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Yesterday, the disabled in Canada who depend on assistance were dealt a shocking financial blow.
After years of promising to lift disabled Canadians out of poverty - so many on assistance are living around 50% below the poverty line - the Liberal government's plan is a yearly max benefit of $2400. It needed to be that a month. They promised to lift people out of poverty. This isn't even going to lift anyone out of next week. It was determined, back in 2020, that CERB needed to be a minimum of $2000 a month. But, as is so often the case with late-stage capitalism, with neoliberals, with anything tainted by the idea of Social Darwinism and the like, and the general societal prejudice against the idea of disability at all, the disabled aren't worth consideration, aren't productive enough for their tastes, and aren't worth helping.
Provincial benefits are so woefully inadequate, there are no food programs like the US has (SNAP, WIC), food banks can't accommodate specialised dietary requirements (like diabetes, allergies, or other diseases), they don't cover market rent, geared to income housing is so inadequate that (in my own city) it's a 15 (plus) year wait for single individuals to access, and not all medical needs are covered. My cynical side wonders if this wasn't the plan, to gut people so much they'd stop fighting and go quietly into the other room like a Victorian child. Neither seen, nor heard, so that those in power can grant themselves another pay rise and go back to pretending we don't exist, and the pretence they're anything but parasites, monsters.
This has angered me so much I couldn't even find adjectives enough to describe my rage.