A pale likeness of compassionate conservativism
By Lethbridge Herald on November 12, 2025.
Peter Heffernan
For the Herald
In 1979, Progressive Conservatives (PCs) in the government of long-serving Peter Lougheed, introduced legislation creating a program called AISH, the first of its kind in Canada. Having shown the way of more equitable treatment of its disabled and among its most vulnerable fellow citizens, generous-spirited Albertans supported this and then observed every other provincial jurisdiction in Canada adopt similar programs.
Decades later, then local MLA, fairness-guided and visionary Bridget Pastoor of another PC government, saw that AISH recipients, though they had received intermittent increases were, unlike beneficiaries of other social safety net programs, unprotected from the biting sting of and falling dramatically behind inflation (i.e., Alberta’s most vulnerable were again getting ever poorer).
That government then introduced legislation to fund AISH in the same manner as all other such programs, CPI-indexed.
While there have been hiccoughs since, AISH at this time remains, perhaps precariously, indexed. Hope-inducing, but don’t drop your guard.
Totalitarian tendencies have emerged even in governments in democracies worldwide. As prevailing conservative sentiment remains strong in Alberta voters, a different, almost unrecognizable brand of what is a pale likeness of formerly compassionate conservatism creeped in in the dark of night, hijacked the party and nixed voters’ real priorities. While there is literally a litany of offensive gestures legislated (or in process) showing Albertans the middle finger, with apologies to other hurt and wounded Albertans, here we remain focussed on AISH.
A substantive majority of my neighbours and fellow citizens throughout this great province are proudly Canadian and, in that vein, caring and sharing. Yet, few voices other than those of the NDP official opposition in Alberta and a groundswell of social workers who know, understand and observe on the ground everyday the plight of Alberta’s disabled poor, God bless them, have been heard denouncing the currently oddly-monikered, divide-and-conquer ”United” Conservative Party’s (UPC’s) seemingly conspiratorially-inspired and utterly uninformed ADAB proposals and, particularly, its mean-spirited 100 percent clawback of the federal government’s Canada Disability Benefit, a well-intentioned, albeit modest hand-up to disabled persons Canada-wide.
This clawback nets $185 million (77,000 X $2,400) per annum for Alberta’s treasury, taken directly from the pockets of the severely disabled and poorest, without any certainty it will be used for anything other than mad hatter schemes, of which we have witnessed many (from facilitating the tearing asunder of our beloved Canada and turning a blind eye to the desecration of our national flag to outrageous and misguided opting out of constitutionally protected rights of workers to negotiate and, in the perceived absence of show of good faith, to strike).
Right minded taxpayers’ dollars are being wasted and, worse, our peace of mind and time of day are being stolen from under our noses. CBC’s The National ran a piece on Nov. 3 about Cuban foreign workers in Canada alleging the totalitarian Cuban state claws back 80 percent of the wages such workers earn at Sheritt International in Canada. If this is proven (the case has a convincing ring), it is troubling. Yet, the difference in clawback at 80 percent is not as jaw-dropping as the increasingly totalitarian-oriented UPC’s 100 percent from Alberta’s severely disabled. As despair-inducing as this is for the severely disabled (as has been reported), thus far it has induced only screaming silence and what comes across as indifference from Albertans who are both able and also comfortable. Dismayingly, this includes such stalwarts of proactive moral conscience as the leadership of Alberta’s institutional religions of all stripes.
I am a follower of Christ. I’ll leave it to the remaining others of other institutional religious affiliations to take account of and search to remedy how their faith communities’ leadership are or are not objecting to overtly discriminatory treatment, in law and in practice, by Alberta’s elected servants of its (by definition and determined by intensive screening) severely disabled, among its poorest.
Closing thought: If leaders of such arbiter institutions of moral conscience genuinely aspire or purport to be ever present in our world to advance goodness and light and champion compassion, they risk becoming irrelevant sideshows when, as the current and last popes have warned over and over again, they carefully curate what in human life warrants indignation and what is given an easy pass. Which human lives matter, and which don’t. I remind and, deferentially and in humility, ask them: “The Lord hears the cry of the poor.” Shouldn’t we? And so, what do we do?
Dr. Peter Heffernan is a professor of modern languages in the Faculty of Education at the University of Lethbridge.
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Dr. Heffernan rightly invites all followers and leaders in the Christian faith tradition, and by extension, all other faith traditions, to break the “screaming silence” to speak up and speak out against a government so callousness of the current Alberta government.
Moreover, in the shadow of Remembrance Day, the history of the life of Pastor Martin Niemöller should serve as a potent warning against apathy, the normalization of hatred, the belief in personal immunity from persecution, and the failure to defend marginalized groups.
Dr. Heffernan’s message (I hope) transcends the faith community to all people who stand up for common human decency.
The amount of Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped “AISH” is established in accordance with CPI – housing and food non-discretionary expenses. The Federal Government allocation on $200.00 per month for disabled is a national social program, not limited to Albertans. The position of current recipients of AISH were directed to apply for the federal program ($200.00) and then their AISH payments were adjusted accordingly. THERE WAS NO CLAWBACK. Recipients of AISH are receiving the same amount of funding. Is there something wrong with that? Or are there some that think that AISH recipients should “double dip”?
Sounds like a claw back to me. Do compassionate Christians disturb you, H.?
it is a claw back because aish recipients lose the money the feds are giving out. the money is distributed as a top up to those in need, not a top up to alberta coffers.
2 questions: what kind of ugly, sick hearted, cynical buffoons in govt would abuse this decency shown by the feds and pocket it for themselves; what kind of ugly, sick hearted, cynical buffoons would support the ugly, sick hearted, cynical action of the ucp?
Here’s an idea, why don’t you see how you can live for a month on AISH’s maximum monthly living allowance? Then report back.
Individuals on AISH receive monthly financial assistance, this money comes with no “hitches” and recipients use the money how they see fit. Recipients are as well, under the AISH program, able to earn additional income by working and these earnings are exempt and not deducted from their AISH benefits within threshold limits. Individuals on AISH are eligible for a plethora of exempt benefits including health and dental services, eye glasses, medication, housing allowance, transportation allowance, work clothing allowances etc. etc. AISH recipients may also be entitled to the Federal Government’s “Disability Tax Credit” and if they (AISH recipient) invests $1,000.00 annually into a retirement investment, the government provides $2,000.00 annual subsidy to the retirement investment (RDSP). AISH benefits are Income Tax exempt both Provincially and Federally. So to respond to your question, “How can one live on maximum monthly AISH benefits” I suggest, reasonably well ($3,000.00/month) with no taxation. Compare that to a senior receiving OAS and possibly CPP amounting to approximately $1,500.00 per month and that subject Provincial and Federal Taxation.
I agree, as an individual who knows someone on AISH for 10 years, they do get other benefits, like medical, dental, etc. What most AISH recipients don’t realize is they have to apply for some of the other benefits outlined in the package. For example, various dietary needs, if they can drive, they get travel money if they have regular appointments, such as those on dialysis, emergency funds should they need to move, etc. The thing is, much like the individual I know, they didn’t realize some of the additional benefits that could be added ON TOP of the base pay until talked about with their social worker, who then put in the request. Staff at the AISH office are nothing but paper pushers and make sure that all rules are followed. As soon as you do not report income, they are on you like white on rice. But, if they owe you money, they only go back so far. I think it’s 6 months at the most. Also, that extra $200 is a federal program, not provincial, so Danielle Smith has no right to get her greedy little hands on the disabled extra income. No other province is doing this. I can say more, but there will be pages and pages of disgust.
haha! i think i get you now, harold. you switched to the “reality” moniker and then continued to spew some of the most irreverent and foolish and UNreal rubbish so as to be ironic? brilliant stuff under such a guise!
i love the idea that those on aish invest 1000$ a year so as to for a 2000$ fed subsidy toward their retirement! lol another brilliant ironic laugh from that. now, one can expect the ucp to claw any of that retirement benefit back, too; however, the aish recipient would need to have the spare cash to even make that happen. but do folk on aish have a spending issue, or an income issue – how do they find a $1000 a year to put into what amounts to a catch 22 “benefit”?
there are likely more ways aish folk can create wealth – they should have not eaten and instead invested in gold; or, they could have withheld paying exorbitant fixed fees that are the mainstay of our wonderful provincial energy structure, and invested in bank stocks, such as national bank and rbc.
i guess the real reason aish folk struggle, harold, you reality detached wonder, is because they are just too cheap to hire a good accountant to show them how to create wealth, right?
What are you on biff?
A wellington lol
you just keep finding ways to demonstrate how to present as a foolish buffoon. you never speak out against snide and wicked corporate greed, nor against their wealth grab and consequent suckout from the collective wealth of society, nor against that being further compounded by the plethora of “laws” that further enrich the giant corp via what amounts to corporate welfare. indeed, your entry above, that depicts life on aish as a good standard of living – heck, they just need to invest a $1000 a year – and that the ucp is right to pocket money from the feds intended for those on aish – living below the poverty line, underscores your pathetic outlook.