How Woke Organizations Cooperate with the Government to Keep Disabled in Deep Poverty


Poverty, like a comfortable blanket, sits upon one's shoulders while in the back of your mind you pine to buy food like most buy the newest iPhone -- until the day your government responds to the pandemic by giving every working person out of a job more than double what you receive monthly.

The psychological effect of poverty kills when direct comparison smacks your face.

Twitter began filling up with people on disability support, whether ODSP in Ontario or CPP Disability, federally, as well as a few other provincial support programs. The hashtag #ODSPoverty appeared. People on ODSP began sharing the scarring trauma of living on support below deep poverty, with rules and clawbacks that prevented any ability to climb out of it while being unable to afford the necessities of life.

I began to see tweets from those on ODSP who, faced with what Canadians really think about them -- not worth $2000/month, the amount that the Justin Trudeau government stated through CERB the government considers liveable.

I began to read tweets from people seeking a doctor killing them because they were so slayed by Trudeau's betrayal -- his phrase "we're here for you" implied including people with disabilities but didn't -- and all governments' including Doug Ford's abandonment.

When people are flooding Twitter with their pain over being excluded and when the Federal government appoints a new Finance Minister, one hopes that the cry will be heard, that the Federal and provincial governments won't continue to ignore people with disabilities. Before the Finance Minister changed, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh negotiated with the Trudeau government for aid to those with disabilities. Trudeau reluctantly agreed to up to $600. I say reluctant because it was only for those who had squeezed through the very narrow definition of disability in order to receive the Disability Tax Credit and only for a one-time cheque. I believe our new Finance Minister has generously expanded it to include those on CPP Disability, which includes more than a few but far less than those on provincial support programs.

I'm not exactly sure why a government that declares itself progressive believes it's progressive to provide less than $600 one time, months after the pandemic began, an amount that won't reach $2000 when added to provincial or CPP disability support. It definitely keeps disabled well below the $2000/month all non-disabled Canadians receive.

But they do it because they can. For the churches remain silent. Media trumpets this $600 as if it's wonderful support and ignore the fact it's "up to," which means the few disabled who "qualify" will see less than $600 and most will see zero.


Worse than our governments are organizations that perpetuate poverty. One of the hidden epidemics and major contributor to homelessness, imprisonment, and hidden despair is brain injury. COVID-19 is proving to damage the brain and will swell the ranks of permanently disabled by brain injury. The black hole of need expands each year. No organization can meet the need for financial, social, emotional, physical supports. I've been on a waiting list for a case manager for six years. The provincial government cut lifelong community care to people with brain injury on the basis that brain injury is for life, people with brain injury can't contribute to society, there's no hope for improvement so let's not waste tax dollars on them. Brain injury organizations agree with this by spending their few dollars trying to fill the black hole instead of marching on doctors' offices, clinics, and hospitals to demand they start healing people with brain injury so that they can regain their skills, enjoy life, and contribute to society again, to provide emergency neurostimulation therapy that would prevent the extremely damaging biochemical cascade that worsens the injury astronomically and sets people up for lifelong brain inflammation. By not educating the medical profession, by abandoning their members to permanent injury and significantly higher risk of dementia, they ensure their members slide into deep poverty and remain there.

Meanwhile, the church, founded on the principle that wealthy Christians support their poor by sharing what they have, set up rules to hide from view those who are struggling to earn some income that won't break the CPP Disability or provincial support rules but will give them just a little bit of extra income to pay for medical care or groceries or public transit. The CPP Disability rule is just over $5000/year else lose the not-quite-$10,000 annual support (which by the way you pay for when you pay CPP premiums through your work or self-employment benefits). It's a tad scary to realize you could lose half of your support if you earn just over the rule but far less than the pittance landing in your bank account monthly. It's mind blowing and soul slaying to read those on CERB are allowed to earn $38,000/year before being cut off.

Pause and absorb that for a moment. The Federal government states that those with disabilities who face high health care costs not covered by medicare, higher-cost special food needs not covered by CPP Disability, expensive public transit not covered by anyone, may earn only $5,000/year but those who have the same expenses of rent, food, clothing but not the added expenses of special food, health care, may earn $38,000/year.

The church says nothing about this discrepancy. The church and brain injury organizations remain silent on providing non-disabled more than seven times the earning allowance than disabled before support is cut off. But then the church wasn't interested in including the disabled in services who were unable to attend in person. They only went virtual because of the pandemic. And they put zero thought into the ethics of the tech companies they were supporting because they did so in haste or because they wanted to be exclusive while rationalizing exclusivity by saying YouTube didn't work for multi-screens.

Furthermore, the church believes that if you talk about your artist work or share your online shop or Etsy with those who ask in your small group, that's promo and to be forbidden. Basically, you may not tell anyone in the church about your puny efforts to afford bread. And while groups and the NDP and Greens call for a guaranteed liveable basic income -- which would de facto include people with disabilities -- I haven't heard a peep from the church or brain injury organizations. It's as if it's anathema to have an inclusive support program. It's as if it's not-to-be-countenanced calling for income support that would allow every Canadian, regardless of ability, to rise to their full potential and contribute to society the best they can.

The Anglican Church of Canada has become a playground for the comfortable to make themselves feel good about supporting the homeless while doing nothing about the root causes and nothing about alleviating poverty for the disabled.



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