As a case study in insensitivity, it would be hard to beat the Alberta government’s handling of the PDD file. PDD means persons with developmental disabilities and right now they’re angry, frightened and confused. So too are their families and the people in the agencies that serve them, St. Albert-based Lo-Se-Ca among them.
An estimated 10,000 Albertans receive PDD supports, meaning they receive financial assistance in different forms from the taxpayer. The overall budget for PDD supports actually increased by $5 million to $691 million in the March budget, but this relatively good news has been overwhelmed by the government’s grand plan to overhaul the PDD program. Two elements of this are key to the current controversy.
The first involves something called the community access program which provides volunteer and recreational opportunities for developmentally disabled people. Funding for community access comes from the overall PDD envelope, which, to repeat, increased slightly in the March budget. However, the funding for community access programs was slashed by $42 million in keeping with the government’s objective of getting more disabled people into the workforce, though it’s not clear how this will happen.
The second crucial element involves the introduction of a new, provincewide standard test for assessing the needs of people with disabilities. The present system is a patchwork, the government says, and something better is needed. The new system will rank the disabled on a scale of one to seven, with a seven representing those with the greatest needs.
Reaction to these proposals has been universally negative. Those in the disabled community – the disabled, friends, family and service providers – fear the cuts to the community access program will deprive the disabled of valuable activities and lower their quality of life. They question too whether the cuts to community access will eventually be greater than $42 million. There are further doubts about the new testing system, about its reliability and the manner in which it is administered. In short, they don’t believe the government and why should they? Why should any of us?
Over the last three weeks, rallies have been held across Alberta to demand that the PDD changes be delayed to allow more time for consultation and implementation. Even inside government, there is a recognition that things have gone badly, that public consultation has not been what it should be.
Such a conclusion would probably lead the average Henry and Martha to rethink their plans, but this is a government that seems to relish confrontation – teachers and doctors come to mind – and now it is courting a public black eye in its determination to push ahead with the changes to PDD starting on July 1.
Most Albertans don’t understand the details of the government’s proposals, but they know something is wrong when scores of people in wheelchairs gather in protest outside the Legislature. It takes a special kind of arrogance to persist in a wrongheaded course of action for no apparent reason other than bureaucratic fiat. The Redford government should back off, consult and seek a consensus. The time to do that is now.
