By Kendall Worth!
Dear Prime Minister Carney;
My name is Kendall Worth and I want to congratulate you on becoming Canada’s Prime Minister. I want to tell you a bit about who I am, and why I am writing to you today. I have been a long time Poverty Advocate/Activist who lives in Halifax Nova Scotia. I currently have my own BLOG called " Journalism For What Matters." However, in the past, from July 12th, 2016 till September 16th, 2021 I was a reporter for the now folded Nova Scotia Advocate and before that from 2012 till 2016 I was a reporter for the Halifax Media COOP, which no longer exists.
Mr. Carney, please specifically check this post where I talked about the reasons I needed to continue writing, following the death of the Nova Scotia Advocate Editor Robert Devet. See here for details and in the Second BLOG post, I ever wrote, I expand on the case with reasons my reporting, and journalism needs to continue.
What I want to address today, is the “Legacy”, that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has left behind. The Legacy I am speaking of is the hard work he has done during his time as Prime Minister sticking up for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This Legacy includes the creation of the Canada Disability Benefit. This work, begun by Mr Trudeau, is something that the Disability Community including myself, strongly hopes will continue under your government. However, I want to address with you the rate of the Canada Disability Benefit. The $200 a month that a Person With Disabilities in Canada, will start receiving in July 2025, is not going to lift Canadians out of poverty. Canadians with disabilities were led to believe that this benefit would do that, as Canadians with Disabilities were told this benefit is intended to do.
In fact, while here in Nova Scotia, our provincial Government has agreed not to claw-back that $200 from our income assistance benefits, some other provinces across Canada are planing to claw it back provincial benefits.
If you read through my BLOG, you will see I regularly address the problems with The Employment Support and Income Assitance Program, as it is called here. However, in some other provinces the program is called Income Support, and in some places the support is better. I report on our system here in Nova Scotia , and note it comes comes with a lot of bureaucratic nonsense to qualify for "Special Needs allowances" (like diet supplements) that are available through oun system. According to contacts I have in other parts of Canada, their systems of receiving Income Assistance is not much better then ours. This is why there needs to be a national program that provides Persons with Disabilities a real living allowance.
In closing, I will say that it is my hope that, as Prime Minster, you will support things like Guaranteed Income, and better living allowance for Person with Disabilities. I want to invite you to look at this article I wrote on January 23rd 2018 to see an example of what a Person with Disability real living allowance looks like.
I hope your government will take seriously, and consider improving the Disability Benefit, and overall make life more affordable moving forward.
Your truly;
Kendall Worth!
Kendall Worth is an award-winning anti-poverty activist who lives with disabilities and tries to make ends meet on income assistance.
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