Roundup: Clawing back disability benefits

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Because the provinces continue to be the absolute worst level of government in the country, we see from the briefing binder of Ontario’s social services minister that the province is looking at ways to “mitigate costs” by clawing back provincial disability support payments once the federal Canadian Disability Benefit gets underway. As you might have guessed, this is entirely the outcome that the federal government has been trying to avoid, and why Carla Qualtrough spent months trying to negotiate with provinces in the lead-up to the framework legislation being passed.

This happened a lot during the height of the pandemic, when certain provinces like Alberta and Saskatchewan clawed back any kind of social supports when people accessed CERB, because of course they did. It’s kind of perverse the way that provinces are in the business of literally legislating poverty for vulnerable groups like people with disabilities who generally cannot work (which I should point out is not the same as the programme in the US, where “disability” tends to have a different connotation than in Canada). There is a kind of meanness to it that goes beyond the judgmental protestant work ethic that this seems to stem from.

We’ll see what kinds of safeguards the federal government tries to build into the system as the regulations for these payments—which they point out are intended as an income supplement and not a replacement programme—are rolled out (eventually). But because of the division of powers, there may not be any legislative or regulatory mechanism they could use to protect these payments from clawbacks, and it may rely on negotiations and signed agreements, which is probably easier said than done (particularly as many of these premiers are the absolute worst).

Ukraine Dispatch:

Five people were wounded as part of the largest attack on Kyiv since the start of the war, timed for the commemoration of the Holodomor. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told an international food security conference that Ukraine needs more air defences in order to protect its grain exports, as Russia has been targeting them in recent months.

https://twitter.com/defencehq/status/1728719618317910451

Good reads:

  • The PMO has hired new communications and branding geniuses to help overcome the slumping polls (because we all know that they need the help…)
  • Chrystia Freeland defends the deficits as being modest (which in comparison to the size of our economy they are) because it allows investment in Canadians.
  • Freeland also says she expects banks to follow the voluntary Canadian Mortgage Charter as millions of mortgages come up for renewal in the higher-interest era.
  • The Star takes a closer look at Mélanie Joly and the work she has been doing as foreign minister at a time when the global order has been turned upside-down.
  • Public safety officials have been briefing energy company executives on cyber threats (but are any of them listening is the question).
  • Here is a look at CBSA’s attempts to stop fentanyl trafficking over the border, as well as its precursor elements.
  • The special interlocutor for unmarked graves continues to press the justice minister to criminalise residential school denialism the same way it did for the Holocaust.
  • Here is a look at why the Cameron Ortis prosecution was so tenuous.
  • India is cooperating with the US investigation on an attempted assassination, but not Canada, because of how they claim intelligence was shared. (Sure, Jan).
  • Kevin Carmichael looks at how the economic consensus of the 1990s is being wound down through the measures in the fall fiscal update.

Odds and ends:

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