Disability Alliance BC - Recommendations to Update TogetherBC: - BC’s Poverty Reduction Strategy

By having the PWD system nested within the IA system, it transfers that intention of Page | 3 “temporary” assistance to those on PWD and fails to acknowledge the life- altering, often long-term nature of many disabilities that requires sustained and committed financial support that is needed in order to ensure meaningful partic. [...] In 2021, The Union of BC Indian Chiefs passed a resolution calling for the decolonization of the PWD application process, as the current application “does not adequately support, respect, and respond to the cultural, mental, and physical needs of Indigenous applicants, and instead reinforces cultural divisions and inequities between Indigenous peoples and non- Indigenous peoples.”4 DABC fully supp. [...] Expand qualification for designated medical professionals to complete the PWD application DABC has heard from many clients the difficulties in accessing a doctor or nurse practitioner available in their community to provide the assessment needed for section 2 of the PWD application. [...] The level of restrictions currently imposed on PWD recipients in order to continue receiving assistance negatively affects the life choices of these recipients to such a degree that the Ministry has inadvertently established a class system in BC whereby low income people with disabilities are not afforded the same freedoms as everyone else. [...] DABC recommends that SDPR simplify the income testing process for PWD applicants, and that ongoing income testing to prove continued eligibility for assistance be structurally overhauled to heavily reduce the amount of reporting that currently PWD recipients are obligated to provide.