Note: Shortly after this Update was posted to our website, on May 27 the Ontario government announced that they will not claw back social assistance from individuals who will also receive the CDB. This is a big win! See our statement here. All other information in this post remains accurate and up-to-date.
The Canada Disability Benefit (CDB) has been a long time coming, and we are at the point where most of the “finishing touches” needed to implement the Canada Disability Benefit Act are in place.
Regulations were approved and published in early March – no major changes
CDB regulations were approved in early March 2025 and published in full at this link. We have written a lot about the regulations (detailed rules on how the law should be carried out) and the work that we and others have done to try to improve them. You can read more about that in previous posts we made in September 2024 and December 2024. In the end, the regulations did not change much between the draft version and the final version approved in March.
There were two small positive changes to the regulations. The regulations state that both people in a spousal relationship (spouses/common law partners) must file taxes for one of them to receive the CDB. However, the government can now waive the tax filing requirement for an applicant’s spouse/partner in circumstances where there is family violence, where the spouse/partner does not live with the applicant, or where the spouse/partner does not reside in Canada. The second positive change was that individuals are now able to appeal overpayment decisions to the Social Security Tribunal. The government acknowledged that this specific change was made due to the advocacy efforts of community legal clinics!
As of May 15, the regulations have “come into force”. The government has updated its CDB website with details about who qualifies, and how the Benefit amount is calculated, including a section which outlines “situations that affect the benefit amount”. Check out the government’s CDB website by clicking here.
As of the date of this post, there is no way to apply for the Benefit yet, even though the federal government continues to say that payments will “roll out” starting in July.
Applying for the Disability Tax Credit in order to apply for the Canada Disability Benefit
Currently, the only way to access the CDB is by demonstrating eligibility for the Disability Tax Credit (DTC). We will keep advocating for additional pathways to CDB access, but in the meantime, many different organizations have put together helpful materials to support individuals and their families, friends, or supporters to apply for the DTC.
The following is a short list of some of public materials and guides on the DTC. Note: The links shared below are from non-profit organizations and are for information purposes only. ISAC does not endorse any organization that asks you to pay for services to support your DTC application.
- Plan Institute’s dedicated CDB website (www.canadadisabilitybenefit.ca) has lots of resources on the CDB and Guides for applying for the DTC designed for youth, for medical practitioners, for people over 50, etc. They also have an updated basic info sheet about the DTC.
- ISAC’s tip sheet on the DTC for healthcare practitioners. View it and download it here.
- Canada Revenue Agency’s website “Demystifying the disability tax credit: 10 Myths on the DTC”
- My DTC Tool by the Disability Alliance of BC
Important questions are still unanswered
There are still a lot of important questions that we do not have the answers to, both from the federal government, and from the provincial government.
We recently published an op-ed in Policy Magazine laying out our concerns as well as several policy solutions that could fix some of the foreseeable problems with the CDB. You can read the entire op-ed at this link on Policy Magazine’s website, or posted in our Updates section here.
Major questions that remain for us include the following:
- Why is the federal government forcing people to go through the process of getting a Disability Tax Credit certificate before they can apply for the Canada Disability Benefit?
- What will the CDB application process look like? How is the federal government spending the money they set aside to help people apply?
- Will the federal government bring back a pre-election proposal to exclude the CDB from the definition of Adjusted Family Net Income? (If they don’t do this, receiving the CDB could impact other benefits they receive that are based on income level)
- Will the Ontario government amend the regulations under the Housing Services Act so that receiving CDB doesn’t bump up the rents of some people who live in Rent-Geared-to-Income housing units and who also receive social assistance?
- How will the Ontario government treat the CDB for people who receive provincial social assistance? Will they let it stack on top of current social assistance or put a clawback in place?
We continue to push for answers on these questions, and keep advocating for both the federal and provincial governments to improve access to the CDB.
Join us in telling the Ontario Government: No Clawbacks to the CDB!
You can join us in calling on the provincial government to ensure there are no clawbacks to social assistance for people who will receive both provincial social assistance and the CDB.
Use the tool at this link to send a letter now!
We will continue to post updates about the CDB and related supports and events on our website, and through our Twitter/X account here. If you want to read through our past posts on the CDB, click here.