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In the waning hours of the fall session of the Alberta legislature, the UCP government used its majority to pass Bill 12.

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Euphemistically named the Financial Statutes Amendments Act, this Trojan horse bill effectively and arbitrarily redefines the very concept of disability — at least, in Danielle Smith’s Alberta — by creating two, and only two, categories of people with disabilities: those who the government deems capable of paid employment, and those who the government deems not capable of paid employment.

What’s more, without offering any sort of criteria for determining whether or not a disabled Albertan is capable of paid employment, Bill 12 simply assumes that all 77,000 Albertans currently receiving Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped (AISH) are indeed employable, and autocratically transfers them to its new workfare program, the Alberta Disability Assistance Program (ADAP).

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© Edmonton Journal