Delayed COVID-19 support another example of the government’s inequitable treatment of disabled Canadians

Hanna Warsame, Contributor, The Pigeon, August 4, 2020
Disabled Canadians spent months waiting for federal COVID-19 benefits. The Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) was announced in March 2020 to support Canadians struggling financially due to COVID-19. Since then, 8.46 million Canadians have applied for the benefit, and 86 per cent of Canadians have agreed the CERB is a necessary and useful aid. However, while the federal government has extended COVID-19 support to countless Canadians, those with disabilities were left in the lurch. The financial needs of disabled Canadians appear to have been wholly neglected by the government until recent weeks. It took until the end of July for any legislation supporting disabled communities to pass into law. Even so, disabled Canadians were offered only a fraction of what the average non-disabled adult has received in financial support. According to the Canadian Survey on Disability, about 20 per cent of Canadians over the age of 15, 6.2 million people, self-identified as having one or more disabilities in 2017. Why was the federal government so delayed in implementing and passing a bill in support of this underprivileged group, whose financial struggles were a problem long before COVID-19?