Disability advocates are disappointed that the government is doing further consultations rather than making changes when it comes to the Persons with Developmental Disabilities review.
St. Albertan Wendy King has a 21-year-old son with Down syndrome and said while she is encouraged by new Minister of Community and Social Services Rajan Sawhney's desire to include families in the consultation, people with disabilities and their allies can’t wait a long time for solutions.
“I’m disappointed that further ongoing and continued review will extend into the fall. People cannot wait for funding. It’s quite absurd to expect people to live without the benefit of support until such time as the government gets around to fixing things,” King said.
“No more reviews. The people have spoken."
On Tuesday, the government released the Persons with Developmental Disabilities (PDD) review and promised to create two new engagement groups to continue to look into the PDD program. The review released this week gathered input from thousands of people.
The review was crafted by a group of 11 Albertans that got together last October and were tasked with reviewing and making recommendations to the PDD program. Over the last 10 months, the group heard from more than 1,100 people during eight public engagement sessions held across the province. An additional 1,200 people completed an online survey for the review.
The group's report highlighted problems within the program, including issues around eligibility for the program, the training of disability workers, the difficulty transitioning from Family Support for Children with Disabilities (FSCD) to the PDD program and the lack of support on for people with disabilities who are living on Alberta’s reserves.
Morinville-St. Albert UCP MLA Dale Nally said Sawhney didn’t take action immediately after receiving the report because she wants to take a methodical approach.
“She wanted to go through it and she wanted to give it the attention that it deserves. It was from reading that report that she concluded that this is a community that is desperate to engage,” Nally said.
“I would say that the minister's response to this to this review has been bold, and it's been decisive, and it's going to allow her to engage directly with this community.”
St. Albert NDP MLA Marie Renaud, the opposition critic for community and social services, called the further consultation a delay and said the report has already engaged with persons with disabilities and their allies.
“They have already done that work. That work is done. You need to move on, and moving on requires the commitment. And I think these commitments are going to require a lot of resources to fix these problems. And I think this is, again, a delay,” Renaud said.
The UCP government has created the Disability Advisory Forum for advocates, family members, Indigenous communities, allies, services providers and community workers to provide advice to the government. The Service Provider Partnership Committee will also be formed to help connect the Ministry of Community and Social Services with the Alberta Council of Disability Services (ACDS) to help alleviate administrative challenges.
