Mr. Speaker, I am back again tonight to continue calling on the government to fix the Canada disability benefit.
To sum up where we are now, this is critical because 40% of the people living in poverty across the country are folks with disabilities. This is the case because provincial and territorial programs are all below the poverty line. In the province of Ontario, for example, the Ontario disability support program totals just over $1,300 a month. In Kitchener, for example, that does not get most people one month's rent on an apartment, and it is about $1,000 below the poverty line.
Folks with disabilities across the country and the disability community advocated for the government to introduce a federal benefit that would supplement these inadequate provincial and territorial programs. It was promised by the government years ago. It was in the Liberals' 2021 election platform, which they campaigned on. It was to be called the Canada disability benefit, and they put forward that it would lift at least hundreds of thousands of folks with disabilities out of poverty.
Now, as a result of those commitments, we did see legislation get passed, and we saw the first version of a proposal for the Canada disability benefit in this year's budget. However, the issue is that what is being proposed is not what the disability community had been calling for. The Liberals are proposing it to be a maximum of $200 a month, or about $6 a day. They are proposing for it to only be delivered to folks who have access to the disability tax credit, which is an incredibly burdensome credit to get access to, and they are proposing that it not start until July of next year, which is about three months before the next fixed election date.
Here is what folks in the disability community have to say, and I will just share two briefly tonight. Krista Carr from Inclusion Canada said, “Our disappointment cannot be overstated.... This benefit was supposed to lift persons with disabilities out of poverty, not merely make them marginally less poor than they already are.”
I have read the words from Kate before in the House. She said, “This budget announcement of adding a max of 200 more a month to a select few disabled people is The Most Liberal Party thing I've ever seen”.
As a result, at committee, I asked the minister a series of questions, including how many people with disabilities would be lifted out of poverty and who in their consultations asked for this.
Last week, we finally got some answers, and they were disappointing. The minister has not met with all of her provincial counterparts, including Ontario. Nothing is scheduled there. The benefit will not lift hundreds of thousands out of poverty, but it will be about 25,000, or about 2% of folks with disabilities living in poverty. Also, for all they talk about “nothing without us”, only 3% of respondents to the Liberals' online survey indicated support for the disability tax credit to be the sole eligibility criteria. It is clear now that the Canada disability benefit that they are proposing did not come from the disability community.
My question to the parliamentary secretary is the same that I asked months ago. If this proposal did not come from the disability community, who is it that asked for what the government is proposing to be in the Canada disability benefit after three years of supposedly consulting with the disability community?