Evidence Network

Breaking down barriers for Canadians with disability

It’s time to look beyond the CRA Breaking Down Barriers is the galvanising theme of a recent report from the Senate Standing Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology that outlines urgently-needed recommendations to improve access to underutilised federal disability supports: the Disability Tax Credit (DTC) and Registered Disability Savings Plan (RDSP). Some of our […]

The dawning of a new age for persons with disabilities

The recently proposed Accessible Canada Act and the just released Senate report on essential fixes for Revenue Canada concerning the disability tax credit, Breaking Down Barriers are stellar achievements for advocates with disabilities and the receptive politicians and public servants who listened. If both are implemented, they will remove the physical, social and financial barriers […]

Who’s in charge here?

The tangled web of disability governance and policy in Canada At a recent Senate committee hearing on the Disability Tax Credit (DTC) and the Registered Disability Savings Plan (RDSP), the father of a child with autism made a heart-felt plea and a chilling statement:  “We are impacted by the inability to secure our son’s future. […]

“What happens to our sons and daughters with disabilities when we die?”

Fix the RDSP and close the poverty gap of Canadians with disabilities   Canada’s Registered Disability Savings Plan (RDSP) is the first poverty-fighting tool for people with disabilities in the world. This remarkable example of federal/provincial/territorial cooperation, which was created in 2008, has already changed the lives of more than 150,000 Canadians with disabilities. Unfortunately, […]

The federal government denies the Disability Tax Credit to those who need it – and are eligible by law

This story began when I offered to represent the mother of a three-year-old with PKU, a rare genetic disorder, in a federal tax court. She had never even fought a parking ticket before she went against the federal government. We won. It turns out, evidence matters. But the story doesn’t end there. We went to […]