Making Canada Accessible

For our “Making Canada Accessible” series, Daryl Rock and Calum Carmichael invited a range of charitable and nonprofit organizations to outline their innovative work in reducing barriers and increasing accessibility. The organizations’ stories are below. The introduction to the series and bios of Calum and Daryl are at the end.

Introduction to the "Making Canada Accessible" series

 

An ambitious objective

In Canada, the importance of the charitable and nonprofit sector in promoting accessibility has been longstanding. That importance was evident in 2017, when the sector’s input contributed to framing the Accessible Canada Act (ACA) of 2019. (For details, see bottom section, “The Accessible Canada Act,” below.) But now more than ever, with the legislation in effect and its regulations and compliance mechanisms in place, the nonprofit sector remains key if the Act’s objective of a “Canada without barriers” by 2040 is to be realized.

Why is the charitable sector key?

The reach and requirements of the ACA are limited. They extend only to federal government organizations and federally-regulated private organizations with 10 or more employees. They don’t cover, for example, provincial and municipal government organizations, police forces, schools, universities and colleges, hospitals and medical clinics, long-term care facilities, or the many corporations and industries that are not federally regulated. What’s more, they don’t cover the charitable and nonprofit sector, requiring it to be proactive not only in identifying, removing and preventing whatever barriers exist within itself, but also in both advocating why all organizations should do this – whether they’re covered by the Act or not – and advising them on how they could do this.

Moreover, regardless of whether the context is within or beyond the remit of the ACA, the tasks of identifying, removing and preventing barriers are complex. The Act’s objective is ambitious (see section below), but also uncertain: what constitutes the “full and equal participation in society” of persons with a disability is complex and contestable. Equally complex are the types and ways that such participation could be hindered by a wide range of barriers interacting with a diverse range of disabilities.

For these reasons, eliminating barriers and their effects is not a uniform or check-box exercise. Rather, it’s an ongoing and evolving process spanning different populations dealing with diverse impairments across numerous contexts: a process that requires knowledge of and affiliations with the communities affected; and one that requires perseverance, reassessment and course correction informed by the experience and needs of those communities – whether in accessing education, employment, housing or social services, in communicating and receiving information, in exercising their agency, or in simply being treated with dignity. More than government or for-profit corporations, the organizations within the charitable and nonprofit sector that either represent or are led by people with a disability have that specialized understanding and those on-the-ground community affiliations. Hence, to facilitate the reassessment and course correction needed to move toward a barrier-free Canada, the sector’s capacity to advocate and advise is central.

Relatedly, the barriers faced by persons with a disability include ones that are deeply personal and possibly intangible despite their being very real. As the ACA notes, barriers can be “attitudinal.” They can involve assumptions, behaviours and misconceptions that stigmatize persons with a disability, resulting in their being or feeling isolated or demeaned. In challenging and counteracting such attitudes or practices – whether through advocacy and advice, through service delivery, building community, providing companionship or offering the mentorship of persons with credible life-experience – organizations within the charitable and nonprofit sector are important, performing roles that can’t readily be filled by government, for-profit corporations or even by families.

Important, yes, but the sector’s role isn’t easy. What barriers does the sector face?

Realizing a Canada without barriers by 2040 is ambitious. But – for those who respect the right to the equal protection and benefit of the law without discrimination, as laid out in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms; and for those who recognize that all individuals without discrimination should have an opportunity equal with other individuals to make for themselves the lives they are able and wish to have, as laid out in the Canadian Human Rights Act – that objective is not simply ambitious, but unquestionably worthy.

Now, six years after the ACA came into effect, how has the work of those organizations changed? Has it become easier or more challenging? What are the major barriers the organizations themselves face in striving to reduce or counter the barriers faced by persons with a disability? How have they managed those? And what opportunities or avenues have opened up, better enabling the organizations to reach and support those living with an impairment whether “physical, mental, intellectual, cognitive, learning, communication or sensory.” How have they taken advantage of those? Can they offer advice to other organizations dealing with similar barriers or opportunities? And can they offer advice to those of us without a disability on how we could start to identify, remove and prevent barriers whether in our workplaces, neighbourhoods, social circles or families?

To answer these questions and better understand both the importance and complexities of combatting the barriers faced by people with a disability, Daryl and Calum invited a range of charitable and nonprofit organizations – national, local, whether life-experience led or not – to outline their innovative work.

The Accessible Canada Act Building on Section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Canadian Human Rights Act, and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, of which Canada is a signatory, the federal government initiated consultations in 2017 that would lead to the Accessible Canada Act (ACA) of 2019. The Act’s objective is ambitious: “to benefit all persons, especially persons with disabilities, through the realization, within the purview of matters coming within the legislative authority of Parliament, of a Canada without barriers, on or before January 1, 2040.” It defines “disability” broadly as any impairment that “in interaction with a barrier, hinders a person’s full and equal participation in society,” where such barriers could be “physical, architectural, technological or attitudinal, [or] anything that is based on information or communications or anything that is the result of a policy or a practice.” The ACA stipulates that “persons with disabilities must be involved in the development and design of laws, policies, programs, services and structures.” And, indeed, this was the case through the consultations. In 2018, under the leadership of Spinal Cord Injury Canada, 56 charitable organizations came together to form the Federal Accessibility Legislation Alliance. Across 10 months, the Alliance collected and conveyed the priorities of the more than six million Canadians who could report lived experience with a disability, adding their insight alongside the views of provincial governments and for-profit corporations in the hope that the legislation being developed would be more relevant and effective.

Calum Carmichael is a retired Professor in the MPNL program. His research touches on political finance, the tax treatment of philanthropy, and the regulation of political activities by charitable organizations. He’s introduced and curated many series for PANL Perspectives, including Shifting Power and What Can the Philanthropic Sector Take from the Downfall of Samuel Bankman-Fried and His Ties to Effective Altruism?

Daryl Rock is a philanthropist, social entrepreneur, business owner and former federal public servant. After sustaining a spinal cord injury, he got an MA in Public Administration from Carleton University and joined the federal public service, where, for two decades, he designed and led labour-market and research-funding programs, including with the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). Over the past 30 years, he’s volunteered, been a member of boards of directors, and helped lead many charities and nonprofit groups, including Freedom at Death Canada, the Healthy Aboriginal Network and the Ontario Neurotrauma Foundation.

Banner photo is courtesy of Jorge Sánchez and Wiki Commons. Photo of service dog and owner is courtesy of Derek Stryland and the TTC. Photo of Calum is courtesy of Didier Gault.

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