While the government points to promises around eliminating federal clawbacks, others point to continued low rates of support for people with disabilities
People with disabilities and their advocates say they want more action from the province to increase benefits for people suffering from chronic conditions and improve accessibility to health care and housing.
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They say both the NDP and the Conservatives failed to make disability rights a priority during October’s election campaign and that the current maximum rate of provincial assistance — $1,483.50 for a single person and $2,548.50 for a couple — keeps people in “legislated poverty.”
Additionally, some people on disability have had that provincial assistance partially clawed back because of federal supports they receive through the Canada Pension Plan disability program.
Surrey resident Dani Oliver has been dealing with cognitive impairment since a car accident in 1999 left her with injuries to her brain, neck and back. She said this leaves her unable to work. Her partner has also not been able to work since 2010 after a workplace accident left him unable to walk and in consistent pain.
Oliver said provincial clawbacks have kept her and her partner struggling to keep hold of their one-bedroom apartment that has no heat and is infested by mice and cockroaches.
“They continue to this day to deduct every red cent I receive from CPP-D every month … including the indexed-to-inflation increase I receive at the beginning of each year,” said Oliver, who also wants to see the province increase the shelter rate of $500 for a single person and $695 for a couple.
Next year, the federal government plans to introduce a new income supplement — the Canada Disability Benefit — that will provide up to $200 a month. The province has promised not to claw back this amount from the assistance it provides.
Oliver said she wishes the benefit had been introduced earlier because she will only be eligible for it for 3½ years before she hits the cutoff age of 64.
Advocate Gabrielle Peters believes the province doesn’t pay enough attention to people with disabilities, who make up 25 per cent of the province’s population, and often doesn’t give them a seat at the table. She had hoped this would change during the election.
“What I was hoping to see was that we are part of the conversation, instead of excluded from it, in terms of housing, in terms of health care, in terms of education, as well as, of course, the issue of income support and other supports,” said Peters, who uses a wheelchair because of a rare autoimmune disease.
She said people with disabilities require documentation from a physician to access income support, medical equipment and certain medications. Getting this support becomes a lot harder without a family physician.
They’re also twice as likely to live below the poverty line than people without disabilities, according to figures compiled by Disability Alliance B.C.
The society’s executive director, Helaine Boyd, said her organization reached out to all three provincial parties in the lead-up to the election but only received a response from the NDP.
Among the promises by the governing party: additional increases to disability assistance rates, the stipulation that five per cent of new housing units be wheelchair-accessible and that more people will be connected to a family doctor.
Boyd said these are all good steps but still fall short.
“We continue to push for changes to provincial disability assistance, such as abolishing earnings exemption limits and removing clawbacks on employment insurance income and spousal income.”
Community advocate Spencer van Vloten believes current rates of assistance are nowhere near enough to live on and, when combined with the fact people with disabilities can only make up to $16,200 a year before their assistance is clawed back, can make it really difficult to keep a roof over their heads.
For a person with a disability whose partner doesn’t have a disability, that household earning limit goes up to $19,440, while households where both partners have a disability can make up to $32,400 a year under the cap.
“Someone said to me recently, ‘As someone who is going to go on disability and live in Vancouver, I’m going to be homeless,’” said van Vloten.
“Not only are the rates so low, but the government has all sorts of ways of clawing back the money that people do make, which is basically legislating them into poverty.”
Sheila Malcolmson, minister of poverty reduction and social development, pushed back on the criticisms, telling Postmedia News that the province has raised the disability assistance rate five times since 2017, which she said amounts to twice the rate of inflation.
Malcolmson said the income-exemption cap has been raised three times and is one of the highest in the country.
She said she is concerned that some people don’t understand the cap and that many aren’t working at all for fear of going over it and losing their benefits.
“We have got more work to do to remove barriers to employment and let people know that they won’t lose their benefits when they start to work,” she said.
Malcolmson’s ministry didn’t respond to a question about whether the province intends to eliminate clawbacks of provincial benefits for people receiving money through the Canada Pension Plan disability program, instead reiterating their plan to not clawback the new Canada Disability Benefit.
The ministry also said it would “continue to remove barriers to income and disability assistance, including federal benefits.”
Tara Armstrong, the Tories’ social development and poverty reduction critic, said she supports raising the income cap and wants the province to start conversations on how to encourage people on disability to get back into the workforce.
She believes the NDP also needs to focus on the big picture of ensuring all British Columbians are able to live with dignity and opportunity.
“I really do believe that the increase in the supplemental income cap needs to be seriously looked at, because not only is it too low in terms of the amount of money, but it also really discourages people from getting out there and seeking work and maybe even doing better and improving more than they thought they could,” said Armstrong.
Green party Leader Sonia Furstenau wants to see the NDP implement her party’s promise to raise disability and social assistance rates to $2,400 a month for individuals and $3,450 a month for couples.
She says providing people with disabilities the support they need will actually reduce provincial costs when it comes to health care, the criminal justice system and the child welfare systems.
“It would cost $1.87 billion to lift people out of poverty, and the savings would be enormous. It’s incredibly expensive to have people living in poverty. The estimates are between $13 (billion) to $18 billion annually,” she said.