A Word from Egmont Candidates

EOV sent an email out to all four Egmont candidates yesterday asking them to answer the following two questions. The following are the responses received to date.

1. What are your plans to develop opportunities for employment, affordable postsecondary education, and affordable independent living (specifically) for person's with disabilities here on Prince Edward Island?

2. As the candidate for your party in the Egmont district, what is your vision for the future, for persons with disabilities?

Gail R. Shea, PC, MP

The following items are relevant to your question about disabilities and education:

1) Disability Tax Credit

The disability tax credit (DTC) is a non-refundable tax credit used to reduce income tax payable on the income tax and benefit return. A person with a severe and prolonged impairment in physical or mental functions may claim the disability amount once they are eligible for the DTC.

The purpose of the DTC is to provide for greater tax equity by allowing some relief for disability costs, since these are unavoidable additional expenses that other taxpayers don’t have to face.

2) Disability Supports Deduction

If you have an impairment in physical or mental functions, you can claim a disability supports deduction if you paid expenses that no one has claimed as medical expenses, and you paid them so that you could:

• be employed or carry on a business (either alone or as an active partner);
• do research or similar work for which you received a grant; or
• attend a designated educational institution or a secondary school where you were enrolled in an educational program.

3) Child Disability Benefit (CDB)

The Child Disability Benefit (CDB) is a tax-free benefit for families who care for a child under age 18 who is eligible for thedisability amount.

A child is eligible for the disability amount when a qualified practitioner certifies, on Form T2201, Disability Tax Credit Certificate, that the child has a severe and prolonged impairment in physical or mental functions, and the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) approves the form.

4) Registered disability savings plan (RDSP)

A registered disability savings plan (RDSP) is a savings plan that is intended to help parents and others save for the long term financial security of a person who is eligible for the disability tax credit (DTC).
Contributions to an RDSP are not tax deductible and can be made until the end of the year in which the beneficiary turns 59. Contributions that are withdrawn are not included in income for the beneficiary when they are paid out of an RDSP. However, the Canada disability savings grant (grant), the Canada disability savings bond (bond), investment income earned in the plan, and rollover amounts are included in the beneficiary's income for tax purposes when they are paid out of the RDSP.

5) Canada Disability Savings Grant

The Canada Disability Savings Grant is a matching grant. That means that the Government also pays into your RDSP to help you save. The Government gives matching grants of up to 300 percent, depending on the beneficiary's family income and contribution. The maximum Grant amount is $3,500 per year, with a limit of $70,000 over your lifetime. Grants are paid into the RDSP until the end of the year you turn 49 years of age.


6) Canada Disability Savings Bond

The Canada Disability Savings Bond is money the Government contributes to the Registered Disability Savings Plans (RDSPs) of low- and modest-income Canadians. If you qualify for the Bond, you can receive up to $1,000 a year, depending on the beneficiary’s family income. Over an individual’s lifetime, there is a limit of $20,000. Bonds are paid into the RDSP until the end of the year the beneficiary turns 49 years of age. You do not need to make any contributions to your RDSP to receive the Bond

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In terms of the future, my fondest hope is that barriers to inclusion will continue to be lowered for people with disabilities.  Technology, medical research, and ever greater societal understanding and all bode well for those who suffer physical or mental disabilities.  It's critical to understand that this is not an "us or them" situation: as we age -- and Canada's is an ageing population-- even those who have lived for years without disabilities will begin to develop them.  This is a situation that faces us all, and for which we must all work for solutions.  

Nils Ling Candidate for Green Party

Hi, folks,

Thanks for the questions!  It's always a pleasure to talk about the Green Party's platform since I am very passionate about so many elements of it.  

I learned a lot about people facing challenges during my time working at PCC.  And since then, my eyes have been further opened.

Canadians with disabilities and their families live with disproportionate levels of poverty and exclusion. To better understand the underlying factors, the Council of Canadians with Disabilities (CCD) and the Canadian Association for Community Living (CACL) commissioned the Caledon Institute of Social Policy to study the situation and propose solutions. It concluded that:

Canadians with disabilities are more likely to live in poverty than other Canadians. Poverty is a result of both exclusion and lack of supports, and it contributes to further exclusion and vulnerability in a ‘vicious cycle’.

Children with disabilities are twice as likely as other children to live in households that rely on social assistance as a main source of income.

Poverty rates of Canadians with disabilities result in large part from the lack of needed disability supports, which enable access to education, training, employment, and community participation.

Canadians with disabilities are too often exiled to inadequate, stigmatizing, and ineffective systems of income support that were never designed to address the real income needs of Canadians with disabilities.

The federal government has a key role to play in addressing the poverty and income security needs of Canadians – they have done this through Employment Insurance, CPP/QPP, Old Age Security and the Guaranteed Income Supplement, the National Child Benefit, and Child Disability Benefit, and various tax measures.  But it's clearly not enough. 

The Green Party is calling for a multi-pronged effort to meet these challenges and allow people with disabilities to enjoy their fair share of the richness that Canada has to offer.  So to answer your questions:

Green Party MPs will:

1. Work to create a Canada Disabilities Act (CDA) to express Canadians’ vision of a more equitable society rather than the current confusion resulting from the multiplicity of acts, standards, policies, and programs that prevail;

2.  Support a national equipment fund to provide equipment such as wheelchairs and accessibility tools to assist persons with disabilities with the tools needed to fully participate in work and community life (This can be a joint program with provinces – the concern is equal access and common standards.);

3. Invest in social housing adapted as necessary to meet particular needs, with both rental and purchase options. This is simply an expansion of our housing program recognizing particular needs;

4. Provide federal health transfer payments to provinces and territories directed to rehabilitation for those who have become disabled, e.g. loss of limbs etc.;

5. Enforce the Employment Equity Act to ensure that persons with disabilities have equal opportunity to long-term employment and advancement. Disabled people are generally the last to find employment and the first to be laid off;

6. Institute a basic income for people living with disabilities so that none live in poverty by:

•  Converting the Disability Tax Credit (DTC) to a refundable credit as a first step in creating a national Basic Income program for working-age adults with disabilities;

• Redesigning the Canada Pension Plan/Disability Benefit (CPP/D) test to incorporate the DTC definition of disability and permit employment, rather than the CPP/D definition that requires a ‘severe’ disability to be life-long and to be the cause of any incapacity to pursue ‘any gainful occupation.’ The revised definition allows individuals to work while retaining eligibility for basic income.

7. Immediately eliminate tuition fees for post-secondary education, including colleges and trade training for people with lower incomes, leading up to an elimination of all tuition fees by 2020.  We will also cap all existing student debt at $10,000.  We can’t ask young people to fix a mess we older folks made, then gouge them for the privilege of cleaning up after us.

2.  My vision for the future for people with disabilities in Egmont?  I see a society where people with disabilities are given the resources, the training, the encouragement, and whatever support they need to determine their own future.  I see a society that puts people before profits and supports every single person in becoming the best he or she can be.  I see a society that cares for those who need it and gives a fair chance to those willing to take it.  

To get there requires a change in thinking.  We can’t continue on with “politics as usual”.  I joined the Green Party not because it's the easy way, but because it's the right way.

I hope these answers are helpful.