Anonymous

Please share what you would like people to know about your experience accessing or relying on the Disability Assistance Benefit. 

Government, Wow, you are sure quick to help everybody, …..except the disabled!

DISABLED LIVES MATTER, TOO!

A one time payment of $600, and yet people collecting CERB and other government benefits are able to actually afford groceries. The cost of groceries has skyrocketed. Living on a Gulf Island, we are limited in our choices of grocery stores and the so called “sales”, are what people on the mainland pay regularly. We, too, need facemasks and sanitizers, as they are now mandatory in ALL public spaces. 

Disabled Canadians are made invisible, our stories remain untold, and the world is left with the impression that we do not exist and have no experiences worth knowing about! No one said EVER, ” I want to have a PWD designation, when I grow up!!”  “I want to have a permanent life time brain injury”,  Or “I want not to use my limbs, or I want to sit all day in a wheelchair”  “I want to dedicate my entire income to rent, . . . food and heat ,”. . . Well, I had better stock up on blankets!  I can’t afford a heater to heat my place.

Let’s never forget our CRPD (UN Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) Article 28 right to an adequate standard of living and social protection . . . This needs to be embedded in legislation to make it a reality for persons with disabilities in Canada.

From the United Nations: Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) Article 28 – Adequate standard of living and social protection  

1. States Parties recognize the right of persons with disabilities to an adequate standard of living for themselves and their families, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions, and shall take appropriate steps to safeguard and promote the realization of this right without discrimination on the basis of disability.

2. States Parties recognize the right of persons with disabilities to social protection and to the enjoyment of that right without discrimination on the basis of disability, and shall take appropriate steps to safeguard and promote the realization of this right, including measures:

a) To ensure equal access by persons with disabilities to clean water services, and to ensure access to appropriate and affordable services, devices and other assistance for disability-related needs;

b) To ensure access by persons with disabilities, in particular women and girls with disabilities and older persons with disabilities, to social protection programmes and poverty reduction programmes;

c) To ensure access by persons with disabilities and their families living in situations of poverty to assistance from the State with disability-related expenses, including adequate training, counselling, financial assistance and respite care;

d) To ensure access by persons with disabilities to public housing programmes;

e) To ensure equal access by persons with disabilities to retirement benefits and programmes.

Mr. Prime Minister, and your parties that lead this fine country, you are in BREACH of the United Nations Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Persons with disabilities are normally excluded, even in discussions on human rights.

For instance, most human rights commission complaints in Canada are grounded in disability discrimination. Yet, we weren’t even noted as a priority by BC’s Human Rights Commissioner in her recent province wide meetings.

“There’s really no such thing as the ‘voiceless’. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.” ― Arundhati Roy  

 DISABLED LIVES MATTER, TOO!  

Living on provincial Disability in British Columbia is challenging. Our present legislation is designed for people on Welfare assistance and does nothing to help a “Person With Disabilities”. The $800/month that one is allowed to make without any deductions is a Welfare incentive and does nothing for the person who cannot commit to an employer due to their illness/disability. People are forced to live below the poverty line. We believe that in the case of the $800, that should be automatically added to the disability cheque without having to go out to work since the reason the person is on disability is because they CANNOT work.   

DISABLED LIVES MATTER, TOO!