Editors note: this story contains references to suicide. Reader caution is advised. Anyone in distress and is considering suicide can call the Calgary Distress Centre 24 hours a day at 9-8-8.

Two dozen disabled Calgarians held a mock die-in protest at the province’s southern offices at the McDougall Centre on Sept. 19, to protest changes to the Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped (AISH) programs.

The protesters, many of whom have been recipients of AISH, decried the changes to the program that would see federal benefits provided to disabled Albertans clawed back from AISH payments made monthly.

They also protested moves by the provincial government to move AISH recipients who are unable to work, to the province’s Alberta Disability Assistance Program which would require them to find work in order to continue receiving benefits.

Kasper Payea, a co-organizer for the protest, said that the disabled community felt as though the province was attempting to institute a two-tiered system of supports for disabled Albertans.

“Everybody who’s currently on AISH is actually being transferred over to the ADAP program, which is essentially, you get health care as long as you can work, which isn’t helpful for a lot of us who can’t work full time,” they said.

“They’ve actually started in April and have been slowly being enacted, just kind of behind the scenes. A lot of us have just been getting letters in the mail being like, you need to update this, and not actually telling us how to update, which has been really frustrating.”

Payea said part of that frustration was that correspondence sent to AISH recipients by the Alberta government contained both an incorrect email address and telephone number making it difficult for disabled Albertans to navigate the changes.

Getting help not made easy by the Alberta Government

One of the protesters named Sheila, who did not wish to give her last name for fear of retribution from the government, said that the lack of correct information combined with a large number of fraud and scams targeting AISH recipients in the province, has made it hard for Albertans to navigate the system.

She said that on top of that inability to communicate with the government, changes to require AISH recipients to register with the Canada Disability Benefit or the federal Disability Tax Credit application meant that additional costs were being downloaded to disabled Albertans.

“That [needs] a doctor, and there’s a cost for that. Well, I don’t have the money for the cost for that. I kept telling AISH that I don’t have the money to pay for these costs, and I can’t even get an information from my doctor what this cost would be,” said Sheila.

“Now, fortunately, she didn’t charge me for the forms that she filled out Tuesday. I got in the mail yesterday, so they’re finally on their way, but it took me six months to even get this. They could have just sent me this package six months ago, instead of telling me it’s you have to apply, it’s mandatory, you don’t have a choice.”

Other protesters spoken to by LWC cited costs as high as $300 to have their doctor fill out forms required for the federal government.

Those out of pocket medical expenses are just a number of costs that AISH recipients have to deal with, before the clawback of benefits, said Payea.

Further reductions in monthly funding for recipients transitioning from AISH to ADAP, they said, would exasperate problems for what amounts to most Albertans a very small sum of money.

“$100 is like a month’s worth of groceries, right? Or, like, I can pay off a utility bill and stuff like that. It doesn’t seem like much, but when you’re already below the poverty line—I’m on max AISH, I get $1,901, which just under $25,000 a year—the federal poverty line is $30,000 so we’ve still got that big poverty gap,” said Payea.

Suicide and death a very real reality for AISH recipients

One of the realities for AISH recipients was they were driven to suicide, either through MAID or through circumstances, they said.

“I ended up unhoused for a couple of weeks. Instead of offering me, which I don’t know if that’s still a thing now, but there was a thing where you could get emergency damage deposit or you could get moving expenses covered. Instead of offering that to me, my AISH worker flat out asked me if I wanted a [Medically Assistance in Dying] application,” said Payea.

LWC contacted the Ministry responsible for Assisted Living to get clarification on whether there is a MAID policy in place for workers contacting AISH recipients, but did not receive an acknowledgement of those questions by press time.

Rachel Peters, another protester at the event, read the suicide note of a disabled Calgarian who had attempted to get help for their worsening medical condition but eventually suicided after being rejected for treatment by multiple Calgary hospitals.

Payea said that they didn’t think anyone from the government would listen to their protest, but that there was a hope that everyday Albertans would care.

“We are trying to get the everyday Albertans disabled or not to understand that this will affect everybody. It doesn’t matter what your demographic is. Being disabled, anybody can become disabled at any point, which means that this will affect you at some point in your life,” they said.

“They’re willing to cut the disability program, that means that they’re most likely willing to cut like senior services and stuff for kids as well, probably. So it’s just, it’s just a starting point of that iceberg. And we need people to understand that this has been going on for a long time, and it’s only going to get worse and start affecting more and more people as they allow it to happen, and we need to get more people involved so that the government will actually listen.”

Shelia, for her part was more blunt in her assessment of whether or not the protest would make a difference to the government.

“How many people have to die? How many people have to end up on the streets? I’m either waiting to go to the grave or end up on the street,” she said.

“I don’t live in fear of things. I expect them to happen, and everything that I just expected to happen has been happening. It’s scary that I seem to be the only one awake to these things. I feel like the crazy person with the sign saying the world’s about to end, and no one’s listening, and now the world’s ending.”