Return of disability benefit?
The Canadian Press – June 2, 2022 / 11:26 | History: 370734
Photo: The Canadian Press
The Minister of Employment, Labor Development and Disability Inclusion, Carla Qualtrough, smiles as she speaks to the media after presenting a bill in the House of Commons on Thursday, June 2, 2022 in Ottawa. THE CANADIAN PRESS / Adrian Wyld
The federal government has reintroduced legislation to create a monthly benefit check for working-age Canadians with disabilities, but Ottawa has yet to say who will qualify, how much they will receive or when checks will start flowing.
Canada’s disability benefit must be modeled on the Guaranteed Income Supplement, fulfilling a promise first made by the Liberals in September 2020.
The original bill introduced almost a year ago died without being approved when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called an election last summer.
The new version presented today by the Minister of Employment, Carla Qualtrough, is identical to the original and leaves almost all the details on how the benefit will work to a regulation that has not yet been specified.
Qualtrough says there is already federal support for children and seniors with disabilities, but there is nothing for people with disabilities between the ages of 19 and 64.
He says the “harsh reality” is that one in four Canadians with disabilities lives below the poverty line and that this benefit will be designed to change that.