The Canada Disability Benefit: Battling Abelism in Design and Implementation

The Canada Disability Benefit Act is legislation that, when passed, will establish a new statutory program intended to reduce poverty and support the financial security of working-age persons with disabilities. However, the act is what is known as framework legislation meaning it sets out the high-level context and structure of the proposed program, but it does not provide any describe specific program details. The critical details—including eligibility conditions, the benefit unit and amount, and interactions with existing disability support programs—of the proposed Canada Disability Benefit program will, instead, be set out in regulations following stakeholder engagement. We use a benefit design framework to highlight the program elements that must be defined, highlighting the importance of conducting the design process through an inclusive and intersectional lens to ensure that ableist assumptions are not embedded into benefit design. The framework outlined in this paper should serve as a useful reference for all stakeholders involved in the benefit design process.