An advocacy group for persons with disabilities says they were left out of the federal government\u2019s fall economic statement at a time when there is a growing demand for disability resources and services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe main funding commitments of the economic statement didn\u2019t consider disabled people at all,\u201d said Carly Fox, communications and partnership director for The National Education Association of Disabled Students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The group expected \u201cexpected disabilities to be more mainstreamed in the economic update,\u201d said Fox, including more long-term funding commitments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She said that disability is only mentioned four times in Tuesday\u2019s statement and seven times in the accompanying annexes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fox also noted disabilities are \u201coften included in EDI statements but not always meaningfully considered outright.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Canada\u2019s Housing Action Plan<\/em> chapter of the economic statement, for example, lists people with disabilities as a marginalized group benefiting from more affordable housing projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAffordable housing does not equal accessible housing,\u201d Fox pointed out. She said disabled people continue to face access barriers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fox said her organization was also disappointed in the amount of sustainable funding allocated to disability programs. The group had hoped for specific funding allocations for the Canadian Disability Benefit, intended to ensure people with disabilities meet their basic needs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Fox said the benefit was \u201ctop of mind\u201d prior to the statement, so its exclusion was \u201cpretty disappointing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Existing resources available to people with disabilities have been under strain for a while now with increasing demand for services, according to Bruce Hamm, director of Carleton University\u2019s Paul Menton Centre for Students with Disabilities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Funding \u201chas been sustainable at incremental levels, but it is not rising at the same pace as the increased number of students needing it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The lack of specific attention given to persons with disabilities in the economic statement seems to depart from the growing demand for these services, Fox suggested. \u201cMore and more people are identifying as disabled,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Fox noted the economic statement had its advantages, such as disabled people benefitting from general cost-of-living supports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An advocacy group for persons with disabilities says they were left out of the federal government\u2019s fall economic statement at a time when there is a growing … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":719,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[99,36,101,100],"class_list":["post-713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-carleton-university","tag-disability-2","tag-government","tag-neads"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/capitalchill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/capitalchill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/capitalchill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/capitalchill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/capitalchill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=713"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/capitalchill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":725,"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/capitalchill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713\/revisions\/725"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/capitalchill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/capitalchill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/capitalchill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/capitalchill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}