Policy-makers have failed the disabled

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This article was published 01/12/2022 (1259 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It continues to be a worrying time to be a disabled Canadian.

Saturday is the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, as proclaimed in 1992 by the United Nations General Assembly. This year’s theme revolves around “transformative solutions for inclusive development: the role of innovation in fuelling an accessible and equitable world,” yet disability fails to be mentioned in most companies’ diversity, equity and inclusion plans.

It’s frustrating for many, but for others, this lack of attention in policy has resulted in excessively harmful outcomes.

The frustration can be felt when an organization such as Air Canada seems to value the importance of shipping horses over caring for passengers who rely on wheelchairs. Last month, the airline announced it now offers specially designed stalls designed to transport prized horses.

As Peter Tonge pointed out to CBC, these are similar to what the disability community has been asking the airline to use for transporting mobility equipment – particularly wheelchairs and scooters. Tonge says he has had his wheelchair damaged countless times during his travel.

Tonge is not alone in having problems. In September, Maayan Ziv’s $30,000 wheelchair was damaged beyond repair. The CEO and disability advocate had to wait months for a replacement. Initially, Air Canada offered a good-will gesture of $300 to compensate Ziv for her inconvenience.

The disturbing trend continued with news in October of an arrest by RCMP in St. Albert, Alta., of a 16-year-old autistic boy following a 911 call concerned that there was a male that could have “some severe handicap” or was on drugs and shouldn’t be in left in a playground alone.

When police arrived, Ryley Bauman was taken into police custody, but he was unable to tell officers his name. Bauman began to harm himself while in custody and remains traumatized by the incident. The national watchdog agency for the RCMP has launched an investigation.

This is not a one-off event. A 19-year-old non-verbal autistic man in Mississauga was tasered and handcuffed by Peel police while playing in some leaves while wearing shorts.

An 18-year-old non-verbal man with autism was shot with a stun gun in Mascouche, Que. after he ran away from his government-run group home and police were trying to get him under control.

According to both the police officials and the man’s mother, the police on duty were well aware of his disability.

The extreme consequences of a lack of attention to disabilities in policy are even more depressing. Despite our collective head-in-the-sand approach, COVID-19 remains a very real problem in Manitoba, with the latest variants creating havoc in classrooms, personal-care home and for those who have returned to work.

There has also been a surge of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and influenza is returning with a vengeance. Young children are most likely to be affected by these viruses, but so too are the chronically ill – in other words, people who are disabled.

But far too often, when someone with a pre-existing condition dies from one of these diseases, their death is viewed almost as if it was to be expected. A three-year-old dies of COVID-19 and a community is outraged; a 60-year-old with asthma? It was her time. It’s as if disabled people don’t have the right to expect a long life.

More depressing still is that Canada is now No. 1 in terms of medical assistance in dying (MAID). And it’s not because we’re a humane country — not at all; instead, it’s because we’re too cheap to value those who are disabled.

As I’ve written before regarding the assisted death of 44-year-old Sathya Dhara Kovac of Winnipeg, she made her decision because of economics more than anything else. In October, a St. Catharines man sought help to end his life because he couldn’t find affordable housing with his meagre disability payments.

Next March, MAID will be expanded even further, to be made available to people who suffer solely from mental illness. Let me be clear: I don’t blame the people who are seeking assisted death as a resolution; I blame the policy-makers and those who are complicit in systemic ablism who have allowed us to get to this point.

This Saturday, consider policy. Think about your organization’s diversity, equity and inclusion plans, and really ask why those plans aren’t talking about disability. Too expensive to implement? Too uncomfortable? Wheelchairs not “sexy” enough for the corporate branding?

Why is a horse assigned more value by a major airline than a mobility scooter? Think about how calling police on a disabled kid in a playground is OK, and then switch the adjective “disabled” to “Black” and see how that sounds.

Consider why it’s OK for a 71-year-old with COPD to die earlier than necessary because he caught the flu when those in his community couldn’t be bothered to mask up. And why cutting taxes is more important than ensuring a livable wage for those on long-term disability.

Shannon Sampert is a communications consultant and former politics and perspectives editor at the Winnipeg Free Press.

shannon@mediadiva.ca