On September 7, 2021, DABC sent letters to the leaders of the Conservative, Green, Liberal, and New Democratic parties of Canada to seek their party’s platform response on the Canada Disability Benefit.

DABC is affiliated with Disability Without Poverty (DWP), which is a national movement led by people with disabilities who are committed to ensuring people with disabilities are involved in all stages of securing a Canada Disability Benefit from design to legislation to implementation. We have written to these four parties to ask if they will commit to implementing a Canada Disability Benefit in close consultation with the disability community as outlined in the five points below, should they be successful in forming government after September 20^th, 2021:

“We respectfully request that your party make the following commitments:

• Introduce legislation on a Canadian Disability Benefit and follow through on the promises of the previous government.
• Establish a streamlined, easily accessible application process that can expand the benefit to ALL those eligible.
• Implement an accelerated consultation process to also be authentic, which means people with lived experience must make up the majority of any policy design team.
• Recognize a Disability Poverty Line above the Market Basket Measure, as not to do so would be to perpetuate the inequity faced by Canadians with disabilities.
• Ensure that existing benefits for Canadians with disabilities continue alongside a new Canada Disability Benefit.”

DABC will share with our network any and all responses we may receive from these four parties.