OTTAWA — NDP leader Jagmeet Singh is accusing the Liberal government of designing exclusionary pandemic relief programs that ignore the needs of Canadians living with disabilities.
Speaking on Newstalk 580 CFRA’s “The Goods with Dahlia Kurtz”, Singh said the Liberal government, in its effort to keep benefits such as the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) from being accessed by people who don’t need the help, designed a program that excludes the most vulnerable.“One of the things we found during this pandemic is we’re up against a massive inertia of a Liberal government that is trying to design programs to exclude people,” Singh said. “They’re willing to miss out people who desperately need help so that they can avoid helping those who don’t need it. They want to make sure that someone who doesn’t need the help doesn’t get it but they’re willing to miss the people who are most desperate. That’s what we’re up against.” The CERB ended on Oct. 3, and was replaced with the Canada Recovery Benefit (CRB), which still requires at least $5,000 in 2019, 2020 of employment income or EI benefits in order to qualify. One of the main criticisms many disabled Canadians have made about the CERB and the CRB is the requirement to have previously received employment income. Those who cannot work due to their disability or who cannot find gainful employment say governments, both federal and provincial, have ignored them, a concern echoed by Singh. ”From the beginning of this pandemic, we said this should be available to anyone who needs it. That includes people living with disabilities,” he said. “As we went through the pandemic and drew attention to the amount of money we wanted to continue to fight for to get people the help they needed, we pointed out that people living with disabilities were ignored from the beginning.”
The Liberals promised to create a new Canadian Disability Benefit, modelled after the Guaranteed Income Supplement for seniors, in September’s Speech from the Throne. Details of this plan have yet to be announced.
A one-time $600 payment to anyone with a valid Disability Tax Credit certificate (DTC) will be delivered starting Oct. 30. Singh called this benefit inadequate. About 1.7 million Canadians are expected to qualify for the $600 payment, but there are millions more who will not.
Source: .ctvnews.ca
