With the PCs announcing their intention to raise Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) rate by five per cent, all the major parties have staked a claim on improving disability support in the province.

The Tories hadn’t mentioned ODSP in their latest budget and Ford’s spokesperson Ivana Yelich told QP Briefing that this latest promise is a “new commitment.”

“The premier has always said he'll listen to the people. As he travels across the province, he's heard that the cost of living is going up and that ODSP should increase to help with this,” Yelich said.

ODSP is a monthly income support program for low-income people with disabilities. Currently, the most a single person can receive from ODSP income supports is $1,169, which is meant to cover food and shelter and can be increased for those living in remote areas of northern Ontario.

Ford’s party promises the lowest ODSP rate increase when compared to its competitors. The PCs pledge a five-per cent increase and a subsequent tie of the rate to inflation. The Liberals, in their newly released platform, pledge a 10-per cent increase per year over the next two years. The NDP has promised a 20-per cent increase next year and an overhaul of the program. The Greens have the most ambitious promise, committing to doubling the current ODSP rate.

The last increase to ODSP rates was 1.5 per cent in 2018, when the Ford government first took office and halved a three-per cent increase planned by Liberal premier Kathleen Wynne.

The Market Basket Measure, Canada’s measure for the poverty line that accounts for food, shelter, clothing and transportation costs, ranged from $1,871 to $2,223 a month in 2022 according to Tammy Schirle, a professor of economics at Wilfred Laurier.

By 2023, each party’s maximum single-person ODSP rate would result in: $2,455 under the Greens, $1,403 under the NDP, $1,286 under the Liberals and $1,227 under the PCs, according to Mike Moffatt, an assistant professor of business economics and public policy at Western University’s Ivey Business School.

Moffatt compared the party’s promised rate increases to the ODSP rates under PC premiers Mike Harris and his successor Ernie Eves to demonstrate how low the current rates are.

A few people have asked what the ODSP numbers would look like for 2023. These are more likely to be accurate since none of the parties' inflation adjustments would have kicked in by then. Here are the $ amounts, in March 2023 dollars. Now with Ford's proposed 5% increase. pic.twitter.com/C9nZcHeUjV

— Dr. Mike P. Moffatt 🇨🇦🏅🏅 (@MikePMoffatt) May 9, 2022

“Both Harris and Eves left the (ODSP) dollar figure at $930 in sort of absolute terms. So obviously, over time, that became worth less and less and less. And now even with these 20-per cent increases that we're hearing from both the Liberals and NDP, that gets us almost to where we were in the ... Eves era,” Moffatt said, adding that the Liberals and NDP are “barely keeping up” with the cost of living and inflation.

For Maddy Dever, an autism and disability rights advocate and Green Party supporter who has been receiving ODSP since 2013, the parties with a shot of forming government aren’t going far enough.

“So many people I know are going homeless. So many people I know, their health's getting worse because they don't have the right food to get. So many people I know are choosing or considering Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) because the pain, plus their disability, plus this poverty is just too much. Twenty per cent, 10 per cent, five per cent is so disappointing and frustrating,” Dever said.

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Legalized in 2017, MAiD was expanded in 2021 and a number of high-profile cases across Ontario, including a 31-year-old woman in Toronto living on ODSP who is seeking a medically-assisted death, have raised the conversation of inequality and poverty leading to death.

"We have been sliding deeper and deeper into poverty … We need, as a baseline, to be out of poverty," Dever said.

Dever has been struggling to stay housed while also maintaining an adequate diet, and said it comes down to choosing between what bills to pay and how much food to buy, especially as inflation increases prices.

“One of the things that I really wish (is for) every leader, every candidate, imagine how they could live on $1,169 a month. And if they can show me a budget of how they could do it, I would love to see it,” Dever said.

Dever said they were “deeply disappointed” by the NDP’s promised rate of 20 per cent.

“They’re a party that's supposed to be progressive, they're supposed to be pushing for the little guy, but I find when it comes to people with disabilities, I don't think the leadership and I don't think the policy-makers of the party understand how deep into poverty, how much of a struggle this is.”

And Dever isn’t alone in thinking the province’s major progressive party falls short in its promised ODSP rate increase.

Former NDP MPP and the party’s outgoing critic for poverty and homelessness, Rima Berns-McGown, says the PC, Liberal and NDP promises on ODSP do “nothing.”

“It's not going to keep you housed. It's not going to enable you to buy food, even if you can manage to stay housed. The math doesn't work, and so this is an absolute crisis.”

Berns-McGown doesn’t pin the lowball promises on the NDP specifically and adds that “it’s an every party problem.”

She says it’s “not wrong” to think that the NDP seems like it's trying to capture centrist voters away from the Liberals with its 20 per cent promise.

“And I think that what happens when you try to do that is that you please nobody. If people want to vote for Liberals, they’ll vote for Liberals.”

During her time as an opposition critic, she said 50 per cent of the people experiencing homelessness that she’s spoken to are also living with disabilities and that they are increasingly considering MAiD.

“I think it is up to the party that is seen as the progressive party to lead the way. So, I do think it's imperative that the NDP re-evaluate that 20 per cent and step up and say, in any caring society, we can't have people applying for MAiD because they can't afford to live,” Berns-McGown said. “But at the same time, for me, this is beyond that. This should not be a partisan issue. This should be something that every party embraces regardless of label.”

A spokesperson for the New Democrats said that the 20 per cent increase would be "breathing room" while the party starts its plan to "form a partnership with people with lived experiences to design a new, better, more dignified system that lifts all Ontario Works and ODSP clients out of poverty."

This article was edited on May 10 at 9:22a.m. to correct a misspelling of Berns-McGown's name. QP Briefing regrets this error.

ODSP recipient, advocates criticize low disability support rate promises from major parties

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