Disability supports are a window into how societies organize resources and priorities. Canada, among the world’s wealthiest countries, emphasizes rights frameworks and formal protections. Vietnam, with far less GDP per capita, emphasizes collective access to healthcare and transportation. The contrast is striking: while Canadians with disabilities often live in entrenched poverty despite rights guarantees, people with disabilities in Vietnam navigate fewer cash supports but benefit from universal health coverage, deeply discounted transit, and a lower overall cost of living.
Canada: Rights Without Stability
In Ontario, the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) was once considered one of the strongest provincial programs. Yet the maximum payment now is about $1,300 per month, barely covering housing in most cities. For those who do not qualify, and qualifying can take years of medical documentation and appeals, the fallback is basic welfare at $733 per month.
With rents for a modest apartment in Toronto averaging over $2,000, these amounts are untenable. Many people with disabilities must turn to food banks, crowdfunding, mutual aid, or if they can, family just to cover essentials. The numbers translate into widespread poverty: nearly half of all homeless Canadians are disabled, an astonishing figure in a country with Canada’s wealth.
The much-vaunted federal Canada Disability Benefit was billed as a game-changer to lift disabled people out of poverty. It has been a fumble. After five years of development, it came into effect at just $200 per month, far below the level advocates sought. Just qualifying for that is a morass involving the Disability Tax Credit, a requirement that doctors or health care practitioners must complete. They are often reluctant to do this, and a line of funding allocated specifically for the forms remains impossible to secure as if this writing. Even the rollout has been faulty with many recipients not receiving their second payment. (Payments began in July). At the same time, the Prime Minister has recently indicated the next federal budget will be an austerity budget, raising further anxiety among disability rights groups about future funding and the ability for disabled people to exist on their benefits.
The Healthcare Picture in Canada
Canada is proud of its universal healthcare, but gaps are growing, and these affect disabled people first. Provincial formularies are steadily shrinking, with items like diabetes needle tips removed from public coverage and added to out-of-pocket costs. Dental, vision, mobility aids, and home supports are inconsistent across provinces and often require additional paperwork or long waits. If your income is $1300 a month, even an additional $5 expense can be out of reach. Rental increases leave people in the hole every month. Inflation has made fresh food nearly inaccessible.
The paradox is stark: Canada proclaims healthcare as universal, but for many disabled Canadians, the most essential day-to-day supports fall outside the system. Those without employer benefits, often the most severely disabled, face fixed benefits and rising costs for basics the system once covered.
Vietnam: Coverage and Access
In Vietnam, supports are structured differently. Ninety-five percent of the population is covered under national health insurance, including people with disabilities. Medical care, rehabilitation, and many medications are provided at little or no cost. This creates a baseline of access that contrasts with Canada’s patchwork gaps.
The exception is assistive devices such as wheelchairs, which are not included in coverage and must be purchased privately or supplied by charities. Still, healthcare as a whole is accessible in a way that surprises many international visitors.
Transportation is another key difference. Disabled people in Vietnam receive free or steeply discounted fares on public transit and trains, alongside reduced admission to cultural sites. While physical accessibility in infrastructure is inconsistent — uneven sidewalks, crowded buses — the principle of universal discounting recognizes disability as a category deserving of collective support.
The Cost of Living Contrast
Cash allowances in Vietnam are modest: disability pensions can be as little as $20–30 USD per month. Yet the value of money differs dramatically. $40 in Vietnam can cover two weeks of food, while the same sum in Toronto barely buys a few grocery staples.
This cost-of-living difference means that while formal cash transfers are lower, the essential supports of healthcare and transport reduce out-of-pocket pressure. In Canada, by contrast, disabled people may receive higher monthly benefits numerically, but those benefits fail to keep pace with housing and living costs, leaving recipients trapped in poverty.
Fresh healthy food in Vietnam is plentiful and by comparison incredibly cheap. A bowl of pho or chao can cost as little as 20,000 VND, just over a dollar Canadian. If your monthly income is a million VND (the equivalent of $50 Canadian), you can eat for a month without malnutrition or hunger.
Lived Experiences
In Toronto, a disabled person on ODSP may spend almost their entire monthly income just to cover rent, leaving little left for food or medication. Many are forced into online fundraising campaigns, asking strangers for help with survival expenses.
In Hanoi, a person with mobility impairments may face challenges in navigating infrastructure but can access hospitals and clinics with minimal direct costs and use buses or trains at no charge. Living expenses are lower, and family networks often provide daily assistance. The two systems reflect very different philosophies: in Canada, supports are financialized but inadequate; in Vietnam, services are broad, subsidized, and less cash-dependent.
Community support is also very different. In Canada, support to help people pay rent or buy food through established charities is nearly impossible. Mutual aid efforts once played a key role in bridging gaps, but have dwindled as inflation rises for everyone and online conversations become increasingly critical of people living in poverty. In Vietnam, if you need help, you need only ask your local bún or pho stand and most will give you a piping hot bowl of fresh broth, vegetables and protein.
Education and Employment
Canada guarantees disabled students access to mainstream education with accommodations, but delivery is uneven. Families often fight for services, from educational assistants to assistive technology. Employment programs exist but are limited, with disabled Canadians experiencing significantly lower workforce participation and higher poverty rates.
Vietnam is making slower progress in education and employment inclusion. Many disabled children still attend segregated schools or face barriers to participation. Vocational programs exist, often supported by NGOs, but social stigma and employer reluctance remain challenges. Yet here, too, the presence of healthcare and transport subsidies plays a stabilizing role, allowing some disabled people to participate more actively in daily life than their Canadian peers who face relentless financial shortfalls.
The Bigger Picture
Both systems reveal strengths and weaknesses, but the contrast undermines easy assumptions. One might expect wealthy Canada to provide more stability. Instead, disabled Canadians face systemic poverty and eroding healthcare coverage, despite being guaranteed rights on paper. Vietnam, with fewer resources, nonetheless provides near-universal healthcare and discounted mobility, ensuring that essential services are within reach, even if cash supports remain modest.
The comparison between Ontario/Canada and Vietnam underscores a central truth: disability supports are not just about rights language or GDP per capita — they are about how societies choose to allocate resources.
Canada delivers legal protections but traps millions in poverty, with benefits that fail to cover even basic housing and with healthcare gaps widening as items fall off coverage lists. Disabled Canadians live in daily precarity, often resorting to public appeals for survival.
Vietnam delivers lower cash allowances but ensures widespread healthcare access and deeply discounted transportation. The cost of living is lower, and while infrastructure challenges remain, the state approach is more focused on collective access than on individual income transfers.
Neither system is complete, but their differences reveal contrasting philosophies: Canada frames disability as a legal status but underfunds material supports, while Vietnam frames disability within collective provision of services, ensuring essentials like healthcare and transit are within reach. For disabled people, these distinctions matter not as policy abstractions but as the daily line between survival and dignity, and many disabled Canadians are increasingly questioning how they will survive.
