A key objective of the Canada Disability Benefit is to reduce, and potentially, eliminate poverty among people with disabilities while ensuring that people are not left worse off than they were before. This means that the amount of the benefit needs to be adequate to lift people with disabilities out of poverty, which raises the billion-dollar question: how much money is needed to eliminate poverty among people with disabilities? Should everyone get the same benefit, or should it reflect living expenses and specific disability related needs? How can we ensure that private insurers and provinces don’t claw back the benefits?
In this episode, we are joined by Andrea Hatala, Recipient Co-Chair of the ODSP Action Coalition; Bill Adair, Executive Director of Spinal Cord Injury Canada; and Adrian Merdzan, Staff Lawyer at the Income Security Advocacy Centre (ISAC).