Human Resources committee  Thank you very much, Chair. With respect to the question Madam Zarrillo asked about paragraph 9(d) and the ability to garnish the Canada disability benefit for the purposes of the Family Orders and Agreements Enforcement Assistance Act, she asked whether this had a greater impact on women and what the gender-based analysis of this clause was.

Human Resources committee  Hi. I'm Krista Wilcox. I'm the director general of the office for disability issues.

Human Resources committee  No.

Human Resources committee  Yes, indeed. This again is consistent with the Canada child benefit, for example, where it is garnishable for the purposes of family orders and agreements. Without this addition in here, you wouldn't be able to use the benefit to get payments from a parent who isn't providing the support payments they are required to pay by law.

Human Resources committee  Thank you for that question. It's an excellent one, and I can't answer it at this point. What I can say is that when we have the design of the benefit, we will look at all of the interactions of all the federal benefits to see how this will interact. The reason I can't specify more at this point is that without the level of the benefit, without the income thresholds we would be using, without the deduction rates that would be applied and without establishing the population we're talking about, it would be very difficult for us to fully assess the suite of federal programs that could potentially interact with this program.

Human Resources committee  I don't have the figures in front of me, but from my recollection, there are more women who receive family orders—for example, for family support payments—than there are men. I could certainly get that information for you so you can better understand what those figures look like, but it's likely that this would be more for women than men.

Human Resources committee  I can't speak to how “recovered” is used in other legislation. What I can say is that it may be contrary to paragraph 9(d), where we are trying to, for the purposes of family orders, make the CDB garnishable. If there is a parent not paying their support payments to another parent, for example, this benefit could be used to recover that money.

Human Resources committee  If I understand the question correctly—and I might not fully understand what the member who introduced the amendment intended—we do not read this as saying that it could prevent anything. It would direct other programs and their legislative frameworks. For example, if there was an interaction with another federal program, such as the old age security program, that program would require an amendment to its legislative framework that would exempt this benefit if it's not included in the calculation of income for that program.

Human Resources committee  I don't believe it would serve the intended purpose. What would need to be amended in other legislation is how income is calculated. It would need to be specifically exempted, and that legislation would have to specify that income received through the Canada disability benefit would not be treated as income for the purposes of the calculation of benefits.

Human Resources committee  That is my understanding. I'm not a lawyer, but I would imagine that it would need to be done through the legislative, regulatory or policy frameworks of those governments, not the federal—

Human Resources committee  That's correct, and it would be consistent with, for example, the Canada child benefit, which is in a similar situation.

Human Resources committee  That's correct, and the timing of that would be important to add after the design of the benefit is set out so that the interaction with those programs is understood.

Human Resources committee  That's correct, and that's the process we're following.

Human Resources committee  Thank you for the question. In our work on the Canada disability benefit, we expect—and the minister talked about this at committee—that there may be interactions with other federal programs, as well as provincial and territorial programs. She made it very clear in her testimony that the intention of the design of the benefit is to ensure that it does not interact with those programs and that there are no negative interactions or clawbacks regarding them.

Human Resources committee  It's a great question. Thank you. Working backwards, in terms of the approach to the engagement we've done so far, we've done it thematically. We've asked questions to provide the community with the opportunity to give us their perspective. As we get into the regulatory process, we will provide more detailed information that will enable us to engage more specifically on proposals for the regulations.