INCLUSIECON's Gillian Petit joined CBC's Alberta at Noon for a 52-minute open-line program on the AISH-to-ADAP transition, inviting Albertans to share how the shift to the Alberta Disability Assistance Program (ADAP) is affecting them or someone in their life. When the segment aired on July 2, 2026, about 46,000 Albertans had already been moved from AISH onto ADAP. The province says the change will empower more people with disabilities to work; many people living with disabilities disagree. Petit provided the policy and economic context for what the reform means for the tens of thousands now on the new program.
The program was an open-line call-in that invited Albertans to describe how the transition is affecting them or someone in their life. By the time it aired, roughly 46,000 people had been moved from AISH onto ADAP. The province presents the change as a way to empower more people with disabilities to work; many recipients and advocates disagree, and the segment gave that tension a public airing alongside Petit's account of what the reform actually does.
ADAP now operates alongside AISH and sorts recipients by assessed work capacity: AISH continues for people whose severe disability permanently prevents employment, while ADAP serves those whose disability substantially impedes it. Most current AISH clients are being moved to ADAP unless they meet specific exemption criteria, and those who believe they should remain on AISH must go through a medical reassessment.
Petit's analysis focused on the financial mechanics. AISH clients transitioned to ADAP receive a $200 monthly transition benefit that holds their income steady until December 31, 2027, after which the maximum monthly benefit falls by $200 relative to current AISH. The earnings rules also change: based on Petit's modelling of the benefit and clawback structure, a single ADAP client would need to earn on the order of $2,100 per month in employment income, roughly 39 hours a week at minimum wage after taxes and deductions, simply to be no worse off than under current AISH. She has also noted that only about 16 percent of AISH recipients report any employment income, a share that has held steady for years, which raises the question of how realistic the program's work-first premise is for much of the caseload.
Underlying the discussion is a point Petit has made consistently: even at the maximum benefit and with no employment income, neither AISH nor ADAP lifts a single adult above Canada's poverty line, and the gap widens once the transition benefit ends. The reform places more of the burden on recipients to close that gap through employment, in a labour market that already presents significant barriers for persons with disabilities.
Gillian is one of the most cited independent analysts of Alberta's disability income supports. She has modelled the AISH and ADAP benefit levels, earnings exemptions, and clawback rates in detail, and she is the report author on INCLUSIECON's longitudinal ADAP panel study, led by principal investigator Lindsay M. Tedds, which tracks the economic well-being of working-age Albertans on income assistance as the reform rolls out.
Reforms of this scale are usually debated in the abstract, in benefit rates and eligibility rules. Segments like this one attach those numbers to a real household and a real week of decisions, which is exactly the ground INCLUSIECON's ADAP work is built to document. The initiative's pre-ADAP baseline captured where this population stood before the reform took effect, and the longitudinal panel will follow the same people as ADAP takes hold, building the evidence needed to assess what the change actually does to income, material hardship, and everyday security.
Bringing that analysis into a province-wide open-line program keeps the reform's real-world stakes in front of the public and policymakers at the moment the transition is happening, and grounds the conversation in evidence rather than assertion.