The government has two definitions of disability. Advocates say it leaves people out.

OTTAWA — Advocates for people with episodic disabilities say they don’t understand why the federal government has two different definitions of disability in law — and uses the narrower version to decide who gets benefits.

Canada’s disability benefit program was launched in June 2025, after being promised by the Liberal government for years.

It’s meant to help low-income people with disabilities and offers a maximum payment of $2,450 per year, or just over $200 a month.

In the legislation that created the program, the government borrowed a definition of “disability” from the Accessible Canada Act, the law that sets out a goal to make the country barrier-free by 2040. That definition explicitly includes people with episodic disabilities, while the benefit program itself does not.

The Accessible Canada Act defines a disability as any “physical, mental, intellectual, cognitive, learning, communication or sensory impairment — or a functional limitation — whether permanent, temporary or episodic in nature, or evident or not,” that hinders a person’s full and equal participation in society.

But while the benefit law shares the Accessible Canada Act’s definition of disability, it uses a much narrower definition when deciding who is actually eligible to claim the benefit.

The benefit program’s eligibility rules require that a claimant be approved for the Canada Disability Tax Credit, which defines disability as a marked restriction that “is present all or almost all of the time (generally at least 90 per cent).”

That leaves out people like Amanda Fraser.

Fraser was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis 12 years ago. She has been on long-term disability since 2020, when she was forced to leave her career as a registered nurse because of the disease’s progression.

Fraser’s problem is that — like most people with MS — she has what is considered an episodic disability, meaning its symptoms vary from day to day and week to week.

“The last week, yes, 90 per cent of the time I’ve been using an electric wheelchair to get around my home. I’ve needed my husband to cook our meals and do dishes, and had my mother-in-law come by to help,” she said.

“But two weeks ago, I was doing that all on my own.”

MS Canada has pushed for years for the federal government to recognize episodic disabilities in its benefit programs. Fraser, who volunteers with the group as an advocate, has travelled to Ottawa to meet with MPs.

“Every member of Parliament that I personally met with agrees that we need to be included on it and doesn’t understand the bureaucratic mismatch,” she said.

Dr. Kelly O’Brien is the Canada Research Chair in episodic disability and rehabilitation, and a professor in the department of physical therapy at the University of Toronto.

Her research into episodic disabilities focuses on patients with HIV and, more recently, long COVID. She said episodic disabilities are not well understood.

“Depending on the features of health challenges, things such as fatigue or headaches (or) cognitive dysfunction may not be visible or constant, which makes it particularly challenging for individuals to articulate their health challenges,” she said.

The government did not make Jobs and Families Minister Patty Hajdu available for an interview. In a statement, her office praised the benefit program but did not address questions about why the definitions differ.

A spokesperson for the Jobs and Families Department said in an email that the “definition of disability in the (Canada Disability Benefit Act) is not a criterion used to determine if someone is eligible for the Canada Disability Benefit.”

Fraser said the mismatch doesn’t make sense.

“I have been approved by the federal government that I am disabled, and can qualify for something like the (Canada) Pension Plan Disability, but then under the same federal government, they use a different definition,” she said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 25, 2026.

Sarah Ritchie, The Canadian Press