee of each House of Parliament has reported its findings with respect to the proposed regulation.

 

  1. The minister must take into account any report of the committee of either House. If a regulation does not include a recommendation of the committee of either House, the Minister must cause to be tabled in each House of Parliament a statement of the reasons for not incorporating it.

 

  1. A proposed regulation that has been tabled under Subsection (1) need not be tabled again before the regulation is made, whether or not it has been altered.

 

  1. For the purpose of paragraph 2, a sitting day means a day in which either House of Parliament sits.”

 

(The preceding is our transcription from the meeting’s audio.)

 

The Bloc Quebecois proposed a sub-amendment that would have let the House of Commons then override a proposed regulation if it disagreed with it. We could not tell specifically how it would work from the discussion. Yet again, this shows how difficult it is to follow these proceedings when we cannot read the proposed amendments in advance.

 

Time ran out before this was debated further or there was a vote. Liberals objected that this amendment would add further delays in getting the Canada Disability Benefit paid.

 

We offer these responses to this proposed amendment:

 

We wish to clarify that the AODA Alliance did not request this amendment. When introducing it, NDP MP Bonita Zarrillo stated that it was requested by certain organizations, including the AODA Alliance. However, the first we heard about it was when watching the December 7, 2022 HUMA meeting.

 

We appreciate any effort to strengthen this bill. This proposed amendment commendably appears to seek to rein in the Cabinet’s arbitrary power over every aspect of the Canada Disability Benefit. We have objected that Cabinet can make the regulations in secret, and that a subsequent Cabinet could gut the regulations in secret, with no oversight by Parliament. It may be that this concern motivated this amendment.

 

However, the best way to limit the absolute power that the bill gives Cabinet is for the bill to set certain requirements for the Canada Disability Benefit, such as a minimum requirement for the amount of the Canada Disability Benefit and minimum mandatory eligibility requirements. Cabinet should be able to add to these but not contradict these requirements.

 

We are concerned that this amendment, if passed would lengthen the process of making initial regulations under the bill, which are needed to get the Canada Disability Benefit started. We have sought an amendment that imposes a deadline by which the regulations must be made so that this process is sped up, not slowed down.

 

It is not clear to us that this amendment would create an effective check on Cabinet’s arbitrary power over the Canada Disability Benefit. We would need much more information over how it would operate, and what it would take the disability community to navigate the labyrinth of Parliamentary procedures that it engages.

 

However, that is not to say that there is nothing here worth discussing. We offer a helpful compromise. We would support this proposal if it were revised to apply only if Cabinet attempts, through regulations, to reduce the amount of the Canada Disability Benefit, or to restrict eligibility for the benefit, or to reduce safeguards for people with disabilities in the application and appeal processes. Therefore, it would not apply to the regulations that Cabinet will make to get the Canada Disability Benefit up and running. It would not slow down getting money into pockets of people with disabilities living in poverty, at least if they are working age. It would apply if a future government tries to curtail protections for people with disabilities that Cabinet had already created in the regulations or tried to reduce the dollar amount of the Canada Disability Benefit.

 

 8. Two Amendments that Did Not Get Passed

 

Green MP Mike Morrice proposed an amendment to require that an applicant for the Canada Disability Benefit only have their own income assessed and not the income of the household where they live. Liberals opposed this. Several Committee members pointed out that there was said to be a division of opinion on whether a person’s income should be assessed solely based on their own earnings, Liberals argued that it would be better to let this be decided when the regulations are made.

 

Ultimately, Green MP Mike Morrice chose to withdraw this amendment. The expectation was that this would be determined in conjunction with the disability community during the development of the regulations.

 

To ensure inclusion of people with disabilities in the development of the regulations under the bill, NDP MP Bonita Zarrillo proposed an amendment which she said responds to the brief and submissions of several disability organizations. This proposed amendment provided:

 

“3. The Governor in Council must ensure that people with disabilities from diverse communities and a range of backgrounds are afforded a meaningful opportunity to collaborate on an equitable basis in policy development leading to the making of regulations under this Act.

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  1. The development and making of regulations must enable full effect to be given to the principles set out in the preamble regarding engagement with the disability community.”

 

MMP Zarrillo said that she wanted this amendment to meaningfully involve people with disabilities with the development and design of the regulations. It should specify that meaningful participation must be accessible, ongoing and allow for two-way dialogue directly with the decision-makers. The proposed amendment, while positive, would not go as far as MP Zarrillo said it aimed to go. It doesn’t require any direct dialogue with decision-makers.

 

The liberals and Conservatives agreed with the spirit of this amendment, but voted to defeat it. Only the NDP and Bloc Quebecois voted for it. It appears that the Tories have another amendment on the same topic coming up. However we have not seen it, since upcoming proposed amendments remain secret. We don’t know if it is stronger or weaker than the NDP amendment.

 

 9. A Proposed Amendment on Claw-Backs Was Deferred to the Next HUMA Meeting

 

Conservative MP Tracy Gray proposed an amendment to Section 9 of the bill to prevent some claw-backs of benefits paid under the Canada Disability Benefit. A “claw-back” is where a person gets the Canada Disability Benefit paid to them, but some other government program claws all or part of it back from them. This amendment would have added a new subsection to Section 9:

 

“(c.1) cannot be recovered in whole or in part under any Act of Parliament other than this Act, and”

 

This amendment would only prevent a federal program from clawing back the Canada Disability Benefit. It would not prevent a provincial or territorial program like the ODSP from clawing back some or all of the Canada Disability Benefit.

 

At the Liberals’ request, it was decided to defer discussion of this proposed amendment due to concerns raised during the discussion at the December 7, 2022 HUMA meeting. For example, Liberal MP Irek Kusmierczyk expressed a concern whether this would prevent recovery of payments that resulted from identity theft.

 

A federal public official at the HUMA meeting said that as for provincial claw backs, it would be up to each province to institute measures to ensure that they do not claw back the Canada Disability Benefit. This proposed amendment is limited to federal claw backs, which, according to the public officials before the Standing Committee, is all that Parliament could do via legislation. That was a legal opinion that was beyond the expertise of that public official to give. This all proves our serious concern that nothing in the bill ensures that there are no provincial or territorial claw backs.

 

Liberal MP Irek Kusmierczyk noted that almost every witness appearing at the HUMA public hearings voiced concerns about the dangers of claw backs. A public official who admitted that she is not a lawyer said that to avert claw backs by other federal programs, there would need to be amendments to those other federal programs, which is where this protection should be enacted. This was tantamount to another legal opinion, and certainly beyond the scope of that public official to give.

 

Liberal MP Kusmierczyk got the public official to agree that first, the Federal Government would need to design the Canada Disability Benefit. It would then need to find out where it could trigger claw-backs from other federal programs. It would then need to revise those other federal programs to eliminate possibility of the claw-backs. The AODA Alliance notes that if this is so, this shows that people with disabilities in poverty are not likely to see a dime from the Canada Disability Benefit until some time in 2025, if not later. It is very disturbing that the Federal Government has not already done that legwork.

 

Arguing against this amendment, Liberal MP Irek Kusmierczyk tried to narrow the concern about “claw-backs” simply to provincial and territorial governments clawing back the Canada Disability Benefit from people with disabilities. Yet this claw-backs concern also applies to other federal programs that might claw back the Canada Disability Benefit from people with disabilities.