Send Us Feedback on the AODA Alliance’s Draft Brief to Parliament on Bill C-22, The Proposed Canada Disability Benefit Act – A Bill that Needs to Be Substantially Strengthened

Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance

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

Twitter: @aodaalliance

Facebook: www.facebook.com/aodaalliance/

Send Us Feedback on the AODA Alliance’s Draft Brief to Parliament on Bill C-22, The Proposed Canada Disability Benefit Act – A Bill that Needs to Be Substantially Strengthened

October 14, 2022

SUMMARY

Next week, the House of Commons will begin Second Reading debates on Bill C-22, the Proposed Canada Disability Benefit Act. It is great that the Federal Government is proposing legislation to provide a financial disability benefit to combat horrible poverty among so many people with disabilities. However, this well-intentioned bill is extremely weak. It needs to be strengthened.

Under this bill, there may never be a Canada Disability Benefit paid to people with disabilities. If there is, there is no assurance that the amount will be more than a pittance. There is no assurance when it would start to be paid. Under this bill, the majority of people with disabilities are guaranteed not to be eligible for this new Disability Benefit.

People with disabilities suffering from poverty deserve better. We plan to submit a brief to Parliament very soon. Below is a draft of it. Please send us any feedback on this draft brief very quickly over this weekend. We want to finalize this brief and submit it by Monday October 17, 2022. Send your feedback to us at aodafeedback@gmail.com

There is real excitement about the possibility of getting a new Canada Disability Benefit. However, that excitement should not eclipse the need to ensure that this bill delivers what people with disabilities need.

MORE DETAILS

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/

Draft Only

Bill C-22 The Proposed Canada Disability Benefit Act Must Be Substantially Strengthened

A Brief to Parliament by the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance

October 14, 2022

(Note: Please send feedback on this draft brief to the AODA Alliance at aodafeedback@gmail.com)

Introduction

It is very good that the Federal Government introduced into Parliament Bill C-22. It aims to establish a new Canada Disability Benefit. However, that bill is exceedingly weak. It should be substantially strengthened and then passed. This brief explains why it is so weak and offers 11 practical recommendations for swiftly and effectively fixing these problems.

Far too many people with disabilities languish in long term cruel poverty. It is harder for them to escape this poverty, because of the many disability barriers in Canada that impede equal access to jobs, transportation, goods, services and the other things Canadians take for granted.

In summary, here is what’s wrong with the bill as it now written:

The bill leaves out and provides nothing for the majority of people with disabilities in Canada, because it only allows the Canada Disability Benefit to be available to “working-age” people with disabilities. Disproportionately, people with disabilities are seniors.
The bill guarantees nothing whatsoever to people with disabilities. Everything is left to the absolute discretion of the federal Cabinet, working in secret, and holding no public debates or votes.
Under the bill, Cabinet might never create the Canada Disability Benefit. Cabinet could create it, but make it as low as $1 per month. A Future Cabinet could reduce it even more.
The bill lets Cabinet define which “working-age” people with disabilities are eligible for the Canada Disability Benefit. Cabinet could only make a small fraction of working-age people with disabilities eligible for it.
The bill lets Cabinet make regulations, if and when it wishes, to set the amount of the Canada Disability Benefit, decide who is eligible for it, and create an appeal process for those who apply for it and are refused. It does not require that Cabinet ever make these regulations, or that they be any good. It sets no deadline for Cabinet to make these regulations. Cabinet may choose to never make any of these regulations. A future Cabinet could go behind closed doors and overturn anything that the current Cabinet chooses to do.
The bill’s very purpose is itself impoverished. It does not seek to eliminate or even substantially reduce poverty facing people with disabilities. It only aims to “reduce” that poverty. The most tiny improvement for people with disabilities would entirely fulfil that paltry goal.

It is very understandable that there are people with disabilities who are impatient for the Canada Disability Benefit to be quickly enacted. This bill has been very long in coming. The Federal Government had ample time to develop a more detailed bill than Bill C-22. On September 23^rd, 2020 the Federal Government committed to a Canada disability Benefit in a federal Throne Speech. The benefit was then included in the 2021 Budget. It was not until June 22^nd, 2021 that this bill was first introduced into Parliament. It had to be re-introduced once again this year on June 2^nd.

Moreover, during an earlier phase in the COVID-19 pandemic, the Federal Government committed to issue a disability benefit for people with disabilities, since they have faced added hardships during the pandemic. However, only one such payment was made. It took months for the Government to get it paid.

Given how long it took to get this far, there is no reason to believe that this Government or a future one would act any more quickly to fix the bill, if it is not fixed before it is passed. This bill must be substantially strengthened before it is passed. We cannot simply hope that Cabinet promptly passes good regulations, and that no future Cabinet ever undoes them. Three years of Federal Government delays in implementing the Accessible Canada Act proves that hoping and good intentions are not enough.

It is horrific and inexcusable that some people with disabilities have said that because of their abject poverty, they are turning to or considering doctor-assisted suicide to cope with their hopeless plight. It is a serious concern that Parliament acted far more swiftly to amend the Criminal Code to broaden the power of physicians to assist people with disabilities to commit suicide. Parliament needs to act with much more speed and thoroughness to pass legislation that makes it easier to live with a disability, rather than resorting to doctor assisted suicide.

We therefore call for public Parliamentary hearings on the bill, where substantial improvements can be debated and passed. In a minority Parliament, people with disabilities have their best chance to win improvements through this process.

Who Are We?

The AODA Alliance is a non-partisan grassroots community cross-disability coalition. We have advocated in Ontario since 2005 for the effective implementation and enforcement of Canada’s first comprehensive provincial accessibility law, the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act 2005. We are the successor to the community coalition that successfully campaigned from 1994 to 2005 for the AODA’s enactment. We have advised many, including several provinces, a United Nations conference, the European Union, Israel and New Zealand.

In 2018 and 2019, we actively advocated for amendments to Bill C-81, the proposed Accessible Canada Act. See our website’s Canada page for our extensive federal advocacy efforts.

On Bill C-22, we defer to the advice and recommendations of poverty and income support advocates on important issues like the actual amount that should be paid as the Canada Disability Benefit. We offer our expertise and experience in ensuring that legislation is strong, effective and barrier-free.

What’s Wrong with Bill C-22 and How to Fix It

The Bill’s Preamble Excludes a Majority of People with Disabilities from the Canada Disability Benefit from the Very Start

The first line of the bill’s preamble states:

“Whereas working-age persons with disabilities are more likely to live in poverty than working-age persons without disabilities, because of economic and social exclusion;”

Poverty is most certainly not limited to working-age people with disabilities. It includes all people with disabilities, regardless of age.

This preamble entirely eliminates children, youth and seniors with disabilities. They together constitute the majority of people with disabilities in Canada. Disproportionately, seniors have disabilities. People with disabilities disproportionately constitute seniors.

In the preamble, and throughout the bill, the term “working-age” should be removed, lest this bill only even attempt to address needs of a mere minority of people with disabilities.

We therefore recommend that:

#1. The first line of the bill’s preamble should be amended to delete the words “working-age” so that it would read:

“Whereas persons with disabilities are more likely to live in poverty than persons without disabilities, because of economic and social exclusion;”

The Bill’s Purpose is Itself Impoverished

Section 3 sets out extremely weak, impoverished purposes for the bill. These purposes drive the operations of the entire bill, as follows:

“3 The purposes of this Act are to reduce poverty and to support the financial security of working-age persons with disabilities.”

This unfairly and arbitrarily limits the bill to “working-age” people with disabilities, which, as stated above, comprise only a mere minority of people with disabilities. Moreover, the bill merely attempts to “reduce” poverty for them. The slightest most inconsequential reduction of poverty for this minority of people with disabilities would fully achieve this weak objective. It does not require disability poverty to be eliminated, or even cut in half or by one quarter.

As well, this bill sets no timeline or deadline. Thus, an entire generation or generations of people with disabilities could be left languishing in poverty.

A significant improvement to the Accessible Canada Act at the insistence of the disability community was the addition of the 2040 deadline for Canada to become accessible to people with disabilities. The lack of such a deadline was widely condemned by disability advocates throughout the public hearings on that bill in the House of Commons and Senate. The Government resisted that amendment until it was passed by the Senate.

We therefore recommend that:

#2. Section 3 should be amended to:

eliminate the term “working-age.”
substantially strengthen the bill’s purpose, such as to achieve the elimination of poverty by people with disabilities, or to substantially reduce it, or at the very least, to cut it in half, and
to set a deadline for achieving the bill’s purpose, such as within ten years.

No Person with a Disability is Guaranteed that They Are Eligible for the Canada Disability Benefit

The bill is also very weak because it establishes no eligibility criteria at all. Under it, no people with disabilities, including no working-age people with disabilities, are entitled to a Canada Disability Benefit. It delegates to Cabinet the sweeping discretion to set the eligibility criteria through regulations. Those regulations are not subject to any public debates, public hearings, or public votes. In a minority government, the opposition is entirely excluded from this process.

A subsequent Cabinet or Government could arbitrarily and unilaterally gut the eligibility requirements at a secret Cabinet meeting. It could also do that with no public debate, public hearings, public vote, or participation by any opposition parties.

As a result, these eligibility regulations could substantially reduce which people with disabilities are entitled to the Canada Disability Benefit to an even smaller minority of people with disabilities than those which the bill now includes within the term “working-age people with disabilities.”

We therefore recommend that:

#3. Section 4 of the bill should be amended to:

fix mandatory statutory criteria for who is eligible for the Canada Disability Benefit.
Ensure that if any discretion is granted to Cabinet to enact eligibility criteria, those criteria must be strictly limited, and incapable of overriding the mandatory criteria to be set out in the bill itself.
Ensure that no eligibility criteria can be created by regulation that do not comply with strict criteria to be spelled out in the bill itself.

The Bill Does Not Guarantee a Minimum Amount of the Canada Disability Benefit

The bill does not set the actual amount of the Canada Disability Benefit, or fix a minimum floor amount below which it cannot be dropped. It gives the federal Cabinet complete open-ended discretion to set it as high or low as it wishes. It could be as low as $1 per month. The bill gives Cabinet the power to reduce it whenever it wishes, all in secret, without any public debate or vote.

The bill does not require any fixed timeline for the amount to be reconsidered or raised, and provides no protection against it being reduced. It provides no public accountability for any of this. It is a blank cheque handed to Cabinet to give people with disabilities as little as Cabinet wishes.

We therefore recommend that:

#4. The bill should be amended to:

Fix a mandatory minimum amount for the Canada Disability Benefit, and provide that it can not be lowered by regulation.
Require Cabinet to annually review the Benefit’s amount, according to strict criteria to be spelled out in the bill, solely tied to the bill’s goal regarding disability poverty.
Provide for public accountability and openness in connection with the review of the amount, with the outcome to be announced within a prompt legislatively set timeline.
Require Cabinet to give reasons if it does not raise the amount at least to accord with the inflation rate for the previous year.

The Bill Has No Legislative Prescribed Fair, Swift and Accessible Appeal Process for People Who Apply But are Refused the Canada Disability Benefit

Experience shows that application processes for such social assistance benefits can be unfair. Deserving people with disabilities can be unfairly refused benefits, and have to appeal this refusal.

Section 11 of the bill gives Cabinet the power to make regulations for an appeal process for a person who is refused the Canada Disability Benefit. It does not require Cabinet to ever do so. It sets no deadline for Canada to do so. It sets no mandatory statutory requirements for this appeal process.

Cabinet could choose never to create an appeal process. It could create one that is hard to use, and that is replete with disability barriers, and then leave it to people with disabilities to have to challenge those barriers in court.

We therefore recommend that:

#5. The bill should be amended to set out a mandatory appeal process that is fair, swift, easy to use, and barrier-free for people with disabilities. If it gives Cabinet any power to make regulations regarding the appeal process, these should be very narrow in scope e.g. giving Cabinet the power to adopt forms to be used in the appeal process.

The Bill Wrongly Gives Cabinet Power to Create Prosecutable Offences

Section 11 gives Cabinet the power to create a whole host of prosecutable offences. If any offences are to be created for which a person can be prosecuted, these should be created by the bill itself, and fully debated by Parliament. The extraordinary power should not be delegated to Cabinet to create such offences.

We therefore recommend that:

#6. The Bill should be amended to remove Cabinet’s power to pass regulations that create prosecutable offences. Any offences should only be created by the bill itself.

The Bill Guarantees No Date for the Bill to Come into Force and for the Canada Disability Benefit to Become Available to People with Disabilities

Section 14 of the bill leaves it to Cabinet to decide when, if ever, this bill will come into force. It sets no timelines for the Disability Benefit to become available. It sets no timelines by when necessary regulations must be passed.

People with disabilities have waited far too long for a Canada Disability Benefit. We pressed for the Accessible Canada Act to include mandatory timelines. Very few were included. As a result, progress under that legislation has been painfully slow. They should not face the risk of similar delays under this bill.

We therefore recommend that:

#7. Section 14 should be amended to provide that the bill comes into force no later than three months of Parliament’s passing the bill.

#8. The bill should be amended to set a deadline for the Canada Disability Benefit to become available.

#9. The bill should be amended to set mandatory deadlines for necessary regulations to be enacted.

The Bill Affords the Disability Community No Meaningful Voice in this Bill’s Implementation

It is very good that the bill’s preamble states:

“Whereas, in the spirit of “Nothing Without Us”, the Government of Canada recognizes the importance, in developing support measures for persons with disabilities, of engaging with the disability community, in accordance with the Accessible Canada Act, which specifies that “persons with disabilities must be involved in the development and design of laws, policies, programs, services and structures”;”

However, there is nothing in this bill that implements those good ideas. For example, all the powers that Cabinet has under this bill, exercised in secrete, with no public debate or vote, flies in the face of those good thoughts.

We therefore recommend that:

#10. The bill should be amended to provide effective input from people with disabilities, and especially from those living in poverty, without creating months or years of further delays in the Canada Disability Benefit being paid to people who desperately need it.

The Bill Should Be Subject to Periodic Mandatory Independent Reviews, But Not By a Parliamentary Committee Which May Never Occur

It is good that this legislation proposes to be subject to reviews over time. Section 12 of the bill provides:

“12 As soon as feasible after the third anniversary of the day on which this section comes into force and after each subsequent fifth anniversary, a review of this Act and of its administration and operation is to be undertaken by a committee of the Senate, of the House of Commons or of both Houses of Parliament that may be designated or established for that purpose.”

However, the first review should take place three years after it is enacted, not five. Moreover, the review should be conducted by an independent person appointed for the purpose, not a committee of Parliament. There is no way for people with disabilities to force Parliament to appoint a review committee, if the Government of the day does not establish one. Moreover, in a majority government situation, a parliamentary committee is fully controlled by the majority party in the House. This provides no independent check or balance.

We therefore recommend that:

#11. Section 12 of the bill should be amended to require an Independent Review be conducted by an independent person, appointed for the purpose, who has a duty to consult people with disabilities, with the first such review to begin within three years after the bill is passed.