Thank you very much. I'm speaking to you as an individual, a lawyer who has worked in the poverty law area for about 35 years. I've worked on income support programs, both provincial and federal. I've done extensive litigation on both the federal and provincial levels, as well as in international human rights. Throughout this period of time, my clients have been exclusively people living in poverty, who are disproportionately people with disabilities.
I prepared and filed a submission with this committee, which I understand has not yet made it through the translation process. It talks about three issues. First is the absence of a definition for disability in the legislation. Second, it talks also about the clawback problems and clawback issues. Third, and the one I would like to focus on most substantively, would be the lack of a provision for adequacy in the bill. Let me speak just briefly on the clawback issue.
I've had an opportunity to review the speeches at second reading, and also the witness testimony from the minister before this committee. It was very clear from her remarks that the issue of clawback is top of mind for her, as it is for many people who are interested in this bill.
My issue here—and again I won't be long about it—is that as it is drafted now, if the bill becomes law, and regardless of what arrangements and negotiations are arrived at with the provinces, the current wording of the bill requires that a benefit be paid to everyone who meets the eligibility requirements, regardless of what any particular province intends to do by way of clawbacks, non-clawbacks or partial clawbacks. Again I'm not going to spend a lot of time on that, primarily because I know that others are very interested in the clawback issue, but I just flag for you that as currently drafted, the bill requires that a payment be made, completely irrespective of whatever arrangements have been arrived at with the provinces.
Let me move on to the most substantive issue, and I think that's the issue of benefit adequacy. Canada is under an international human rights obligation, under various human rights treaties, to ensure that people with disabilities enjoy the right to an adequate income. That's under the CRPD, which is mentioned in the bill, and also under the International Covenant on the Economic Social and Cultural Human Rights.
As currently drafted, the bill makes no provision whatsoever to ensure adequacy and leaves the quantum, the amount and so on, left to regulation. This is the moment that adequacy needs to be included in the legislation. It's required, I would submit, to ensure the compliance with international human rights law. Also, with Canada's constitutional commitments, under section 36 of the Constitution, specifically, section 36(1)(c) sets out a joint federal-provincial commitment to ensure that services of reasonable quality are made available to all Canadians. “Reasonable” here must for sure meet the adequacy test set out by the official poverty line in Canada.
That's strictly on income support with respect to people with disabilities. Of course there must be measures taken to ensure that the cost of their disabilities is taken into account. In my submission to you, I have set out at the very end of it a proposed amendment to the bill, which I would submit could be an amendment to section 5 of the bill and could simply read, “A benefit paid under subsection (1) must be sufficient to ensure that the person to whom it is paid does not live below the official poverty line as defined in section 2 of the Poverty Reduction Act.” That clearly needs to be interpreted and implied in a way that takes into account the cost of disability.
Rather than leave it to the uncertainties and vagaries of regulations that might be created down the road, now is the time when the standard of adequacy must be made. I know that many people who have testified have already indicated that there is urgency and that this bill must be passed immediately. I would submit that, as this committee reports, it ought to propose an amendment along the lines I proposed to clause 5, and that the government could very quickly ensure that its human rights obligations are met in a way that is not compromising and that meets those obligations.
No one should have to compromise with trade-offs to their human rights entitlements in order to ensure quick passage of the bill.
With that, I'll leave it there, and I thank you very much for the opportunity.