this post was submitted on 14 May 2025
66 points (100.0% liked)

Canada

9676 readers
850 users here now

What's going on Canada?



Related Communities


🍁 Meta


🗺️ Provinces / Territories


🏙️ Cities / Local Communities

Sorted alphabetically by city name.


🏒 SportsHockey

Football (NFL): incomplete

Football (CFL): incomplete

Baseball

Basketball

Soccer


💻 Schools / Universities

Sorted by province, then by total full-time enrolment.


💵 Finance, Shopping, Sales


🗣️ Politics


🍁 Social / Culture


Rules

  1. Keep the original title when submitting an article. You can put your own commentary in the body of the post or in the comment section.

Reminder that the rules for lemmy.ca also apply here. See the sidebar on the homepage: lemmy.ca


founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
 

The benefit could add $200 a month for people struggling. But the UCP government will deduct it from its own support.

all 28 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

This isn't just an Alberta problem. Canada treats it's disabled population like less than second class citizens. Politicians and political parties would all rather us dead including the majority of the population who never once stands up for us as some of the smallest voices in Canadian society. We are living in extreme poverty through no fault of our own. Our kids are as well, adding to the increasing problem and societal burden.

We can MAID tomorrow but we aren't permitted food, shelter, families, medicine, dental or vision care, entertainment, recreation, clothing and certainly not respect or dignity.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

While not perfect BC has PWD, if you qualify you get some cash toward housing (not enough in BC market) and a monthly cheque. Plus dental, medicine, therapy, etc is covered. The only stupid part is the coverage plan won't tell you what or how much is covered up front, you have to have the service provider bill for the service and get payment...and hope it falls under a covered service.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Zero coverage in Nova Scotia unless you are in care permanently or need care permanently. Then there is a housing supplement. I have CPP disability. The feds are responsible for my sole income. I don't even qualify for emergency welfare because that limit is set provincially and is a yearly family income of $14,000 and my wife has an income thankfully. Our province is a shithole but the feds are no better.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 days ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (4 children)

Leopards ate their face?

92% of ~~votes cast~~ ridings won in Alberta this past federal election went to conservatives.

And we know that conservatives don't want pharmacare, disability support, aid for the homeless, childcare benefits, or anything else that would make life just slightly more survivable for certain demographics.

edit: for accuracy

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Just to be clear, no, 63.5% of Albertan votes in the federal election went to conservatives. I agree with the rest of your statements though.

https://enr.elections.ca/Provinces.aspx?lang=e

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Just to be clear, no, 63.5% of Albertan votes in the federal election went to conservatives.

Yes, but since our current elections are based on ridings, conservatives were handed 92% of those seats.

But no matter what metric we go by, we're still talking about a majority of Albertan who chose this.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

You say "yes, but" - your literal statement was:

92% of votes cast in Alberta this past federal election went to conservatives.

Votes cast ≠ ridings won.

Reality is FPTP is cancer.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 23 hours ago

My OP has been edited for clarity. There's no need to continue arguing over this point, since we're still talking about the majority of Albertan voters allowing over 90% of their ridings to go to Conservatives.

Reality is FPTP is cancer.

100%

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

People with disabilities are a very small minority, and it's impossible to know if they voted conservative. This isn't a leopards eating faces moment, it's a fuck you I've got mine.

Obviously they were already in a shitty situation being disabled in Alberta, but this is just one more sign that Albertans don't care about them.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

People with disabilities are a very small minority,

Stats Canada says that 27% of Albertans over the age of 15 has at least one disability, up over 5% from the previous census data.

That means people voted either against their own interest, or against the interest of someone they likely know or care for. That's as fucked up as it gets.

And this ignores the fact that seniors are also cast aside by conservative governments. Again, voting against your parents or grandparents, aunts or uncles, if not, yourself. Crazy shit.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Having one disability doesn't mean they are affected by this change. The article says 77,000 people collect disability in Alberta, which is about 1.8% of Albertans.

That said, 27% is a much bigger number than I expected, even for any amount of disability. Do you have a link to that data? I'd be curious to know more about it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

Having one disability doesn't mean they are affected by this change.

Of course not, but considering that disability can affect anyone at any age, voting against it is self-harm.

The article says 77,000 people collect disability in Alberta, which is about 1.8% of Albertans.

If Alberta is anything like Ontario, then I'll bet my life that far more actually need the support, but the runaround you get in applying for support is often a barrier in and of itself.

It's such a problem that disability lawyers are abound, simply for the application and to manage the work needed to apply and/or reapply if you are denied.

Because if you don't have a family or finend to help advocate for you, there's a good chance you'll give up and suffer in silence.

That said, 27% is a much bigger number than I expected, even for any amount of disability. Do you have a link to that data? I'd be curious to know more about it.

Absolutely. Stats Canada 2022 (released Dec 2023)

As with my point above, I believe the numbers are higher, but actually getting a diagnosis is a barrier for those who need it the most.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

Disabled guy here...Liberals don't care either. I highly doubt you would find any member of any political party at any level of government in Canada actively fighting for increases in disability payments and supports regularly. This is proven by decades of inactivity while disabled people scream into the wind.

Meanwhile some disabled people are publicly killing themselves with the use of government programs, while openly telling everyone why, instead of struggling to survive. No outcry. No rage. No nothing. From anyone. A story in the paper here and there and at a turn of the page any sympathy or even pity is gone to the next poor soul you don't really care about.

THIS ISN'T A CONSERVATIVE ISSUE. No government is interested in helping us. Most citizens aren't either or things would be different than they are.

Consider that you should be careful and also hope that you don't get sick. Your life could be ruined by a simple miscalculation or even a cancer you never heard of. But there won't be enough of you cripples to make a difference and everyone else couldn't give a shit until it happens to them so you're just perpetually fucked.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

I agree. Both liberal and conservative suck. Canadians need to decide whether they want to help the disabled or not. Do not leave us hanging. We are a family of 3 permanently disabled people. Live in Ontario.

Ford is a soulless excuse for a human being for what he is doing to thousand of young/adult disabled people. It is a page right out of the fascist handbook.

Ford has literally gutted ODSP and his abhorrent handling of the Ontario Autism Program (OAP) is disgraceful and hurtful.

They combined Ontario works and ODSP. One noticed immediately a difference. The workers treated ODSP recipients like they were Ontario works recipients. They sent out job search forms, etc. to people that were permanently disabled and incapable of working and humiliating them (ask most disabled people, they will say one of their dreams is to actually go out and work so to have these forms sent to them is literally a slap in the face) because these workers were never trained on how to deal with the disabled only people that were unemployed.

We can no longer email our local ODSP office anymore, no more one on one workers, you are tossed into a pool and they rarely call back if ever.

We had to actually get a lawyer involved just to contact the ODSP office to get anything done after 6 months of us calling with no call back in that 6 months. Things ODSP used to cover, gone.

Our child has autism and epilepsy. He has never ever had any form official therapy, guidance of any kind due to Doug Ford and gang. We were “approved” for OAP and SSAH almost 3 years ago but are still on the waiting list to actually get funding. Our case is not unique, there are literally 1000’s of Autistic kids/adults that are not getting ANY therapy that they need to exist and communicate in society. This will lead to more violent altercations with police due to limited communication skills due to lack of therapy and more hospital visits plus more that will by carried by taxpayers down the road for years if not decades. Guess Ford does not care about down the road while he and his gang fill their pockets.

We ar very grateful for all that we receive. We do not expect anything. The Ford government promised OAP, SSAH and more but have not held true to that promise. Doug Ford is truly despicable for not helping thousands of his fellow Canadians that are disabled kids and adults and leaving them in the lurch.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Liberals don’t care either. Proven by decades of inactivity.

I'm not sure if you've noticed or not, but our national dental care, low-cost childcare, pharmacare expansion (PEI just got free diabetes meds and birth control), were all thanks to the Liberal government (with help from the NDP).

Healthcare is a provincial responsibility, so feds provide the funding, and provinces decide on how to spend it (or even if they'll spend it... looking at you Doug Ford).

Things would be considerably more difficult with a conservative federal government, who would take away funding.

And I say this as an ADP recipient living in Ontario, where our provincial conservative government hasn't added a penny to the grant over the last 10 years, despite costs nearly doubling and all kinds of patient advocacy groups begging the government to offer more support.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I highly doubt the liberals would have done any of that if not for the NDP. They didn't implement any of it with "help" from the NDP, and only did it after the threat of toppling their government. Not exactly gonna clap for them when they weren't going to do it in the first place.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

I highly doubt the liberals would have done any of that if not for the NDP.

Well, these were all platform promises through many of those "lost Liberal years", so I'm not sure where the doubt comes from. They made good on their promise, and continue to deliver.

The NDP absolutely helped tip the scale when they had a minority government, because the cons would never give their support.

The point is, conservative governments don't like socialism when it helps people, and thank the gods that the liberals and NDP do!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I'm not saying the cons would be better. I'm saying no one is doing anything but buying votes of non disabled people by seeming to care. The federal government is the overseer of CPP. CPP is the only recourse I have as a disabled individual in my province. I qualify for no other disability payments from anyone.

But they're not supposed to care about me or my family either according to you. Though they are those responsible for my entire income and police me heavily should I make any money outside that income or even volunteer my time somewhere. I receive an income that is less than half of what is considered extreme poverty in my province for a single individual. We are a family of five.