Still a lot of work to do on accessibility for disabled: advocates

Five years after Manitoba passed its first accessibility legislation, advocates say there is still a lot of work to do.

"We need to change the way people think and feel about disability," said Jim Derksen, adding enacting laws that protect people with disabilities is important — but it’s a small piece of a huge puzzle. "We need to change our culture."

Hundreds of people gathered Monday at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights to celebrate International Day of Persons with Disabilities, and to acknowledge legislative milestones including the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Vulnerable Persons Act and, most recently, the Accessibility for Manitobans Act (passed in 2013).

The crowd heard from disability rights advocates, and Manitoba NDP Leader Wab Kinew (Fort Rouge) and Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont (St. Boniface), about how legislative strides have impacted people in Manitoba living with disabilities.

"They're significant steps forward, but we still have a long way to go," said Lamont. "It's important to remember that rights are not luxuries. Respecting them does not make us poorer. When we respect rights, it enriches us all."

Derksen, 71 — who has been using a wheelchair since he lost use of his legs after contracting polio at six years old — said existing accessibility legislation still doesn't address all the challenges people face.

"It can't always be done by force of law," he said. "That's not where it comes from. The problems we have — the barriers, the prejudice and so on — it comes from the way we feel about disability.

"It's an attitude deeply entrenched in our culture. It's all we know."

In 1990, after the Americans with Disabilities Act — seen by many as a civil rights bill for those impacted in the U.S. — was signed into law by then-president George H.W. Bush, the Council of Canadians with Disabilities assembled a group of rights leaders in Winnipeg.

The council wanted to see if the ADA model could work north of the border, Derksen recalled — but it didn’t happen.

"That's never really been done in Canada," said Derksen, who has been working with the Council of Canadians with Disabilities since 1978. "It's been talked about a lot, but it's not plausible to do an ADA in Canada."

Bill C-81 — Canada’s first national accessibility law — was tabled in Ottawa this summer. Until now, Derksen said, provinces have taken individual approaches to protecting the rights of people living with disabilities.

While the new legislation is encouraging, Derksen said, the real challenge is to get people — especially those without disabilities — involved in changing perceptions.

"It's not so much what we think. It's what we feel," said Derksen. "You can sell somebody a theory by talking to them, training them, educating them, and so on. But it's what you feel that really governs your behaviour in the end.

"And people's feelings can be changed — but it takes a real effort."

caitlyn.gowriluk@freepress.mb.ca