People living with episodic disabilities face a complex and bewildering array of income support programs. I'd like to emphasize that government, private, and quasi-government bodies spent an estimated $28 billion in 2008-09 in direct income support benefits to individuals with disabilities, without any comprehensive oversight respecting what the programs do as a whole or purport to achieve for Canadians with disabilities. Currently there is no single coordinating body to oversee and report on any aspect of the programs and services. Although taken individually each program or service may work well, the system as a whole is hard to access and does not work for people with episodic disabilities.
Our second recommendation is that the government develop a body—a commission, a ministry, or a department—to oversee and report on the coordination between the array of disability support programs and service areas and to establish options for people with episodic disabilities within disability benefit programs.
Our third recommendation is that the government develop a program or combination of programs that provides partial disability income support to complement earned income from part-time work for people who are living with life-long episodic disabilities and who have a partial capacity to work.
A critical next step would be to convene a national policy dialogue of key stakeholders to discuss the long-term future of disability and service programs and address approaches to making programs and services more flexible. The Episodic Disabilities Network is well positioned and would be pleased to collaborate with the federal government and all key stakeholders to move this dialogue forward.
Thank you.