Canada's Disability Benefit Act and the CPA mother fighting for country-wide reform
Stefanie Ricchio began advocating for disability rights the day the world tried to write off her child. With a diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, hearing loss, and speech delays, doctors and their advisers said her three-year-old son would never read, write, make friends, or experience the ordinary milestones of life.
Undeterred, Ricchio put her career as a CPA on hold to provide her son with the supports he needed to live a fulfilling life. Today, at 15, her son has defied every grim prognosis and recently completed his first semester of grade nine on the honour roll.
It was Ricchio’s refusal to accept the limitations imposed by others and fierce commitment to her son's well-being that led her to navigate the complex landscape of disability benefits—and consequently, to help others do the same.
The self-employed consultant and disability rights advocate is among many Canadians currently disappointed by the latest news involving the progress of the Canada Disability Benefit (CDB) Act (Bill C-22). The 2024 federal budget confirmed a maximum annual benefit of just $2,400, which isn’t enough to solve the immediacy of the poverty issues that exist, according to Ricchio. “$200 per month in addition to the maximum Ontario Disability Support Program, doesn’t get a disabled individual near what a single non-disabled individual would earn under the Guaranteed Income Supplement program, and I can’t wrap my head around why we aren’t striving for parity immediately,” says Ricchio.
“Think about the average cost of housing across Canada right now. If a benefit is less than $2,800 in its totality they’re not going to make it. And that doesn’t even solve the challenges of affording additional therapies, medical devices, the effect of inflation on gas and food, and saving for emergencies.”
For Rabia Khedr, the national director of Disability Without Poverty, it was disheartening to see what had happened to the once promising C-22. “Throughout the process, C-22 received unanimous consent. So there was an amazing parliamentary democratic spirit in getting it through into law. It achieved Royal Assent last June [2023],” says Khedr. However, after a cabinet shuffle and a new minister, a consultation process was announced. Concerned, Khedr and her team launched a consultation process of their own through Shape the CDB.
The team produced a report in March named “Disability with Possibility,” documenting the feedback of thousands through an online questionnaire and peer to peer conversation (along with a postcard campaign). “We pushed really hard for the CDB to be budgeted and were given a lot of hope. We walked in for the pre-budget meeting where it was shared with us in advance of it being tabled publicly in Parliament, and we were all taken aback at the amount and the fact that it was very limited in terms of eligibility,” says Khedr.
“$200 a month does not lift people with disabilities out of poverty,” laments Khedr. “This barely scratches the surface. It's very little for a very few.”
“Disabled people aren’t looking for handouts; they want to work just like any able-bodied person. They want to make their contributions to their families, neighbourhoods, communities and society as a whole,” says Khedr, who is also CEO of DEEN Support Services, a disability support organization created by Muslim Canadians for people in Ontario.
According to Khedr, the next stage is to see what will be included in the regulations, which will let everyone know what’s to come. “So now our work begins in making sure that those regulations reflect what disabled people want and that disabled people’s input is seriously taken and incorporated and not just sidelined once again,” says Khedr.
“It’s not about giving disabled people the bare minimum and telling them to figure it out. We want them to thrive, not just survive,” says Ricchio, who estimates she has spent at least $25,000 on speech, language and other developmental therapies for her son so far.
More than one in four Canadians are disabled, often facing barriers to employment and more likely to live in poverty than their able-bodied counterparts. They make up 13.6 per cent of total households accessing food banks in Canada. It’s a reality that could happen to any of us, Ricchio cautions.
“Almost 50 per cent of Canadians live from paycheque to paycheque. That means every single one of us is one diagnosis away from having our financial livelihood fall completely apart,” she says. “We should all be fighting for this, so if it does happen to us, the programs and support we will need have already been established.”