Tag: health

International Day of People with Disabilities – Fighting for Rights in the Post-Covid Era

disabilitypride December 3, 2021 Comments Off

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In the “After Covid” world everyone has now experienced some type of isolation or barrier to participating in activities. These barriers have always been a daily reality for disabled people but each of us now have a personal understanding of what that means and what it feels like to be unable to do the things that we considered “normal.” We need to take this new understanding and use it to inspire each other to build a world where isolation does not exist and inclusion is second nature.

The fact that the Covid-19 pandemic has had a disproportionate effect on disabled people has been well-documented and frequently discussed. There are numerous statistics about how having a disability resulted in a significantly higher risk of death from a Covid-19 infection and a wide variety of reasons about why that is the case.

An important part of the discussion that I haven’t seen addressed very often outside of disability-centered community conversations is the small ways that disabled people have had to fight for their right to inclusion to be recognized and respected. Changes to make something accessible to everyone are frequently so small they are completely over-looked.

There are so many spaces that are not physically accessible to people with mobility issues, hearing impairment and vision problems. Disabled folks who don’t have mobility issues still encounter non-physical barriers. When most people hear about “accessibility” they almost always assume it’s about the physical world, specifically about doors that open automatically, ramps for mobility issues and bigger toilet stalls.

With the pandemic increasing the need for everyone to be able to access work and community while maintaining physical distance, online spaces have become an integral part of our daily activities. This has allowed for people, including disabled people, to remotely participate in things they may not have otherwise had access to with gathering restrictions and lockdowns in effect.

It has also presented challenges to disabled people who find parts of online life often inaccessible. Accessibility continues to be elusive in a world that is not designed with everyone in mind.

During the pandemic, it has become increasingly clear that the fight for disability rights is more than just ensuring spaces are physically accessible. We have all become intimately familiar with how isolating and damaging it can be to be unable to participate in things we think of as part of daily life. We need to consider that this is how people with disabilities feel on an almost daily basis. Both the physical world and the virtual world have been created in a way the takes a “one-size-fits-all” approach to accessibility but with the vast diversity of bodies “one-size-fits-all” is simply just not true.

When we look at how inaccessible the world can be, it gets overwhelming but if we consider the small changes we can make online and off, the world will become more accessible. It’s important to include a wide variety of people in our accessibility plans for both physical and non-physical spaces. Disabled people continue to fight for the very basic right of being included in society. Accommodation and accessibility are a key factor in inclusion.

How can we start making small changes to make the world, both physical and virtual, more accessible and inclusive? The easiest place to start is to simply observe. Being aware of the world around us, speaking to the people around us, noticing how we and other people interact with the life are an invaluable starting place. This can be difficult online, as the only thing we can “observe” is an inanimate screen most of the time but the online communities we already interact with still function similarly to the offline world. There is almost always a person behind that screen on the other end and if we remember that we will be able to start thinking about how they interact with their online environment. That will lead us to thinking and talking about to make those interactions accessible for and inclusive to everyone.

My thoughts on the Canada Disability Benefit

disabilitypride July 9, 2021 Comments Off

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It’s about damn time.

Over 40% of Canadians who live in poverty are disabled. Let that sink in. Disabled Canadians are the largest minority group in Canada, representing 22% of the Canadian population yet they make up almost half of the number of Canadians living in poverty.

On June 22^nd, 2021, the Government of Canada tabled a bill, Bill C-35, aimed at reducing poverty and supporting the financial security of disabled people by providing the Canada Disability Benefit. Though the legislation is only in it’s second reading and no dollar amount has been set, we have hope that the government will move quickly on this and ensure that disabled Canadians start receiving this benefit as soon as possible.

Built into the legislation is the commitment to engage the disabled community to determine how to create the Benefit. It is also to be modeled on the Guaranteed Income Supplement for seniors, which is distributed alongside Old Age Security. This would mean that accessing current federal and provincial supports for disabled people, such as the Canadian Pension Plan disability benefit, will not impact eligibility and distribution.

I would prefer to see Universal Basic Income but the Canada Disability Benefit is a massive step in the right direction towards income equality in Canada.

For more information, visit Disability Without Poverty.

We Think You’re Awesome, We Want You To Feel Awesome Too!

disabilitypride July 1, 2021 Comments Off

We are extremely excited to announce that Gerianne’s online course, Empowering Your Self-Confidence is ready and available!

For $39.99 you get access to Gerianne’s uplifting and useful tips and tricks for building your self-confidence.

With this course, Gerianne helps you discover your inner strength by sharing her personal struggles with her self-confidence and how she overcame them. Activities and quizzes help you learn how to practice the skills you are building and Gerianne teaches you how to include these activities in every-day life to continue your path to increased self-confidence long after you have completed the course.

Remembering the Disabled Victims of Filicide

disabilitypride March 1, 2021 Comments Off

graphic of 3 abstract lit candles with the text reading disability day of mourning, remembering people with disabilities murdered by their families

Courtesy of https://disability-memorial.org/

Every year on March 1^st we acknowledge the Disability Community Day of Mourning. This year, more than any other, will mark a very different look to the way we mourn as a community. In the face of a pandemic that has had a disproportionate effect on disabled people and their communities, it is more important for us to honor the lives of disabled people murdered by those closest to them. Disabled people in our communities are generally ignored and it has become even more difficult to raise awareness of the problem of filicide of disabled people with the constant onslaught of tragedy caused by Covid-19.

Disabled people are receiving significantly less support than non-disabled people when it comes to healthcare specifically related to Covid-19. With ICUs being forced to prioritize life-saving measures based on criteria that is beyond the understanding of laypeople, including taking into account perceived “quality of life” as a determining factor in some cases. Disabled people are far too often seen as having less “quality of life” than non-disabled people which leads doctors to place them further down the priority list when it comes to finite resources in life-saving measures. This specific criterion frequently demonstrates that even (or especially???) doctors do not have a fundamental understanding of what it actually is to be disabled.

In Canada we are also facing the enshrinement in law of the assumption that disabled people have less “quality of life” in the amendments being proposed to Canada’s Criminal Code and Medical Aid in Dying laws through Bill C-7 which is currently being debated in Parliament. Bill C-7 includes expanding MAiD to people who experience “grievous and irremediable medical condition” but do not have an immediately foreseeable risk of death due to their condition. The United Nations has come down on this proposed amendment, citing that as a signatory nation on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Canada would be in violation of that convention if the amendment to our Criminal Code is passed.

When it comes to the murder of disabled people by family and support people, we see the “quality of life” argument brought up in almost every single case. How often have we heard someone who murdered a disabled person defend themselves (usually to very sympathetic audience) by proclaiming that the victim was suffering? That their life was miserable, sad, pain-filled, and restrictive. That the murderer would want someone to do the same (kill them?) for them if they had been disabled.

The idea that some lives, especially disabled lives, are “less than” other lives is a terrifying and dangerous one. Subjective criteria like “quality of life” and “grievous and irremediable” open the door for increased discrimination, decreased social support, and as demonstrated by the ongoing pandemic, decreased access to resources that will sustain or improve a life for people who don’t conform to the “standard model” of what personhood is perceived to be.

The ongoing pandemic and Canada’s Bill C-7 are just large-scale demonstrations of what can happen when peoples’ lives are assigned “value” by some arbitrary set of criteria. We see smaller demonstrations of the same every time a disabled person is murdered by someone they are supposed to trust. It will be difficult to mourn the disabled lives lost to MAiD and the pandemic because there will be so many and it will be in a hospital or under a doctor’s care. We will continue to mourn disabled people who die violent deaths at the hands of trusted individuals and hope that the parallels are drawn between the three types of event.

Today, we remember and mourn:

Terri-Lynn Thompson – murdered by her husband October 14, 2019 in Belleville Ontario

Florence Girard – neglected by her paid attendant until she starved to death on October 13, 2018 in Vancouver British Columbia

Douglas Fischer – murdered by his daughter’s ex partner, part of a multiple murder, March 29, 2018 in Bluevale, Ontario

Levi Illingayuk – killed by his son in a fight, February 3, 2018 in Clyde River, Nunavut

Ninon Hardie – murdered by her son, December 6, 2017 in Toronto, Ontario

Richard Dubuc – killed by his brother, October 5, 2017 in Montreal, Quebec

Ryanna Grywacheski – murdered by her boyfriend, September 16, 2017 in Marystown, Newfoundland

Kaylie Lis-Lalande – neglected by her mother until she died from complications from starvation and dehydration, September 4, 2017 in Oakville, Ontario

Jocelyne Lizotte – killed by her husband February 20, 2017 in Montreal, Quebec

Lydia Whitford – died from unknown causes suspected to be the result of homicide or neglect at the hands of her foster mother, July 14, 2016 in Stonewall, Manitoba

Ronald McCabe – murdered by his son, March 7, 2016 in Kitchener, Ontario

Irene Carter – murdered by her daughter, January 13, 2016 in Lethbridge, Alberta

Jessica Hagan – murdered by her mother, September 8, 2015 in Cranston, Alberta

Anne Schmidt – murdered by her son, July 5, 2015 in Vineland, Ontario

Emily Janzen – murdered (along with her mother and aunt) by her father, May 7, 2015 in Rosedale, British Columbia

2020 Reflections

disabilitypride January 8, 2021 Comments Off

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So, that was a year we’ll never forget, wasn’t it?

2020 was an unexpected rollercoaster and while I am not sorry to see the end of it and I’m eager to move forward and greet 2021 with hope for less chaos, I want to recognize some truly amazing things that 2020 brought us at DisabilityPride.net.

Firstly, Gerianne and I started 2020 off with a new adventure, participating in TeamWork Cooperative’s Self Employment Workshop where I learned just how much Gerianne hates market research and Gerianne and I both learned that there are many ways to go about building a successful business and we have to determine our own definition of successful. We enjoyed getting to know many other entrepreneurs and made a few friends while we were attending the workshops. Unsurprisingly, the workshop was cancelled in mid-March when everything was thrown into lockdown. While Gerianne did not “graduate” from the program we did gain valuable experience there and are incredibly grateful to TeamWork for giving us the opportunity to participate.

As we entered lockdown and people were required to isolate for a variety of reasons, our staffing pool became fairly shallow. Gerianne and I were together almost all day, almost every day for a fair chunk of March and April due to various isolation and quarantine requirements. This would have probably driven most working relationships into the ground but we managed to flourish as a team. The main part of the reason for this was our ability to get along and communicate very well. We both had bad days, we both had good days. They didn’t always coincide but we were able to work together through them and produce some amazing content and a wide variety of projects.

Gerianne was determined to not sit idle while the world was essentially shut down. She completed and excelled at several courses on online marketing and search engine optimization. We both participated in and completed ARCH Disability Law’s Community Champions stream on the United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Optional Protocols and how those can be used by disability rights activists in Canada. It was an eye-opening experience that gave us insight into the various avenues for and challenges with defending inclusion and disabled people’s human rights within Canada and around the world.

DisabilityPride.net just finished our first newsletter (check it out if you haven’t seen it!) and we have started to explore video production. We have big ideas and big plans, many of which started forming during this complicated adventure in various stages of lockdown.

Gerianne also began the adventure of diversifying her income opportunities and has been incredibly successful selling vintage and second-hand furniture and décor. We have also collected a number of stories from Gerianne’s customers that we hope to turn into either posts on the blog or a collection of vignettes for the newsletter’s next edition.

Though this year was professionally a success, I would be remiss to not acknowledge the difficulties in the non-professional sphere. I spent a significant length of time away from my children as they were visiting family out-of-province when lockdown began. Gerianne and I spent almost every night I was here with my kids reading us bedtime stories. I am forever grateful to my family, who kept my kids safe, happy and healthy during a time their father and I couldn’t be there with them physically.

Gerianne has been diligent about maintaining the health and safety of herself and her attendants, which means adhering to all guidelines from the Department of Health. As a result, she has been home more often in the last 9 months than she probably has in the last 4 years. She has missed participating in her community, including church, immensely. She has also deeply missed seeing her family and friends.

We have had an unprecedented year. 2020 will be a forever bittersweet time but I am proud to have accomplished so much during a global crisis. If there had to be anyone by my side during such an event, I’m infinitely grateful I had Gerianne (and my family) with me for this adventure.