Outlook 2022-12-05 - People with Disabilities & Disability Without Poverty with Janet Rodriguez

PWD - people with disabilities DWP - Disability Without Poverty December 3rd of this year marks 30 years since the United Nations adopted this date as the International Day for Persons with Disabilities (IDPD). The theme for IDPD 2022 is “Transformative solutions for inclusive development: the role of innovation in fuelling an accessible and equitable world“. What is Disability Without Poverty (DWP)? What is Bill C-22 (the Canada Disability Benefit)? This week on Outlook we speak with Janet Rodriguez – Disability advocate; Ontario coordinator for DWP about Janet’s international perspective (speaking of coming from Peru to Canada) and then what it’s been like living here in this country with the push for Bill C-22 as 2022 comes to a close. Janet tells us about this organization and this bill as the three of us have an open discussion about our own, individual experiences with disability and the connection between disability and poverty in Canada specifically, both before and since Covid-19 came along, contributing to so many societal cracks, all of which were already forming before the pandemic but of which have only widened more vastly since. When Covid hit, the government snapped into high gear for Canadians when they were unable to go to work. The Canadian government created the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit or CERB, but with cost-of-living on the increase, those living with disabilities (both visible and invisible) have fallen further and further below the poverty line. This ends up harming society more, in the long run, but with disability there’s always been stigma and feelings of being a burden, on the system, in the capitalistic culture we’re all living in. We wanted to speak with someone who is doing something, as part of a group of Canadians living with disability, to engage with policy makers and fellow stakeholders to make life better for pwd, a group any one of us could join at any time. “Transformative solutions for inclusive development: the role of innovation in fuelling an accessible a