There are just under two weeks left in the consultation period for feedback on the new Canada Disability Benefit (CDB)! The consultation is open until September 23.
We have done a line-by-line analysis of the proposed regulations that will implement the CDB and the federal government’s justifications for them, and we have produced a Submissions Guide with detailed feedback on every aspect of the CDB.
We are urging individuals and organizations to input the detailed feedback we’ve assembled in the Submissions Guide into the federal government’s online consultation tool – the more support the government hears for these specific recommendations, the better!
We’ve designed the Guide to make it easy to copy and paste the responses we developed into the government’s online consultation tool, but in case you don’t have time to read through 32 pages of legal and policy analysis while submitting your feedback, we’ve put together a short summary of what we’re saying:
1) Exempt social assistance and public disability benefits from the income threshold
- The current design penalizes people who depend on social assistance or public disability benefits like Canada Pension Plan-Disability (CPP-D) and workers’ compensation by decreasing someone’s CDB benefit if their income from these sources is more than $23,000 for a single person.
- It’s unfair that people with disabilities who face barriers to employment may get less from the CDB than someone who works, because the first $10,000 of working income is exempt in calculating the income for a single person receiving CDB.
- We recommend designing the CDB so that social assistance and other public disability benefits don’t count towards the income threshold and don’t decrease the amount of CDB a person could get.
2) People who receive Canada Pension Plan-Disability (CPP-D) should also be eligible for CDB
- There are many problems with using the Disability Tax Credit (DTC) as the sole gateway to the CDB – it’s inaccessible, it’s not useful to people living in poverty, and it involves a complex application process.
- Adding CPP-D as another route to accessing CDB will make CDB accessible to more people and meets the government’s goals of having a consistent and equal approach across the country, rolling out the CDB quickly, and not creating a new disability adjudication system.
- The government should eventually open the CDB up to more people with disabilities by creating eligibility criteria that aligns with the broad definition of disability in the Canada Disability Benefit Act. They should also reform the DTC to make it more accessible.
3) The CDB amount should be based on an individual’s income, not a couple’s income
- The current approach keeps people with disabilities dependant on their partner’s actions (e.g., filing taxes), including in situations of domestic violence, and discourages people from living with a partner.
- The income threshold for a couple assumes people living on a low income can save significantly on expenses by having a partner. This is just not true.
- CDB should either be based solely on a recipient’s income, or the income threshold and working income exemption for a couple should be double that of a single person.
4) A maximum benefit of $200 per month ($2,400 per year) is not enough to reduce poverty among people with disabilities
- This falls far short of the government’s commitment in the Canada Disability Benefit Act to take into account the additional costs of living with a disability, the barriers to work for people with disabilities, and the intersectional needs of marginalized people living with disabilities. At the current benefit amount, the CDB leaves 98% of its targeted population below the poverty line.
- The benefit must be increased in future to at least $12,000 per year, indexed to inflation.
5) The CDB’s reconsideration and appeals processes should be fair and accessible
- The regulations limit the circumstances in which people can ask for reconsideration of a decision they disagree with. If they can’t ask for reconsideration, they are not allowed to appeal.
- Reconsideration must be available for all decisions the Minister makes under the Canada Disability Benefit Act and its regulations, including suspension decisions, decisions on overpayments, and administrative errors.
- When the government plans to suspend a person’s CDB, they should follow a clear and fair procedure. They should warn the person and give them an opportunity to respond before suspending CDB.
- The current appeal route to the Social Security Tribunal appears to create an accessible procedure and sets the stage for fair outcomes.
If you agree with these key points, submit ISAC’s detailed feedback through the online consultation tool.
You can find more information and instructions here.