The Long-Overdue Canada Disability Benefit is Supposed to Start Being Paid Out in July, But There’s Still No Way to Apply For It

Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance Update

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

Website: www.aodaalliance.org

Email: aodafeedback@gmail.com

Twitter: @aodaalliance

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The Long-Overdue Canada Disability Benefit is Supposed to Start Being Paid Out in July, But There’s Still No Way to Apply For It

 

May 26, 2025

 

SUMMARY

 

The Federal Government starts National AccessAbility Week with its implementation of the Canada Disabilities Benefit in a certain amount of chaos.

 

Five years ago, the Federal Government promised to create the Canada Disabilities Benefit. It was supposed to fulfil the Government’s commitment that no people with disabilities should ever live in poverty in Canada. Yet we are still waiting for the first cheques to be paid to any impoverished people with disabilities. Below are two recent published articles that explain where we now stand, one in the May 26, 2025, Globe and Mail and the other in the May 19, 2025, Policy Magazine.

 

In a nutshell, the vast majority of those people with disabilities who now languish in poverty won’t even qualify for a dime under this new Canada Disabilities Benefit. Of those who do qualify, the maximum they can receive will be a paltry $200 per month. Every dollar helps, but it is far from what people need to lift them out of poverty. As these articles reveal, a scant month before cheques are supposed to start being paid to those who qualify for one, there is still no application form! There is no way to apply.

 

Even if an application form materializes today, we are doubtful that the Federal Government can get it communicated to all who qualify, that those applicants will all be able to complete the application process, and that the Federal Government will be able to process all those applications and prepare cheques to put in the mail, all before July. And let’s not even start to imagine what happens if there’s a postal strike!

 

When Parliament was debating Bill C-22 in 2022 and 2023, the Disabilities Minister Carla Qualtrough said that the Government has a “red line” that no provinces and territories would claw back any of the Canada Disabilities Benefit. She said she had been working with the provincial and territorial governments on this. Here again we were told to trust the Government. We were one of the organizations that did not believe that trusting the Government was a sufficient solution.

 

Now, one month before the Canada Disabilities Benefit is supposed to begin, the articles set out below report that Alberta plans to claw back the Canada Disabilities Benefit. Ontario has not said what it will do. We don’t know if the Government will nevertheless pay the Canada Disabilities Benefit in those two provinces. If they do, and it is clawed back, then federal money, intended to lift people with disabilities out of poverty, will instead to go into the provincial coffers to fund the Alberta or Ontario Premier’s pet projects.

 

None of this chaos needs to have happened. In 2022 and 2023, when the Canada Disabilities Benefit act was being debated in Parliament, an impressive list of disability and community organizations campaigned hard to get strong amendments to the bill passed, which would have prevented the current ordeal. The AODA Alliance was one of those organizations.

 

Regrettably, the governing Liberals did not adopt many of the amendments we sought. They claimed that they had to rush the bill through Parliament “as is” in order to get the Canada Disabilities Benefit into the pockets of impoverished people with disabilities as soon as possible. They said we should trust the Disabilities Minister, then Carla Qualtrough, to ensure that there is a good Canada Disabilities Benefit paid out in a timely way.

 

Making our efforts in 2022 and 2023 harder, the Federal Government got some disability charities to echo the Government’s line and to actively oppose Parliament’s passing any amendments to strengthen the weak Bill C-22. It is great that a large number of disability organizations are now publicly complaining about the current nightmare confronting those people with disabilities who live in poverty. Those now complaining include disability organizations that had opposed strengthening Bill C-22 back in 2022 and 2023.

 

The Federal Government is now being confronted by a united front of the disability community regarding the Canada Disabilities Benefit. Indeed, one of the disability organizations that had vocally opposed amendments to strengthen Bill C-22 back in 2022 and 2023 is now one of the Government’s most vocal and hard-hitting critics. That organization is quoted in the Globe and Mail article set out below.

 

During the recent Federal election, we asked all parties to make the Accessible Canada Pledge. That included specific commitments to strengthen the Canada Disabilities Benefit. Only the Green Party made the pledge.

 

Canada has a minority government. Opposition parties have the clout in Parliament to force Prime Minister Carney to address this. But Prime Minister Carney doesn’t even have a Disabilities Minister. He eliminated that Cabinet post which had existed for a decade.

 

 

How You Can Help

 

  • Email or phone Prime Minister Carney to ask him to strengthen the paltry Canada Disabilities Benefit and to restore the Cabinet post of Minister for Disability Issues, which he eliminated. His email address is pm@pm.gc.ca

 

  • Urge more media to cover this issue.

 

 

MORE DETAILS

 

Globe and Mail May 26, 2025

 

Originally posted at https://www.theglobeandmail.com/investing/personal-finance/article-new-federal-disability-benefit-launches-in-july-but-canadians-cant/

 

New federal disability benefit launches in July – but Canadians can’t apply for it yet

 

Erica Alini

Weeks ahead of the planned rollout of a new federal benefit for people with disabilities, Canadians still have no instructions on how to apply for it, and recipients in Ontario are unclear whether their payments will be clawed back by the province.

 

The Trudeau government announced in its last federal budget, in 2024, that the newly created Canada Disability Benefit, or CDB, would provide up to $2,400 a year – or $200 a month – to eligible low-income beneficiaries, starting in July of this year. The payments are meant to supplement existing financial supports for Canadians with disabilities, many of whom live in poverty.

 

But as of the end of May, the administrative rollout of the CDB, now overseen by the government of Prime Minister Mark Carney, remains mired in uncertainty. Ottawa has yet to publish an application form for the benefit, a delay advocates say could cause some people to miss out on at least the first monthly payment.

 

Another issue is whether the benefit will trigger reductions of social assistance payments. So far, all provinces and territories except Alberta and Ontario have committed to avoiding clawbacks.

 

Alberta has said it will dial back payments for those also receiving the CDB.

 

Ontario, on the other hand, hasn’t clearly stated what it will do.

 

Barriers to access: New Canada Disability Benefit will leave many people with disabilities behind

 

The government of Premier Doug Ford has said it is waiting on Ottawa to pass legislation that will exempt the benefit from being treated as income for tax purposes, a move that would make it administratively easier for provincial governments to avoid automatic reductions of social assistance payments.

 

But Ottawa has yet to introduce such a change. In the meantime, whether Canada’s most populous province will allow clawbacks remains an “unknown factor,” said Rabia Khedr, national director of Disability Without Poverty, a grassroots advocacy group.

 

The lack of information on key details is the latest source of frustration among many Canadians with disabilities and advocates, who have been critical of how Ottawa designed the program.

 

Topping out at $200 a month, the benefit is far smaller than what experts say is needed to significantly reduce poverty rates among those living with disabilities.

 

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Another problem is that, to receive the CDB, Canadians must have been deemed eligible for the Disability Tax Credit, or DTC, a non-refundable tax credit that is notoriously difficult or impossible to access for many people with disabilities.

 

Across the country, non-profit organizations have staged outreach efforts to help more people apply for the DTC so that they can receive the new benefit. But those efforts have been hindered by a dearth of details about the application process for the CDB itself.

 

For example, the Plan Institute, a national non-profit based in Burnaby, B.C., has created a website devoted to the new benefit. It is offering one-on-one phone support to those applying for the DTC and is developing a webinar on both the benefit and the tax credit.

 

But “without the release of the application form, we are unable to take the final step in ensuring people will begin receiving the CDB come July,” Stephanie Debisschop, executive director at the Plan Institute, said in an e-mail.

 

Employment and Social Development Canada, the federal department that will oversee the administration of the CDB, said the benefit application process is expected to open by the end of June but couldn’t provide an exact date.

 

On the issue of clawbacks in Ontario, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services did not directly respond to a question about whether the province would be reducing social assistance for those receiving CDB payments issued before Ottawa changes the benefit’s tax treatment.

 

“Our focus is on ensuring the Canada Disability Benefit builds on existing programs like Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) including amending the treatment of the benefit in the Federal Income Tax Act,” ministry spokesperson Kristen Tedesco said in an e-mail.

 

In Ottawa, The Department of Finance said the Carney government remains committed to introducing a proposal to exempt the CDB from being treated as income under the Income Tax Act. However, it did not say when it would do so.

 

Legislation would be introduced “in due course,” spokesperson Caroline Thériault said in an e-mail.

 

 

Policy Magazine May 19, 2025

 

Originally posted at https://www.policymagazine.ca/time-is-running-out-to-fix-canadas-new-disability-benefit/

Time is Running out to Fix Canada’s New Disability Benefit

 

Shutterstock

 

By Asif Khan

 

May 19, 2025

 

The much-anticipated Canada Disability Benefit (CDB) is set to roll out with first payments in July 2025. For Canadians with disabilities and their advocates, the path to CDB has been a long and hard-fought one. Yet with the rollout nearing, victory still feels far away.

 

While the CDB has been promoted by the federal government as a major move forward in supporting people with disabilities who live in poverty, the interactions among federal and provincial benefits, social assistance policy, tax law, and income treatment require complicated navigation that most people do not have the time or ability to steer through.

 

The CDB has been capped at a monthly $200 maximum per individual, which has sparked justified outrage. Originally touted as a means to bridge “the gap between the poverty line and what people receive in their respective provinces,” the CDB falls catastrophically short. The regulations show it will lift only 20,000 recipients—just 2% of the 917,000 working-age Canadians with disabilities in poverty—above the poverty line in the first year, and only 25,000 by year ten. This is not the meaningful support that people with disabilities have fought for.

 

The benefit amount is not the only problematic aspect of the CDB. Access is another major hurdle. Under the current regulations, the Canada Disability Benefit (CDB) relies entirely on the Disability Tax Credit (DTC) as its sole eligibility gateway, locking out many of those who need it most. The DTC’s restrictive definition of disability does not align with the broader, more inclusive criteria set out in the Canada Disability Benefit Act. Since the DTC is a non-refundable tax credit, low-income people with disabilities see no point in applying because they owe little to no income tax. Compounding this design flaw, the Canada Revenue Agency’s complex eligibility and dispute process renders the DTC an inaccessible and overly restrictive gatekeeper for CDB access.

 

The CDB’s punitive income treatment has been another major source of concern. Currently, the CDB is classified as social assistance under the Income Tax Act and included in net income for tax purposes. While not taxable specifically, this inclusion means the CDB will increase an individual or family’s total income for tax filing purposes, resulting in a decrease in other income-tested benefits, such as the Canada Child Benefit, Canada Workers Benefit, GST Credit, and numerous other provincially administered benefits.

 

Moreover, the CDB regulations count provincial or territorial social assistance, such as the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP), as income when determining eligibility for the CDB. Applying the CDB’s income thresholds ($23,000 for singles, $32,500 for couples) to those receiving last-resort assistance creates unnecessary barriers for the most vulnerable CDB applicants.

 

Worse still, for Ontarians with disabilities living in poverty, the provincial government has remained non-committal on whether social assistance recipients will get to count the CDB as a top-up to their other income support.

 

The Curious Case of Ontario

 

While most provinces, including larger ones such as British Columbia and Quebec, have pledged not to claw back the CDB from provincial social assistance income, Ontario has stayed troublingly silent.

 

Since they have not made a clear statement or commitment that the CDB is going to be exempt from being counted as income, the provincial government has created major worry and concern for people with disabilities living on social assistance in Ontario, who already live on incomes between 40%-60% below the poverty line.

 

Ontario’s social assistance schemes claw back some types of benefit income from other government sources by decreasing a person’s social assistance benefits dollar for dollar. If the provincial government decides to count the CDB as part of a recipient’s income, it will reduce their social assistance benefit amount. This is a cynical, one-step forward, two-steps back move, which would allow the province to use the CDB as a cost-mitigation opportunity. Balancing the budget on the backs of the most vulnerable in the province is unacceptable and will do nothing to reduce disability poverty in Ontario.

 

This policy direction is not inevitable. There is an administratively feasible and cost-neutral way of exempting the CDB from the income calculation in Ontario’s social assistance legislation. Following the treatment of the Canada Child Benefit, the provincial government could add the CDB as an exemption in the statute’s regulations, at no cost to the government, to prevent clawbacks.

 

The CDB is Flawed, but Fixes Exist

 

In addition to addressing Ontario’s policy inaction on the CDB, there are other practical, feasible solutions that the federal government could undertake.

 

To address its exclusionary eligibility criteria, the federal government could expand CDB access by incorporating the Canada Pension Plan disability benefits (CPP-D) as an alternative pathway. Like the DTC, CPP-D uses a tiered definition of severe and prolonged disability and a similar determination process, and its inclusion would broaden eligibility without compromising integrity.

 

The federal government can also amend the Income Tax Act, as it proposed in the 2024 Fall Economic Statement, to exempt the CDB from being treated as income. The government could then take this amendment one step further and exempt provincial/territorial social assistance from the CDB’s income threshold. With a new federal government and Parliament’s recall approaching, now is the time to act.

 

Disability communities have repeatedly and clearly presented their recommendations for improving the CDB at every opportunity but have been largely ignored. Formal consultation engagement has been immense: The government itself reported receiving nearly 3000 comments from nearly 1000 individuals and organizations on the proposed CDB regulations that would address many of these previously identified flaws. Yet, despite this outpouring of input, the final regulations made no meaningful changes to core concerns such as benefit amounts and eligibility, which has left communities largely frustrated.

 

However, the final CDB regulations did include the important addition of an accessible reconsideration and appeal process. Ontario community legal clinics who support individuals with disabilities living in poverty advocated for this change. The amended regulations now allow individuals to appeal overpayment decisions to the Social Security Tribunal. This expansion promotes fairness, accountability, and better outcomes for people with disabilities. In a process where progress has been scarce, this is a meaningful step worth recognizing. It provides hope that more positive regulatory change may occur in the future.

 

Improving the CDB isn’t just a good poverty reduction policy – it’s honouring a commitment made to nearly a million Canadians with disabilities who have waited too long for essential income support. It should not be this difficult to obtain.

 

Solutions are not lacking. What’s missing is a recognition that delivery on promises is about more than just implementation.

 

Asif Khan is the Research and Policy Analyst for the Income Security Advocacy Centre (ISAC).