On October 19^th advocates of passing Bill C-22 “An Act to reduce poverty and to support the financial security of persons with disabilities by establishing the Canada disability benefit” gathered on Parliament hill. They were also there to celebrate a small miracle. The previous day, by a unanimous vote of 328-0, the House of Commons had given second reading (approval in principle) to the bill and sent it to committee for detailed hearings.

Not since the passage of the Medical Care Act in the mid- 1960’s had all the members of all the parties in the House of Commons come together to endorse such a significant measure of social policy.

While the details of the measure remain to be worked out, its intent is clear. Like the Guaranteed Income Supplement to the Old Age Pension and the Child Benefit it will provide a direct monthly payment on an income-tested basis to persons 18-64 with physical and cognitive disabilities. The need for such a program is clear. In 2020 673,000 Canadians 16-64 with a disability were living in poverty, almost half the 1,541,000 persons living in poverty in that age group although they accounted for just over one-quarter of all Canadians 16-64. Provincial disability benefits such as the ODSP are woefully inadequate and are becoming more so as the cost of groceries and rents have risen sharply over the past year.

My spouse, Martha, encouraged me to attend. We are both are involved with our local Food Centre in Centretown. Surveys of our clients find that persons whose main source of income is a disability benefit make up more than half the people using our service. I also met a former colleague from work at the rally who told me that a young relative of his who had been on ODSP had recently found a full-time minimum wage job which had effectively doubled her income.

Stories like these had clearly gotten through to the members of Parliament from all parties who supported the bill at second reading. But the need is urgent, and a number of legislative steps must be passed in both the House of Commons and the Senate before the bill becomes law and benefits begin to flow. May all parties in Parliament crown their unanimity on October 18^th by fast tracking C-22 into a funded program as early as possible in 2023.

                                                                               

“Your job is to do everything possible to enable every eligible person who comes to the polls wanting to cast a ballot to do so.”

That was the key message Elections Ottawa officials gave in the training session I attended early in October for persons who applied to work in the October 24^th municipal election. In a time when we read and hear of efforts to make it more difficult to for people to vote in our neighbour to the south this was a welcome message. Our job was to help people overcome any obstacles they faced in voting not to up our hands and shrug our shoulders.

On election day I was assigned to work as an Election Assistant greeting and directing voters at the five polls located in Centretown United Church at 507 Bank Street. I was interested to see how successful our team of twelve election workers would be in applying the message we had been giving in our training.  

The challenges we faced were many. There had been insufficient advance planning to enable easy and accessible entrance to and exit from the room where voters cast their ballots. Many voters had not received voter notification forms or had received those forms but had lost or forgotten them. Others had recently moved so that the address on the notification form did not match the address on their driver’s licence or other forms of personal identification. All these people had to be sent to the small team of revising officers to either register to get their names on the voters list, correct their addresses or find a document such as a lease or Hydro, phone or cable bill which had their current correct address and matched the information on the voter’s list.

There was a steady turnout of prospective voters with such problems throughout the ten hours of voting. The result: people often faced long lines and waits of several minutes to confirm their eligibility to vote. They were met with courtesy and patience by the revising officers who used their ingenuity and assistance from other election workers to help persons satisfy the eligibility requirements.

The returning officer for the location and Church staff worked together quickly once the polls opened to facilitate accessibility to the polling location for handicapped persons and provide better options to exit the polls once voters had cast their ballots. As a result, no voter had to be turned away from the location because they could not access the polling location. However, several did have to endure long waits to use the one small accessible elevator.

Two voters arrived just as the polls were about to close with no paper documentation at all.  One, with the help of the election assistants and the revising officers, was able to use electronic documents on his cell phone to confirm his address and eligibility. The other, with the help of the Returning Officer and information on file at Elections Ottawa headquarters, was also able to establish his eligibility to vote. Both cast their ballots just after 8 p.m.

At the end of the day we had good reason to be satisfied with our efforts to carry out the responsibility we had been given.