The provincial government provides Disability based Income Assistance. Disability through provincial Social Services provides $850 per month for a single person. As a single person you're also allowed to earn $500 per month on top of your disability. There's a slightly higher earnings exemption for disabled parents with children. The Disability based Income Assistance program is called PWD (Persons with Disability). In order to get PWD you have to have a 23 page form signed by two doctors and a social worker.
If you've worked a certain amount of years you can qualify for the federal government's Canadian Pension Plan based on Disability. That money comes from the federal government and provides greater freedom than the Provincial Disability based Income Assistance described above. With CPPD you are allowed to live outside the country and still collect your pension. The basic level of income is about the same as the provincial pension, unless of course you have contributed higher premiums in the years that you worked.
The Canadian Student Loans program has an option for disabled students to take 40% of a course load and still qualify for full student loans. You also have the option of remaining on the provincial Disability based Income Assistance for living expenses while using funds from the student loans program to pay for your tuition and books. That is, the provincial Disability based Income Assistance program will allow you to be on disability and go to school part time while you get student loans to cover tuition and books. Regardless of whether you are solely on student loans or on disability income assistance with tuition and books covered by student loans, you might end up acquiring quite a debt. The Canadian student loans program has a program called Forgiveness based on Disability for people who have difficulty paying student loans off due to their disability. If you get forgiven by student loans it means that your debt is wiped clean and you can start again at a future date.
Most Canadian colleges and universities have bursaries based on disability. All the bursaries that I have seen are enough to cover tuition or partly cover the cost of a three credit or four credit course. These are government bursaries and the schools distribute the funds.
12 Jun 2006, 3:37 pm
