LESSONS TO BE LEARNED: THE DECISION OF THE SOCIAL BENEFITS TRIBUNAL IN TRANCHEMONTAGNE V. ONTARIO (DIRECTOR, DISABILITY SUPPORT PROGRAM)
In April 2009, the Ontario Social Benefits Tribunal ended a 10 years battle for appellants, Norman Werbeski and Robert Tranchemontagne in its deliberation that the Ontario Disability Supports Program Act violated their rights as enshrined in the Ontario Human Rights Code when it failed to recognize their alcoholism as a disability. 

Drawing specific excerpts from the Respondents (Ontario government) defence and the Social Benefit Tribunal’s decision, the essay looks at how government policy affects persons with substance addiction and argues that Section 5(2) of the ODSPA places burdens on substance abusers and contributes significantly to their social stigma. 

The outcomes of excluding substance addiction from the United States Social Assistance Programmes are reviewed and referred to in analyzing the Respondent’s claims. The conclusion highlights how this case reflects key steps towards greater inclusion for persons with disabilities and in particular for those whose disability is addiction and alcoholism. 

Keywords: Social Benefits Tribunal, Ontario Disability Supports Program Act, alcoholism, disability, stigma
Stigma, social inequality and alcohol and drug use.
A heavy load of symbolism surrounds psychoactive substance use, for reasons which are discussed. Psychoactive substances can be prestige commodities, but one or another aspect of their use seems to attract near--universal stigma and marginalization. Processes of stigmatization include intimate process of social control among family and friends; decisions by social and health agencies; and governmental policy decisions. What is negatively moralized commonly includes incurring health, casualty or social problems, derogated even by other heavy users; intoxication itself; addiction or dependence, and the loss of control such terms describe; and in some circumstances use per se. Two independent literatures on stigma operate on different premises: studies oriented to mental illness and disability consider the negative effects of stigma on the stigmatized, and how stigma may be neutralized, while studies of crime generally view stigma more benignly, as a form of social control. The alcohol and drug literature overlap both topical areas, and includes examples of both orientations. Whole poverty and heavy substance use are not necessary related, poverty often increases the harm for a given level of use. Marginalization and stigma commonly add to this effect. Those in treatment for alcohol or drug problems are frequently and disproportionately marginalized. Studies of social inequality and substance use problems need to pay attention also to processes of stigmatization and marginalization and their effect on adverse outcomes.
Now Invited to Testify: Former Beneficiaries Appraise the Ssi drug Addiction and Alcoholism Program
As part of the larger SSI Study, we conducted detailed semistructured interviews with 156 respondents in four sites. They spoke at length about matters of legislative concern during the reform and subsequent abolition of the drug addiction and alcoholism (DA&A) program. Respondents were quite aware of the problems considered by Congress. Some acknowledged using SSI payments to buy alcohol and other drugs, and a few claimed to have squandered large retroactive payments. Most insisted that they spent their checks wisely, however, and discussed how they did so. With a remarkable degree of consensus, respondents favored the DA&A program's paternalistic features of representative payment and mandatory treatment, and while less in agreement about time limits, they approved in theory of benchmarks to measure progress. A substantial majority believed the DA&A program had been an unalloyed good, and only 12 judged it to have been wholly harmful.