Keep Michener open

Re: “Closure of Michener Centre was inevitable,” Bruce Uditsky, Opinion, March 28.

Many have opposed the Redford government’s decision to close the Michener Centre. The one voice in favour of closure is Bruce Uditsky of the Alberta Association of Community Living. Most don’t know that his group also wants to remove government oversight.

Last year, Uditsky challenged the government’s right to implement standards for two- and threeperson group homes. While 130 service providers are members of the Alberta Council of Disability Services, Uditsky’s organization is not. Regulation helps ensure quality and safety doesn’t take a back seat to the self-interest of private operators.

Uditsky is cheerleading government spin by calling Michener an institution. It’s not an institution. It’s the preferred home for 125 Albertans with high needs that can’t be met in the community. Uditsky doesn’t mention the cases where individuals returned to Michener after “community” placements didn’t work. He doesn’t mention Michener received eight Premier’s Awards of Excellence and was awarded the highest accreditation by the Alberta Council of Disability Services.

In the 2008 Moving Ahead report, the government promised, “No one currently living at Michener Centre will be forced to move away from Michener Centre,” after 90 per cent of residents, families and guardians chose to stay. This broken promise is an infringement of the rights of residents and families.

For Uditsky, Premier Redford and MLAs Jablonski and Dallas to say Michener isn’t a home for people with developmental disabilities is a display of policy based in ideology rather than in truth.