Daily Bread and partners publish open letter on Canada Disability Benefit

Food is a human right. Yet people with disabilities are regularly forced to choose between their most basic necessities, like rent, transportation, medication, and food. This has to change.

In November 2023, Daily Bread Food Bank launched the www.fundthebenefit.ca campaign to advocate for a fully funded Canada Disability Benefit (CDB) in the upcoming 2024 Federal Budget.

We’re proud that over 40 organizations have signed onto the campaign, and we recently came together to publish an open letter to the Prime Minister and members of the Federal Government in the Globe and Mail and Hill Times. The letter reaffirms the importance of co-designing a robust CDB in collaboration with the disability community. The Benefit must:

• Be fully funded to lift people with disabilities out of poverty.
• Be barrier-free and inclusive of people with all types of disabilities.
• Supplement existing disability supports and be safe from all clawbacks.

We must do this right — right now — to support the nearly one million working-age people with disabilities living in poverty in Canada.

Canadians with disabilities can’t afford to wait, and neither can our country.

Over 12,000 people have sent letters to the MPs through www.fundthebenefit.ca, but we can’t stop now. With the federal budget being released in March, time is of the essence to get a commitment to fully funding the CDB.  Add your voice today.