Building a strong, thriving economy requires improving affordability for all Canadians, especially the most vulnerable. With record-high income inequality, the affordability crisis is hitting low-income households the hardest.
Now is the time for bold social policies that close these gaps and ensure no one is left behind.
To achieve this, the government must provide a strong, adequate, and timely social safety net that supports vulnerable communities and workers, guarantees income security, and enables full participation in the economy.
Below are the Income Security Advocacy Centre’s key recommendations on how the government can make a meaningful difference by addressing the urgent needs of those most affected by the crisis:
- Modernize Employment Insurance and regularization policies to guarantee equitable, accessible, and adequate protections for all workers
- Undertake robust Employment Insurance emergency measures to protect vulnerable, low-income workers
- Improve access to Employment Insurance for all, including temporary, part-time, and precarious workers
- Permanently ensure adequate Employment Insurance benefit rates to better support all workers
- Withdraw Bill C-2 and establish a comprehensive regularization program for migrant workers
- Improve the Canada Disability Benefit to lift persons with disabilities out of poverty
- Ensure barrier-free access to the Disability Tax Credit
- Raise the maximum amount of the Canada Disability Benefit
- Fix the Canada Disability Benefit’s punitive income treatment and income threshold
- Base the Canada Disability Benefit on an individual’s income, not a couple’s income
- Expand eligibility for the Canada Disability Benefit beyond the Disability Tax Credit
- Make relevant, needed financial investments in Indigenous communities
- Ensure an equitable and accessible approach to pandemic benefit recovery that protects low-income and vulnerable individuals
Read the full submission here.