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law professor Samuel Bagenstos led to the government withdrawing
a ventilator rationing policy that discriminated against people with
intellectual disabilities, dementia, and severe traumatic brain injury.15
Intersections: Income Security, Poverty, and Disability
COVID-19 highlights stark and persistent financial inequalities that
have plagued the disability community long before the current virus.16
Compared to people without disabilities, they are far more likely to
experience poverty, have lower levels of education, and be un- or
underemployed, and are less likely to live in adequate, safe, and afford-
able housing.17 Even before the pandemic, social assistance rates for
persons with disabilities in Ontario were far below the poverty line,18
insufficient for coping with additional needs and increased cost of liv-
ing while in quarantine, including transportation costs as a result of
the suspension of transit services. Federal income support strategies,
like the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB), exclude per-
sons with disabilities who are not able to meet the minimum income
thresholds. In Ontario, the rates for persons with disabilities receiving
benefits under the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) are far
below the rates offered to workers laid off during the pandemic.
The economic disruption caused by COVID-19 particularly
undermines the income security of persons with disabilities and is
the product of unconscious biases or injurious stereotypes about the
value of their labour. As Marta Russell and others have shown, dis-
abled people have been devalued by prioritizing conventional neo-
liberal understandings of productivity, which link a person’s value to
15. “Alabama Withdraws Discriminatory Ventilator Rationing Policy and Issues
Directive About Non-Discrimination in Accessing Life-Saving Treatment”
(8 April 2020), online (pdf): Center for Public Representation <www.centerforpub-
licrep.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/AL-OCR-press-release_4.8.20.pdf>. See
also Samuel R. Bagenstos, “May Hospitals Withhold Ventilators from COVID-
19 Patients with Pre-Existing Disabilities? Notes on the Law and Ethics of
Disability-Based Medical Rationing”130 Yale LJ Forum (Forthcoming in 2020).
16. EldridgeÂ
vÂ
BritishÂ
ColumbiaÂ
(AttorneyÂ
General), [1997] 3 SCR 624 at para 56, 151 DLR
(4th) 577.
17. “As a Matter of Fact: Poverty and Disability in Canada” (23 September 2009),
online: Council of Canadians with Disabilities <www.ccdonline.ca/en/socialpolicy/
poverty-citizenship/poverty-disability-canada>.
18. “Accessing Income Support in Wake of COVID-19” (26 March 2020), online: Income
SecurityÂ
AdvocacyÂ
Center <incomesecurity.org/public-education/accessing-income-
support-in-the-wake-of-covid-19-updated-march-26/>.
VULNERABLE
The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19
- Title
- VULNERABLE
- Subtitle
- The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19
- Authors
- Vanessa MacDonnell
- Jane Philpott
- Sophie Thériault
- Sridhar Venkatapuram
- Publisher
- Ottawa Press
- Date
- 2020
- Language
- English
- License
- CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
- ISBN
- 9780776636429
- Size
- 15.2 x 22.8 cm
- Pages
- 648
- Categories
- Coronavirus
- International