'Do our lives count for less?': COVID-19 exposes cracks in disability aid
"It doesn't just happen magically. People have to try to make society better."
In 2017, more than a quarter of Canadian adults with disabilities — or 1.6 million people — said they couldn't afford a required aid, device or prescription medication, according to Statistics Canada.
The study also found that 28 per cent of people with severe disabilities aged 25 to 64 live below Canada's official poverty line, compared to 10 per cent of their counterparts without disabilities.
In a report on welfare incomes in Canada in 2018, the anti-poverty foundation Maytree found that annual incomes for individuals on standard disability assistance ranged from $9,800 and $12,500 in most provinces. Ontario had the highest rate at $14,954, followed by British Columbia at $14,802 and Quebec at $13,651.
At these levels, the organization says many provincial programs don't cover the costs of living in their biggest cities.
According to the government's "market basket measure," the poverty threshold for a single person in Calgary was $20,585 in 2018 — double Alberta's standard disability rate of $10,301. Even at the higher end of the spectrum, B.C.'s support payments fall $5,882 short of the $20,684 poverty threshold in Vancouver.
Vancouver activist romham gallacher, who spells their name with lower-case letters, is part of the grassroots group 300ToLive that's pushing B.C. to extend its $300 supplement to disability assistance beyond the COVID-19 crisis as part of a broader effort to bring benefits in line with a basic standard of living.
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