§ 04

The gradient, measured.

This is the forensic centerpiece: the two policy variables, side by side. One was widened by statute on schedule. The other — the floor that determines whether staying is livable — is a set of budget lines, and it did not move with the door.

THE EXIT · SET BY STATUTE
  2016 C-14 → 2019 Truchon → 2021 C-7 · Track 2 —— widened
  2024 · share of all deaths —— 5.1% · Track 2 732
THE FLOOR · SET BY ALLOCATION
  Canada Disability Benefit (2025) · maximum —— $200 / month
  disabled Canadians below the poverty line —— ~1.6 million
  Canadians who die WITHOUT palliative care —— ~42%
  have palliative HOME care (75% want home) —— ~15%

The federal Canada Disability Benefit tops out at $200 a month in 2025 — by the government's own figures, not enough to lift households out of poverty in any jurisdiction, against roughly 1.6 million disabled Canadians below the poverty line.6 About 42 per cent of Canadians who die receive no palliative care, and only about 15 per cent can access it at home.7 Set the friction of staying high and the friction of exiting low, and the distribution of outcomes at the bottom of that slope is not a mystery of individual psychology — it is what the slope is for. The gradient is set by policy at both ends.