Today, on the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, I want to recognize the leadership, strength, and daily fight of people with disabilities across this country. This day exists because people with disabilities organized, pushed, and demanded that governments finally recognize disability rights — not as charity, not as awareness, but as justice.
The United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is clear: dignity, autonomy, equality of opportunity, the right to work, and the right to an adequate standard of living are not optional. They are rights. And for too long in Canada, those rights have been denied.
People with disabilities in this country are living through a legislated poverty crisis. The Canada Disability Benefit is just $200 a month — everyone knows it’s not enough to live on, and the disability community said so from day one. But the government didn’t listen. While Mark Carney and the ruling class always seem to find billions for CEOs and tax giveaways to the wealthy, people with disabilities have been asked to survive on scraps.
That is not an accident — it’s a political choice.
And we have to confront the truth: people with disabilities are not looking for special treatment. They are fighting for the basic right not to be trapped in poverty by the very governments that promised support.
We also need to be honest about clawbacks. The disability community fought hard to stop them — and because of that fight, most provinces and territories have now committed not to claw back the Canada Disability Benefit. But Alberta and the Northwest Territories still haven’t made that commitment. And in Alberta, where roughly 79,000 people with disabilities are being moved from AISH to a new program called ADAP, serious concerns have been raised about what this transition could mean for future income security. It shows just how quickly governments can take support away from those who need it most. That is unacceptable.
But clawbacks are only one part of a much bigger crisis. Across the country, provincial disability programs claw back earnings from work, punish people with disabilities for trying to make ends meet, and push people deeper into poverty. That’s the opposite of the right to work affirmed in Article 27 of the CRPD. It traps people instead of empowering them.
We need something different — an approach that fully respects the rights of people with disabilities.
Here’s my commitment:
- Start by immediately increasing the Canada Disability Benefit from $200 to $1000 a month.
This would be a first step in a wider strategy to end legislated disability poverty and address the systemic barriers that shut people with disabilities out of the workforce. - Remove the Disability Tax Credit requirement.
The DTC has shut out far too many people with invasive tests, long wait times, and barriers to accessing a doctor. People with disabilities already receiving provincial or territorial disability assistance should be automatically eligible for the federal benefit. One application, not five. No more forcing people already living in poverty to navigate a bureaucratic maze. - End punitive clawbacks that punish people with disabilities for working.
People with disabilities who want to work should be able to, without being pushed off supports. We will work with provinces and territories to eliminate these barriers and bring Canada in line with the CRPD’s vision of work that is open, inclusive, and accessible.
This is about rights. It’s about dignity. It’s about building a country where people with disabilities are not forced into poverty by design.
I’ve spent my life fighting alongside people who’ve been ignored by those in power — people who’ve had to fight twice as hard just to be heard. People with disabilities have been leading that fight for decades. And it’s long past time the federal government stepped up, listened, and acted.
That’s the Canada I’m fighting for.
And I won’t back down.
— Rob Ashton