Toronto – July 30, 2025 – UFCW Canada has released a new resource to support persons with disabilities in navigating the Canada Disability Benefit (CDB) application process, for which the first payments are released this month.

The CDB is a historic initiative established to significantly reduce poverty among persons with disabilities, including injured and disabled workers.

Currently, persons with disabilities represent 40% of people living in poverty and half of all food bank users. Each year, approximately 50,000 workers sustain permanent injuries, joining the 27% of people living with a disability, and nearly half of permanently injured workers experience poverty.

With unanimous passage of the CDB legislation in June 2023, draft regulations published in June 2024, and the anticipated rollout in July 2025, the CDB is expected to provide critical financial support to approximately 1.6 million people living in poverty.

However, we remain deeply concerned about the risk of clawbacks that could undermine the full impact of the benefit. For this reason, in May, UFCW Canada signed onto correspondence led by Disability Without Poverty, advocating for the federal government to introduce necessary legislation to ensure that the CDB is exempt from income considerations in the next parliamentary session.

Get to know the basics of the existing Canada Disability Benefit by checking out the newest UFCW Canada resource and the work of Disability Without Poverty. Share it in the workplace! Disability touches all Canadians in one way or another. It is our responsibility to ensure no one is left behind.