shape the cdb

Disability Without Poverty’s Process to Bring the Perspectives of People with Disabilities to Government

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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:

1. Regulations 🡢 The rules and/or law that will define the standards and requirements of the CDB.
2. Policies 🡢 The high level guidelines that help decision-making and action related to the CDB.
3. 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?

Background

In September 2020, the Government of Canada committed to creating a new benefit – the Canada Disability Benefit (CDB). The promise of lifting disabled people out of poverty in Canada started to become a possibility, with a benefit that would significantly reduce disability poverty.

Currently, there are at least 1.4 million disabled people living in poverty in Canada. They represent 41% of the people who live in poverty, which is a disproportionate amount, as 22% of the population of Canada are disabled people. The support for lifting disabled people out of poverty is strong, as 89% of Canadians agree that this is the right thing to do.

All too easily, the word benefit becomes synonymous with money – but that’s a small part of the story here. Instead, a benefit that takes a human rights perspective, that sees poverty reduction as a strategy that delivers dignity, autonomy, inclusivity, and independence to disabled people, offers genuine, substantive meaningful change to disabled people living in poverty.

A well designed benefit can do so much for the lives of disabled people. It can reduce poverty so that people with disabilities can live dignified lives of independence, where they can be free to achieve their potential.

At Disability Without Poverty, we believe the development of the benefit MUST:

• Include disabled people in all aspects of the design of the benefit.
• Balance thorough examination of the situation with a speedy response to get the money into the hands of disabled people as quickly as possible.

In order to ensure that people with disabilities are included in the design of the benefit, we are embarking on a substantial and inclusive engagement process.

Project Goals

• Engage a significant number of people with disabilities across Canada, including those with intersectional identities, especially those who are in poverty or are poverty-adjacent, to learn their values and priorities on what the Canada Disability Benefit (CDB) should look like.
• Produce a report outlining the priorities and values and recommendations of disabled people in Canada to shape the CDB and help policy-makers understand the needs and desires of this population.
• Develop a community of people with disabilities and a model for engaging with them that builds capacity for participating as active citizens in civil society and facilitates providing policy input in an ongoing manner.

Approach

Our engagement will aim to answer questions related to regulations, policies and procedures, with a focus on the latter.

In other words, we will be looking to get the perspectives of people with disabilities on:

• Regulations 🡢 The overarching rules and/or law that will define the standards and requirements of the CDB.
• Policies 🡢 The high level guidelines that provide a framework for 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.

Method

PHASE 1:
Engage approximately 5000 people with disabilities in Canada using an online tool to respond to initial principles, explore values and priorities.

PHASE 2:
Peer-to-Peer Week of Action: 100 participants will be supported to engage in a 30-60 minute peer-to-peer conversation with approximately 2-4 fellow disabled people in Canada.

We will provide:

• Guidelines for having the conversation
• Suggested questions to start from
• Support to capture the conversation

PHASE 3:
Re-engage the initial group of approximately 5000 people with disabilities as well as additional folks via a second online engagement to hone in on the details of how to shape the CDB.

Principles of Engagement

• The engagement process must be fully accessible, inclusive and transparent
• The engagement will focus exclusively on disabled people. For those people with disabilities whose perspectives we would not be able to capture without the inclusion of their caregivers and family members as proxy, we will facilitate this engagement
• Communication and outputs will be in plain language
• Updates and progress reports will be shared with contributors
• Extra effort must be made to include those in the disability community who are hardest to reach and additional barrier removal must be available to support this

Frequently Asked Questions