"Good News: Parliament finally passed the new Canada Disability Benefit Act..." June 22, 2023 Canadian News Update + Commentary
The not so good news is that the Bill is far too vague in many key areas and not strong enough in others.
The good news for many Canadians is that Parliament finally passed the long awaited and much needed Bill C-22, the new Canada Disability Benefit Act before they scattered for their Summer Recess.
The not so good news is that the Bill is far too vague in many key areas and not strong enough in others.
The Act proposes to create a federal income supplement for low income, working age people with disabilities, not unlike the Guaranteed Income Supplement.
But the Bill doesn’t specify the criteria for qualifying for the assistance, nor does it state how much the recipients would receive; and what do they mean by working age? Is it 65, or 70? No one knows!
More importantly, there are no guarantees in the Bill that guard against insurance companies from clawing back existing assistance payments, which would eliminate any benefit to the recipients.
And, there is no guarantee that a future government could not simply eliminate the program in the name of “finding efficiencies”.
These are glaring shortcomings, but in fairness, this Bill (imperfect as it may be) was an all-Party attempt to finally deal with a critical issue and they deserve credit for doing so.
They did the proper thing; now, they need to go back and do the proper thing, properly!
Further Reading: CTV: Canada disability benefit bill passes Parliament
CTV News: Rising cost of living taking toll on Canadians living off disability benefits