Under the Ontario Disability Support Program Act* (the ODSPA), income support is provided to persons with disabilities and their dependants. A person with disabilities is defined in the following way:#
(a) the person has a substantial physical or mental impairment that is continuous or recurrent and expected to last one year or more;
(b) the direct and cumulative effect of the impairment on the person’s ability to attend to his or her personal care, function in the community and function in a workplace, results in a substantial restriction in one or more of these activities of daily living; and
(c) the impairment and its likely duration and the restriction in the person’s activities of daily living have been verified by a person with the prescribed qualifications.
Under the provision, children with disabilities are ill-suited under the definition above, since a child’s ability to attend to his or her personal care, function in the community or function in a workplace is difficult to measure.
Therefore, section 49 of the ODSPA specifically states that “the Director may provide financial assistance in accordance with the regulations to a person who meets the prescribed criteria to assist the person with extraordinary costs related to a child who has a severe disability.”
The financial assistance is provided to eligible parents on behalf of their children.
In determining whether the child has a severe disability and the amount of assistance to be provided, the Director has to consider the following circumstances of the parent and the parent’s spouse, if any, and the child, including,^
(a) the age of the child;
(b) the household income;
(c) the extent to which the child is severely limited in activities pertaining to normal living, including, but not necessarily limited to, the ability to walk, communicate with others, feed himself or herself, or bathe himself or herself; and
(d) the expenses that the parent or person is incurring or might incur solely by reason of the severe disability of the child.
*S.O. 1997, c. 25, sch. B
# ibid., s. 4(1)
^ O. Reg. 224/98
PSWLaw proudly represents clients on their ODSP appeals.
Note: This article is provided for educational purposes only. It does not constitute legal advice. The legislation may have been amended or repealed since the publication of this article.
