Thank you, Mr. Chair.
As I stated earlier, it was heard in testimony, over and over in almost every testimony we received, either on paper or spoken, that people wanted to have an adequate standard of living and the necessities of life. We know that's also our commitment as Canadians.
I want to raise, again, the concept of adequacy. Unfortunately, at this point in time, we could not get it into legislation. We could not get it secured. The minimum floor would be the poverty line. Of course, we know persons with disabilities need even more than the poverty line, because expenses can be even higher. I am introducing the idea that it goes into regulation here, in order to at least protect the minimum that the minister and order in council should be considering for this benefit.
The concept of adequacy was raised in testimony by human rights lawyer Vince Calderhead on Monday, November 14. The Canadian government has legally binding obligations under international human rights law to ensure that persons in need have an adequate standard of living. Canada ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and then acceded to the optional protocol in December 2018.
Under this convention, we adhere to the principles mentioned in article 3, which include, among others, non-discrimination and accessibility. Article 28 declares an “adequate standard of living and social protection” for persons with disabilities, specifying the need “to ensure access by persons with disabilities, in particular women and girls with disabilities and older persons with disabilities, to social protection...and poverty reduction programmes” in paragraph 2(b).
Furthermore, as mentioned in testimony, under subsection 36(1) of the Constitution Act, 1982, Canada and the provinces have a joint constitutional commitment to provide “essential public services of a reasonable quality to all Canadians.”
Canada's official poverty line—we actually have one, so I'm surprised it's not being used in this legislation—reflects “the cost of...basket[s] of goods and services representing a modest, basic standard of living.” Even StatsCan itself agrees this is ableist in its nature, in that it does not cover the cost of disability, which we talked about in the past. This is a minimum protection for people, at least.
Lastly, for Parliament to meet its international human rights and constitutional obligations, Bill C-22 must be amended to include a provision requiring that amounts set by regulation for the Canada disability benefit be adequate.
We have testimony or briefs from Vince Calderhead, Maytree, the Canadian Human Rights Commission, ARCH Disability Law Centre, Michelle Hewitt from Disability without Poverty, Income Security Advocacy Centre, the Basic Income Canada Network, Jeff Neven from Indwell, Alliance for Equality of Blind Canadians, Rosemarie Hemmelgarn, and Lorna Aberdein, to name just a few who believe we should be protecting for a level of adequacy.
I'd truly hoped we could get this into clause 5 in legislation, because this is a matter of life and death, Mr. Chair.