(OTTAWA) The federal government has reintroduced its bill to create a monthly benefit for people with disabilities of working age, but Ottawa still can’t say who will be eligible and how much money — or even how much. when checks will begin to be paid.
Posted at 3:23 p.m.
This ‘Canada Disability Benefit’ is to be modeled after the Guaranteed Income Supplement, in line with a promise first made by the Liberals in September 2020
A bill introduced nearly a year ago died on the order paper when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called a snap election last summer.
The new version of the bill, tabled in the Commons on Thursday, is identical to the original. Like the previous version, it leaves almost all the details of how the benefit works to regulations that have yet to be spelled out.
Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion Minister Carla Qualtrough recalled on Thursday that there are already federal benefits for children and older people with disabilities. , but that there was currently nothing for people with disabilities who fall between these two groups – Canadians aged 19 to 64.
But the “hard reality” in Canada, she said, is that one in four people with disabilities live below the poverty line.