PWD CLAWBACKS: PINK UNICORNS AND DISABILITY DISCRIMINATION

First written on September 9, 2022; re-edited on June 21, 2023.

I've been on provincial PWD Income Assistance for 13 years.

In a few days' time, it'll be exactly one year since my last attempt at filing a formal complaint against BC's Ministry of Social Development (SDPR) via the BC Human Rights Tribunal (BCHRT).

I've filed three separate complaints vs SDPR and have failed all three times. My complaint has to do with the ongoing clawback of my Survivor's Pension as so-called 'Unearned Income'. My first wife passed away in 2013 and my monthly PWD cheque shrunk because SDPR subtracted every penny of my $715/month Survivor's Pension monies.

Then in 2015, 'The Single Mother's Alliance' famously took SDPR to court over clawbacks to Child Support payments and won. As a result of that victory, I got my son's $230/month 'Orphan's Portion' reinstated. Unfortunately, SDPR still claws back almost $500 from my Survivor's Pension every month.

A whole pension -in its entirety- is paid out in good faith for very good reason, always. Someone really needs to explain to me how Child Support payments from divorced parents are 'Earned Income' since 2015 but the bulk of my Survivor's Pension (via a dead spouse) remains illegitimate.

The BC Ministry of Social Development is essentially saying, "Congratulations on the death of your beloved spouse, you now deserve a clawback." SDPR is balancing its books in the cruellest and most perverse way possible. How is this righteous social policy?

In my official decision/response letter from BC Human Rights Tribunal it was explained to me as follows...

The Tribunal chair said that the clawback of my Survivor's Pension is not discriminatory because: SDPR claws back CPP monies from elderly folk, too. As long as SDPR mistreats me - a person with a disability - the same as they mistreat everyone else on provincial Income Assistance, it is not considered Discrimination.

In other words, systemic discrimination so long as it is *equally distributed* somehow ceases to be discrimination. Wow.

To me, the explanation given by the Tribunal here is super ridiculous. All pensions are paid into & contributed to through work. Pensions are indeed 'Earned Income', it's just income deferred for a rainy day. Even so, BC Ministry of Social Development doesn't care about truth. The Ministry arbitrarily cherry-picks my Survivor's Pension as 'Unearned' every month; it continues to claw me back every friggin' month! That SDPR has the power to cherry-pick & de-legitimize any portion of my pension is totally messed up.

The BC provincial government loves to cherry-pick. SDPR is constantly pitting all PWD recipients against each other. It's disabled persons versus disabled, plus single parent and widower. It's PWD Income Assistance vs PWD Assistance, plus clawback. It's subsidized housing for a select few vs higher market rents for everybody else. Or additional rent subsidies for *some* single parent widowers vs an unsubsidized mortgage payment for me. And yes, up to $15,000 per year in 'Earned Income' exemptions vs the punishing clawback of my Survivor's pension.

The worst part is, a BC Human Rights Tribunal chair has already told me that cherry-picking is not discriminatory. "It's not discrimination...it's only unfair", he said. But if cross-checked in a Thesaurus, I can easily discover the antonym (or opposite) of 'CHERRY PICK' is 'INDISCRIMINATE' (!)

Speaking of finite definitions, a pension is a protected income. Pensions are protected under federal and provincial labour laws. My Survivor's pension is supposed to be a protected income. Why is perverting protected pensions a-okay? Clawbacks mean that my Survivor's Pension isn't allowed to function as intended. Banning equal access & equal rights to pension monies should not be permissible. What was once tangible protected income has been reconstructed and perverted into something completely different. SDPR has turned my Survivor's pension into a pink unicorn, a made-up thing of pure fantasy. How are SDPR's pink unicorns not discriminatory??

Every hard-earned, well-deserved pension has always been an "Earned Income" privilege. Pension monies are an earned income privilege because they were designed to function as such from the very beginning. This is why finite definitions like "EARNED INCOME" should matter, yet to SDPR and BCHRT they somehow don't.

So pink unicorns are left to rule the day. Provincial governments use poli-speak lingo and will say that their Social Services are providing "targeted, wrap-around supports" to PWDs and other vulnerable groups. My Survivor's Pension is exactly that: a targeted wrap-around support income. Yet pensions have become something that provincial governments love to stomp on, disrespect, belittle and bully in the form of 'Unearned Income' and PWD clawbacks.

It is simply not right (a blatant lie, even) for pensions to be labelled 'UNEARNED INCOME'. Clawing back my Survivor's Pension as 'UNEARNED INCOME' is straight-up fancy pants nonsense. It is linguistic word perversion. It is prejudice in action.

My Survivor's Pension has been reduced to a useless pink unicorn. Turning my pension into a pink unicorn is systemic discrimination personified. No amount of equal distribution should obliterate that fact.

~ Neil Matheson, aka Daddy Bent-Legs

"Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you." ~ James 1:27 (NLT)

tags: PWD clawbacks, pwd clawbacks in BC, ministry of social development, systemic discrimination in BC, systemic disability discrimination, disability discrimination, legislated poverty, disability poverty, BC Human Rights Tribunal, BC Office of Human Rights Commissioner, Pink Unicorns, pwd BC, BC disability, British Columbia, BC government, Mike Harcourt, BC Housing, Sonia Furstenau, Mike Morrice, Bonita Zarrillo, Canada Disability Benefit (CDB).