Evidence of meeting #43 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was done.
A video is available from Parliament.
President and Member, Board of Directors, Mouvement Personne D'Abord de Sainte-Thérèse, Fédération des Mouvements Personne D’Abord du Québec
Yes, please.
Director, Fédération des Mouvements Personne D’Abord du Québec
Mr. Chair, I would like to complete my president's response. Is that possible?
Director, Fédération des Mouvements Personne D’Abord du Québec
Thank you.
In our community, people have also expressed very serious concerns about receiving any money from the federal government if it means systematically reducing the benefits they receive from the provincial government.
We have the same concern about adequacy as the other witnesses. If the legislation doesn't specify how much people should get, negotiations with the provinces are definitely going to be difficult.
You talked about harmonization. In my opinion, as Vincent Calderhead said, if you want to avoid a patchwork of measures, the federal government needs to have Canada-wide negotiations. Otherwise, there will be as many plans as there are provinces and territories. We don't want that, and I don't believe that's what the government wants.
November 14th, 2022 / 4:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey
Thank you, Ms. Gratton and Mr. Long.
Ms. Chabot, you have the floor for six minutes.
Bloc
Louise Chabot Bloc Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to thank all the witnesses for their valuable testimony.
We know that this is an umbrella bill that sometimes makes us wonder what the future holds.
Ms. Bourgeois, thank you very much for your work and your testimony.
During your testimony, you made it clear that your organization is devoted to advocating for the rights of people with developmental disabilities. Being self-sufficient is very important to you.
President and Member, Board of Directors, Mouvement Personne D'Abord de Sainte-Thérèse, Fédération des Mouvements Personne D’Abord du Québec
Yes, it's important to me.
Bloc
Louise Chabot Bloc Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
How does this new Canada disability benefit help meet the goal of self-sufficiency?
President and Member, Board of Directors, Mouvement Personne D'Abord de Sainte-Thérèse, Fédération des Mouvements Personne D’Abord du Québec
The government needs to work with people with disabilities and take the time to consult with them about their needs. They need access to individual benefits and enough money to survive. If the rent for an apartment is $900 a month, the individual won't have enough money to live on, and that's unacceptable.
We also need politicians to respect the “nothing about us without us” principle. We want to work with them to end poverty. Too many people live in poverty. We don't have enough social or affordable housing. You see condos on every street corner, but the rent is over $1,000 a month, which is crazy. If we had enough low-income housing, that would help people with disabilities.
Bloc
Louise Chabot Bloc Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
Thank you, Ms. Bourgeois.
The issue of social housing and affordable housing is a concern in just about every region. I imagine that it's an even bigger challenge for people with disabilities.
You want to be consulted. You want to have your say.
As parliamentarians, we see this bill as nothing more than a statement of principles. The terms, amounts, and recipients of benefits will be determined by regulations, so that's not in the bill, and we have no timeline.
Do you feel it's a good thing that things will be determined by regulation? Do you feel you will be consulted on these regulations?
President and Member, Board of Directors, Mouvement Personne D'Abord de Sainte-Thérèse, Fédération des Mouvements Personne D’Abord du Québec
We'd like to be consulted when the regulations are being developed. We need to take the time to sit down and discuss it.
Bloc
Louise Chabot Bloc Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
You don't take issue with it being done by regulation, by and for people with disabilities. We currently have no timeline for the new benefit. We have no idea.
President and Member, Board of Directors, Mouvement Personne D'Abord de Sainte-Thérèse, Fédération des Mouvements Personne D’Abord du Québec
I would ask Ms. Gratton to respond.
Director, Fédération des Mouvements Personne D’Abord du Québec
Having no timeline is problematic. As someone said earlier, timelines are often helpful because they help people anticipate when discussions will end.
Ms. Bourgeois said that we want to be consulted on both the bill and the regulations. I believe that a permanent consultation mechanism should be enshrined in the bill to give substance to discussions between people with disabilities, the government and its decision-makers. That way, the outcomes would always reflect what people want and need. Clearly.
With respect to the timeline, people are asking us that question and they're going to keep asking us. You're always going to be asked about that. There is no timeline, when will there be one? It's urgent.
On the other hand, it has to be done right. Why not establish a timeline, even if it's far off in the future? At least people will know where they're going and how they need to work with decision-makers towards an outcome.
Liberal
NDP
Bonita Zarrillo NDP Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I really appreciate the witness testimony today, it's an interesting discussion about rights, and I want to revisit the discussion around rights. If I have the chance, I'm going to go to Mr. Lepofsky second. He mentioned that the amendments would speed up getting money to people, and I want to ask him about that.
First, I want to ask Mr. Calderhead a question. He mentioned that now is the time to get the standard of adequacy included in this bill, because of the human rights framing, and I want to ask Mr. Calderhead what rights are currently not being met or at risk, and how adequacy could solve that.
Legal Counsel, As an Individual
The key here is that the federal government is now on the edge or at the point of having a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to ensure that people with disabilities no longer live in poverty. In order to do that, in order to get it right, they have to take measures with the provinces, importantly, and come to arrangements with the provinces, but also with the federal government's own role, to ensure, on the right to an adequate income—as set out in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and as set out in the CRPD, which is mentioned in the bill—that those human rights obligations finally get implemented and respected. Now is the time to do that.
If the bill is not amended coming out of this committee, or subsequently, to ensure adequacy, then whether or not adequacy ever gets respected in the regulations is entirely unpredictable and, from my experience of 35 years, very unlikely. If Canada wants to ensure that it's respecting its obligation to ensure people with disabilities have the right to an adequate income and to enjoy that right, then it should put it in the bill. The minister said repeatedly that the purpose of the bill was to lift people with disabilities out of poverty. That should be in the bill.
NDP
Bonita Zarrillo NDP Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
Thank you very much, Mr. Calderhead.
I want to go to you, Mr. Lepofsky, because you made a statement about how amendments to the bill could speed up getting money to people. I'm just wondering if you could expand a little on how getting amendments would help to speed up the bill.
Chair, Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance
Because this bill leaves everything up in the air, that means cabinet has to figure it all out whenever they feel like it and whenever they get to it and so on, without deadlines. Deadlines would speed it up, but putting in details about the specifics—setting some mandatory minimums of who is eligible and a mandatory minimum of the amount that it can't sink below—would help to speed it up. Let me be clear: As designed now, we have an open-ended, possible future consultation.
There are only three major things to consult on: number one, how much money people with disabilities need to live on; number two, who should be eligible; and number three, what we need in the application and appeal processes to make sure they are swift, fair and barrier-free. This is not rocket science. The minister has been consulting for two years. I don't know why it would take too long to figure out those things.
Lastly, I'll tell you quickly that my coalition, with a funding of zero—we didn't take any money and we didn't ask for any money from the government to do this—put together a list of six proposed improvements. In the open letter, that's all before you. We sent it out. We wrote it in a couple of days and sent it out 10 days ago. We already have 37 organizations sending emails, with more emailing us while I was on the plane, on my way here to speak to you.
That was in 10 days, with a budget of zero. This doesn't have to take a super long time, but left to cabinet and not decided on with constraints from this committee and Parliament, it could go on indefinitely.
NDP
Bonita Zarrillo NDP Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
To follow up on that question, when you say it could go on indefinitely, in your best estimate, without any guidelines, any amendments, any commitments or any guardrails, so to speak, how long do you think this will take if it passes as is?
Chair, Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance
I have no idea, because the government could decide that something else is important, or someone could intervene and say they don't want to spend money on this now, or it could take less time but they would end up with fewer dollars. One thing I know about all of us is that we work better to deadline.
The other thing I know is that if this committee takes the messages on which these 37 organizations have united.... If you go through the briefs and the submissions, many of them support many or most of the various messages that are in our open letter. You have the agenda for change. It's just a matter of putting it together and coming up with the wording.
NDP
Bonita Zarrillo NDP Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
Thank you.
Mr. Calderhead, one of the things you said was that no one should have to trade off human rights for quick passage of the bill. That's sticking with me a little today, because I think we should be able to get both.
I wonder if you could share with us what you think the risks are. You mentioned a few, but can you reiterate what the risks are to persons with disabilities of letting this go as is?
Legal Counsel, As an Individual
The evidence from November 2, when the committee heard witnesses then and subsequently, was really very compelling. People were telling you that adequacy's important, that ending poverty is important and that we have to get this right. They're referring to essential human rights—the right to an adequate income.
When those witnesses say, “But we have to be pragmatic. We really want it to pass quickly. We really have to have it pass quickly. We just want this bill passed so that the regulations can be made,” what they're effectively saying is, “We're going to go along with a bill that doesn't protect adequacy whatsoever just to expedite the process, and we'll cross our fingers at the regulations stage that it might be okay.”
Really, no one should have to make that trade-off. Fundamental human rights are not ones that we trade off. That is to say, “If you give up on adequacy, we'll agree to pass the bill quickly.” Everyone knows this bill can be amended with the snap of a finger coming out of this committee or at the cabinet level to say, “Yes, we will make an amendment.” If you want to include and protect human rights, then that has to happen without people being forced to give up on human rights in order to ensure quick passage.