Disability Alliance calls on B.C. MLA to resign, citing ‘harmful’ comments

B.C. MLA Tara Armstrong is shown in this photo. (Credit: leg.bc.ca)

An organization that advocates for people with disabilities is calling on a B.C. MLA to resign following comments she made about those receiving disability assistance.

Disability Alliance B.C. said the remarks from Tara Armstrong, the representative for Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream, were “false, misleading, and deeply harmful.”

“It is such a shame that she has continued to use her platform in such hurtful ways,” said Helaine Boyd, the DABC’s executive director.

“This type of harmful rhetoric coming from an MLA, in my view, feels like she is abusing her privilege to further marginalize vulnerable people in our society.”

Armstrong made the comments in a social media post, in which the Independent MLA said: “The NDP’s welfare law hands out disability payments to drug addicts simply because they use drugs. The government should be funding recovery instead of enabling addiction.”

In an accompanying video, posted to X on Monday, Armstrong criticized the NDP’s approach to address homelessness, crime and drug use.

She claimed a whistleblower contacted her office, alleging that drug users were accessing benefits intended for persons with disabilities.

Boyd is accusing Armstrong of spreading misinformation.

“I don’t think that she fully understands addiction as a health issue, and it often is co-occurring with other disabilities such as chronic pain, trauma, other, mental health-related disabilities, living in poverty,” she said.

“These are all factors which play into people living with addiction, and they can become disabled through that.”

She added that the eligibility for the benefit follows a rigorous and extensive application process.

“We know firsthand how incredibly difficult it is to apply and receive disability benefits as well as continued monitoring that anyone who is on disability assistance receives from the ministry to ensure that they are not using funds incorrectly, or receiving funds that they’re not claiming,” she said.

“It’s very, very difficult to defraud the system.”

The group is calling on Armstrong to publicly retract her statements, issue an apology to people with disabilities and those affected by substance use, and resign.

Armstrong’s response

In a statement to CTV News, Othman Mekhloufi, a spokesperson for Armstrong said: “This government is diverting funds from people with real disabilities and giving them to addicts.”

“Disabled people deserve to receive 100 per cent of the funds they’re entitled to,” the statement continued.

The Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction told CTV News a person does not qualify for the persons with disabilities (PWD) designation simply because they use substances.

“While the specific type of impairment, mental or physical, is known at the time a PWD application is reviewed, diagnostic information is not tracked afterward,” the statement said.

The ministry added that it determines eligibility for the PWD designation based on assessments provided by prescribed professionals, including physicians or nurse practitioners.

This isn’t the first time Armstrong has been asked to apologize and resign.

In April, she faced backlash after using Nazi rhetoric while criticizing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in the provincial legislature.

During a debate over the K’ómoks Treaty Act, Armstrong said the treaty “promotes UNDRIP’s blood and soil theory that people with Indigenous ancestry have their own inherent rights, based upon what are described as inextricable links to the land.”

Armstrong eventually agreed to withdraw the comment after Speaker Raj Chouhan declared it out of order, but repeated the language multiple times on social media.

Armstrong has previously tried to ban Indigenous land acknowledgements and scrap B.C.’s Human Rights Code. She also faced criticism after blaming the Tumbler Ridge mass shooting tragedy on “transgender ideology.”

She is currently the subject of a recall campaign organized against her in her Okanagan riding.

With files from CTV News Vancouver’s Andrew Weichel and the Canadian Press