Where is the Benefit?

The theatrics and grand promises of the Trudeau government have taken yet another embarrassing turn.

One of the key figures overseeing a long promised disability benefit, alongside its overall design, has resigned in a blaze of glory, slamming the end result tabled in the recent federal budget as a spectacular failure. He joins the chorus of advocates and critics decrying the government’s bait-and-switch.

Rewind to 2022, when legislation for the benefit was first introduced to great fanfare. Minister Carla Qualtrough hailed it as a poverty-fighting program on par with the likes of Old Age Security.

Yet the lacklustre version that was just announced in the federal budget provides only meagre monthly payments. Quite the discrepancy from the sweeping promises made.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister Freeland dares to suggest this pathetic half-measure will meaningfully impact peoples’ “well-being”. Following it up with making even more promises about increasing the benefit at a later date. It is like they never learn.

The only well-being our lavish spending Finance Minister seems to care about is her own desire to posture on the international stage. Perhaps disabled Canadians should book a flight to Davos to get her attention?

Trudeau Causes Resignation

Last week saw a dramatic turn of events regarding the Canada Disability Benefit that was tabled in the costly budget, as one of the members of the advisory panel overseeing its development resigned in protest.

Michael Prince, a professor at the University of Victoria, slammed the Trudeau government’s newly announced disability benefit as a “colossal failure” that falls far short of what advocates had been promised a year or so ago. Another instance of Trudeau promising the world and then not delivering on that very same promise, because he either lied or is completely inept as a prime minister. Colour me not shocked at all.

Prince’s resignation is the latest criticism however of the underwhelming federal benefit by disability advocates and conservative voices across the country.

When the Liberal government first introduced legislation for the benefit in 2022, it was presented as a transformative program that would lift hundreds of thousands of disabled Canadians out of poverty.

Minister Carla Qualtrough said at the time that the benefit would reduce poverty among disabled Canadians in the same way programs like Old Age Security and the Canada Child Benefit had done for seniors and families. And we were supposed to believe her lies then and there when it was really just blowing some hot air to support her leader Trudeau and the failing liberal party.

It has never been more clear that the Liberals have completely lost it than now with the program finally being announced in the recent federal budget, only to find out that it is but a shadow of what advocates were expecting and clamouring for.

Trudeau Does Not Care About the Disabled

The budget allocated only $6.1 billion over six years for the benefit, which insultingly only provides but a mere $200 per month to eligible recipients. This is blatantly a far cry from the poverty-ending program that Trudeau and Minister Qualtrough proudly proclaimed just last year.

For conservative critics, this bait-and-switch by the Liberals is hardly surprising. Time and again, Trudeau’s government has made sweeping progressive promises, only to spectacularly underdeliver once the budgetary trade-offs become clear. The disability benefit is shaping up to be yet another example of overpromising to Canadians in need, dangling their solution right in front of them like they are animals, and then embarrassingly under-delivering when the time for action and honesty rolls around. A classic Trudeau ruse.

Making matters worse -as if it never can be with Trudeau and the Liberals in power – the structure of the new and barely useful benefit is also highly restrictive.

Recipients will be required to qualify via the Disability Tax Credit, which is extremely restrictive in who it covers, before becoming eligible.

As a result, the government’s claim that over 600,000 disabled Canadians will benefit is highly dubious at best and might be another outright lie by the Liberals at worst.
The Byzantine application process will undoubtedly preclude many of those in need and suffering from accessing the program.

This highlights a fundamentally paternalistic flaw in the government’s approach. Rather than simply providing assistance to those living with disabilities, bureaucrats have designed an overly complex web of rules and conditions that disabled Canadians will have to navigate just to get meagre support. Respect for autonomy and dignity would require the government to deliver support without such arbitrary roadblocks.

Actually, any sign of respect from the government towards disabled Canadians would have Trudeau pay substantially more to support Canadians that are looking to be independant and are severely in need of a guiding hand. Only problem is, Trudeau never had respect for average Canadians, let alone disabled Canadians that will not easily line up his greedy pockets with even more undeserved tax payer money.

Beyond the benefit’s stingy funding and restrictive application, the way it was developed also raises concerns. Prince’s resignation statement makes clear that he believes the changeover from Minister Qualtrough to the new minister, Kamal Khera, this past summer resulted in the dramatic scaling back of the benefit’s scope. Such political factors, rather than a principled assessment of disabled Canadians’ needs, seem to have driven the policy’s development.

But it ultimately does not matter when it comes to replacing one corrupt liberal with either an equally or more corrupt liberal. It is all the same game and only Canadians are the losers.

Freeland is Silent

Speaking of losers, I wonder how Freeland, the one who tabled the budget in the first place, thinks of the insulting disability benefit and how every aspect of her costly budget is an embarrassing failure.

Well, she certainly thinks highly of her budget for some reason. Freeland keeps blabbering about the true purpose of the budget and how it aims for fairness with every generation. Except of course, if you were a senior or a disabled person, then you are part of the completely forgotten generation in Canada.

But when she is directly asked about the reaction to the offensively low disabled benefit and what the liberal government will do more for Canadians in need, she is completely silent for a moment like a deer caught in the headlights, only for her to deliver a nonsense speech about how the liberal government recognizes and aspire to do more for disabled Candians. But they never did and they never will.

It is the same tired speech with the same ambitious and empty words to paint a picture of a more competent government when every Canadian knows how much of an embarrassing failure Trudeau and the liberals have been time and time again.

This fits with a common conservative critique of Liberal social policy – that it is driven more by political posturing than a desire for real impact.

The disability benefit’s great fanfare has given way to an underfunded program that seems primarily focused on creating the appearance of action rather than the reality.

The Canada Disability Benefit could have been, and was promised to be, a transformative initiative enabling hundreds of thousands of disabled Canadians to escape poverty.

Tragically, this vision has given way to yet another piece of lofty progressive rhetoric colliding with underwhelming fiscal reality. Canadians living with disabilities, and all those seeking competent compassionate government, are right to feel let down by a fiscally irresponsible government that is more happy touting its hollow IMF achievements and the already debunked AAA as if these were clear signs of a working and prosper economy.

A clown show with no laughing audience is the current state of Canada under the likes of Freeland and Trudeau.

Only way forward is to inject some common sense conservatism into the faulty and undeservingly prideful liberal system. Because Canada should not be represented by just the elites at the top or economic forums and meetings where nations glaze each other and you get a report card with a grade at the end; Canada is the average hardworking Canadian.

Canada is a middle class family supporting each other. Canada is young Canadians struggling hard with their own government just to lead a prosperous life for themselves and for everyone around them. Canada is not just Trudeau, it is all of us.