Thank you for having the Canadian Association for Community Living here today. We are a national federation of 13 provincial and territorial associations that have about 400 local associations across the country supporting and promoting the full inclusion and full rights of Canadians with intellectual disabilities and their families.
I want to talk a little about what it's like to live with a disability in Canada. Canadians with disabilities are three times more likely to live in poverty than any other Canadians. Just over 75% of adult Canadians with intellectual disabilities who do not live with their families are living in poverty. Children with disabilities are twice as likely as other children to live in households that rely on social assistance as a main source of income. Families of children with disabilities are more likely to live in poverty than other families.
These numbers don't exist in a vacuum; they exist largely because people don't have the supports they need, and are unable to access employment and the things they need to keep their jobs. We know that over two million Canadian adults with disabilities lack one or more of the educational, workplace, aids, home modification, or other supports they need. Slightly more than half of children with disabilities do not have access to needed aids and devices.
Employment statistics are staggering. Over 55% of working-age adults with disabilities are currently unemployed or out of the workforce. For people with intellectual disabilities that number goes up to 70%. These numbers are pretty staggering in a country as prosperous as Canada; frankly, they are appalling.
Our poverty is entrenched, and our systems are designed to have disincentives to getting out of poverty. We know the lack of access to disability supports is probably the number one driving force behind the poverty of Canadians with disabilities. Poverty is a result of both exclusion and the lack of those supports, and it contributes to further exclusion and vulnerability in a vicious cycle.
Too often we see that Canadians with disabilities are exiled to inadequate, stigmatizing, and ineffective systems of income support. Social assistance programs were not designed to provide the long-term flexible supports needed by people with disabilities. They were built as a system of last resort, yet they have become a system of first resort for Canadians with intellectual disabilities.
Our existing systems also have built-in disincentives, where we unfortunately find that people are financially better off on welfare than getting off welfare. There are significant challenges. Eligibility for needed disability supports goes down as your income goes up, so people have to choose between being able to earn an income and having the supports they need to be able to gain that income and keep that job.
Further, we know that income derived from employment is often clawed back in many jurisdictions, again forcing people to rely on income security programs to gain access to those disability supports. We need broad system reform to address these disincentives and build a more appropriate support system of income and disability supports.
In the past few years the disability community, under the leadership of the Canadian Association for Community Living, the Council of Canadians with Disabilities--Marie White will be speaking shortly--and Independent Living Canada have worked together to create an ”end exclusion” initiative. We initially developed a vision for an inclusive and accessible Canada, and in the last couple of years have developed a national action plan on disability that identifies four key roles: enhanced disability supports; enhanced federal role in alleviating poverty--which is what we're here to talk about today; labour force inclusion measures; and a national social development role. I know Marie is going to speak more about the national action plan, so I won't spend too much time on that.
I will focus on the fact that we need a long-term disability strategy, and there are five things we could begin to do today to shape the long-term comprehensive agenda that's needed. It is time for a comprehensive agenda. A lot of work has been done in the more than 25 years since the Obstacles report was first released, but we need to see substantive change. We need to have new investments and reform of existing systems instead of continued incremental change.
One way we think we can do this is by establishing a high-level table. The federal government could establish a table that reports to both the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development to explore the options for addressing poverty and income reform, including an expanded federal role in income support. It could help set the vision that could guide us on this comprehensive agenda.
We also have to see some connections between the federal Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development and the provincial and territorial counterparts. We know that there is significant overlap between jurisdictions in their roles for disability. A constructive dialogue is needed to better understand the distinction between those roles, where they have to work together, and what we can be doing collectively to address the staggering needs of people with disabilities. In particular, we could be looking at what an expanded federal role in income support could mean at a provincial level by freeing up dollars that could then be reinvested in disability supports provincially. We know that in most provinces, more than half of welfare caseloads comprise people with disabilities.
Third, we can explore the federal role in income support. Our colleague mentioned the creation of a refundable disability tax credit. We've seen the federal government demonstrate leadership on this issue in the past. We've seen it through initiatives for seniors, veterans, and children. The federal government has both the tools and the capacity to address the longstanding entrenched poverty.
Another thing we need is data. The participation and activity limitation survey, also known as PALS, is a crucial source of data for our community. The future of PALS currently remains in question. It has not yet been renewed for 2011 and beyond. Not only does this data provide us the crucial research and policy information the disability community, our governments, and other civil society organizations need; it also enables Canada to meet its obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. We continue to call on the federal government to secure PALS for 2011 and beyond.
Our last suggestion is on the UN convention. The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has been in force for just over a year. Over 50 countries have ratified it, but Canada is not yet one of them. The convention provides us with a useful framework that we can be using here at home to better understand how to develop and implement a comprehensive disability agenda. It also provides Canada with an opportunity to share its expertise and knowledge internationally. I can speak personally that there are countries around the world looking to Canada to continue to provide leadership on this file. We again encourage and urge the government to swiftly move toward ratification without reservation.
The time for action is now. To be honest, we don't need another Obstacles report; we need action. We need change in the lives of people with disabilities, and I do believe the government has the capacity to do that.
Thank you.