Disability Without Poverty’s Process to Bring the Perspectives of People with Disabilities to Government
In September 2020, the Government said that they would make a new benefit called the Canada Disability Benefit (CDB). The CDB would go to disabled people who live in poverty.
The statistics about disabled people living in poverty are awful:
- At least 1.4 million disabled people in Canada live in poverty.
2 in 10 people in Canada are disabled. - But 4 in 10 of the people who live in poverty are disabled.
- Provincial disability assistance payments are below the poverty line.
- When Canadians were asked, 89% said that disabled people should not live in poverty.
At Disability Without Poverty, we believe creating the benefit must:
- Include disabled people in all aspects of the design.
- Get the money into the hands of disabled people as quickly as possible.
- We believe the best way to get the information to the Government is to ask disabled people ourselves.
We are starting a new project that will:
- Engage with a lot of disabled people in Canada to hear their thoughts.
- Write a report for the Government that tells them what people with disabilities think, and share the recommendations they have for the regulations, policies and procedures of the Canada Disability Benefit.
- Create a community of disabled people in Canada to keep talking about poverty and the ways we can work together to eliminate it for disabled people in Canada.
The Project
We want to answer questions on regulations, policies and procedures.
In other words, we will be looking to get the perspectives of disabled people on:
- Regulations The rules and/or law that will define the standards and requirements of the CDB.
- Policies The high level guidelines that help decision-making and action related to the CDB.
- Procedures The details of how the CDB would be carried out in terms of access, eligibility and content.
What we are going to do
There are going to be three separate parts:
Part 1
Hear from 5000 disabled people
- We are going to ask for the views of 5000 disabled people using an online tool.
- This will be available online, with options for access using ASL and LSQ, and any other methods needed so that people can participate.
- It will ask about the values and issues that disabled people care about.
Part 2
Peer to peer action week
- 100 disabled people will interview a few people each from their community of people with disabilities, for 30 to 60 minutes. This will mean we hear from almost 400 people!
- We will be able to hear more detailed thoughts from people when we talk to them, one to one, friend to friend.
- We will provide training to help those who are doing the interviews, and a small honorarium to everyone who takes part.
Part 3
Back to the 5000
We are going to take the results from Part 1 and Part 2 back to the 5000 people, and ask questions like:
- Did we get it right?
- Was there anything we missed?
Take the questionnaire now
More information here: https://www.disabilitywithoutpoverty.ca/take-action/shape-the-cdb/