March of Dimes Canada Presentation to the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development, and the Status of Persons with Disabilities Study: Federal Contribution to Reducing Poverty in Canada June 2, 2009 Radisson Hotel Admiral Toronto Harbourfront Admiral Ballroom 249 Queen's Quay West Good afternoon, Honourable Members, Mr. Chair. My name is Steven Christianson, and I am National Manager of Government Relations & Advocacy at March of Dimes Canada. With me today is my colleague, Janet Macmaster, provincial coordinator. Thank you for this opportunity and your time today. As you have heard time and again, disability can affect anyone at any age at any time. It may be present at the time of birth, the result of an injury or illness, or simply part of the natural aging process. In nearly 6 decades March of Dimes has evolved from a research-focused organization, raising $14,000 in 1951 to eradicate the threat of polio, into an organization with an annual operating budget in excess of $90 million with which we provide a diverse range of services that help more than 40,000 consumers across Canada to live independently and participate in community life. Who are the people we serve? · 80% of March of Dimes consumers have personal incomes of less than $20,000, and 91% have incomes below $30,000. A staggering 40% of the people we serve, based on data from the 2007-2008 fiscal year, have incomes less than $10,000 per year. 72% of the service expenditures of March of Dimes assist people with incomes below $20,000. 65% of our consumers are over the age of 55, while 2.5% are under 19 years old. In Ontario alone, 1.85 million people have a disability, and nearly half (49.5%) between the ages of 15 and 64 are unemployed. The national picture is not fundamentally different. Safe to say, we know quite a bit about poverty and its relationship to someone who lives with a disability. And when we speak of poverty we mean both social as well as economic conditions. Similar to many of the recommendations we recently made to the Ontario legislature, we recommend that any federal strategy explicitly embrace the principles of preserving and enhancing dignity and respect, and incorporate participation in the planning and public policy process. Barriers - to employment, to housing, to social inclusion, to healthcare, to participation in society - barriers can often lead to poverty for someone with a disability. The lack or cost of supports - in homecare, in workplace access, in assistive technologies and devices - can also contribute to poverty. So our approach highlights the terms supports and barriers. The success of any federal contribution will ultimately be found in those very supports and the barriers they help eliminate. People with disabilities are among the most disadvantaged - lack of employment being one of the main reasons. And employment for people with disabilities has its complexities around access and training, in particular. We appeared before this committee speaking to that very topic during your 2006 study on Employability. Employment, or the barriers to employment, is a huge area that can be addressed, encompassing a national strategy with annual benchmarks. Affordable social housing that incorporates the necessities of accessibility and support are equally important - and equally lacking. We also want to emphasize the growing need for caregiving as well as the need for a framework that recognizes that modifications to one's home that facilitate independence, participation in the community, and help ease provincial healthcare expenditures can also help alleviate poverty among Canadians with disabilities. Our main point is that the federal government needs to enact a National Disability Act to create a baseline for all provinces so that provincial legislators have a point of reference to enact legislation. A national framework on disability is an idea that not new. National legislation is something that we at March of Dimes have been encouraging for nearly 20 years. Parliamentarians recommended such an approach in the 1981 report, Obstacles. And the Conservative commitment to exploring how such legislation might be formulated also advanced the debate on this issue. Despite these initiatives, Canada remains one of the few countries without a national legislative framework on disability. This in no way suggests that a national disability act would be a panacea to fixing everything tomorrow. But it does represent a focal point, with national measures, and a baseline upon which the federal government can more effectively coordinate its contribution to reducing poverty with the provincial governments and the non-profit or third sectors. Poverty for Canadians with disabilities can be unique, and any efforts to address poverty - be they programs or new legislation -- will require at least national standards for supports that identify, eliminate and prevent barriers to the full participation and inclusion of Canadians with disabilities. Thank you for your time, and always feel free to call upon March of Dimes for any assistance this Committee might need. Contact: Steven Christianson/Janet Macmaster Government Relations, March of Dimes Canada 10 Overlea Boulevard, Toronto, ON M4H 1A4 Tel: 416-425-3463 Fax: 416-425-1920 schristianson@marchofdimes.ca www.marchofdimes.ca