A new age for people with disabilities in Canada

The recently proposed Accessible Canada Act and the Senate report on fixes for Revenue Canada concerning the Disability Tax Credit, Breaking Down Barriers are stellar achievements for advocates with disabilities and the receptive politicians and public servants who listened. If both are implemented, they will remove the physical, social and financial barriers to the participation and contribution of people with disabilities in Canadian society.

That’s “if” because both have yet to be put into action. The first has to pass through both houses of Parliament and the second requires government support. But there’s every reason to be optimistic.

“We are here because of the disability community and their advo- cacy for decades,” said Kirsty Duncan, minister for sports and persons with disabilities. No statement by a politician could be truer.

I’ve watched this relentless advocacy in action since my daughter was born with a disability nearly four decades ago. The advocacy was inspired by the mantra, “nothing about us, without us.” Too many tables were set and decisions made by people who thought they knew best for the disability community even though, in most instances, they were not part of the disability world.

People with disabilities had to fight mighty hard just to be at those tables, let alone to be heard and heeded. Let’s hope those days are over. No one likes to be included as a favour or in response to pressure. That type of inclusion is fragile, easily eroded and far too depen- dent on the grudging good will of others. Inclusion without power and leadership is tokenism.

The real hope for inclusion lies in people with disabilities setting their own tables and doing their own inviting based on their terms, their agenda and their solutions. Fortunately there is an awful lot of that already happening.

I see it in events like Calgary’s inaugural Disability Pride Parade. I see it in the explosion of artists with disabilities as playwrights, singers, painters and dancers becoming part of mainstream culture, like singer-songwriter, Christa Couture, who will guest host CBC’s radio show Tapestry this summer. I see it in the leadership of people with disabilities, like Carla Qualtrough, who was Canada’s first minister of persons with disabilities and is currently minister of public services and procurement.

Inclusion benefits everyone. In a world of turmoil and trouble, we cannot afford to waste precious resources — particularly the leadership and ingenuity of people with disabilities.

That’s why people with disabilities should be in charge of implementing both the Accessibility Act and the senate teport. Not as advisers or monitors to the process, but as leaders directing it.

People with disabilities are more than advocates. They are experts in achieving impact. And they have the ability to make Canada even greater.