Those of you looking to hear more about my research will have to wait! (It's a long story, even longer than the rest of this post.)
As some of you may know, because of my mobility limitation, I focus a lot on physical access. However, I still can walk rather well, compared to the most severe disabilities, so I want to improve resources especially for the most vulnerable. By coming to Canada, I always wished to learn more about disability rights here, and bring insights back to the US. Through my time here, I want to ease disability-related barriers in both countries.
Now that it is 2020, I can work much harder with accessibility, now that I actually know people here. While here in Alberta, I have established many contacts actually, especially including the Alberta's Office of Advocacy for People with Disabilities. (My contact with the Accessibility Advisory Committee and the Edmonton Mayor Office is still pending!) While I have little to say about the office right now, I must commend them for connecting me with the leader of Voices of Albertans with Disabilities (VAD) and a federal senator from Quebec.
On the 23rd of January, I met with the leader of VAD, who has a very distinguished history of living in Alberta and supporting people with disabilities! She also holds multiple degrees, including a nursing degree, and is involved with many activities. Most excitingly is her connection to disability outreach from lower grades through middle school and university. Though on my application I list disability outreach *with medical professionals* as my main goal, I would most like to continue my work on disability outreach with students specifically. Her keen understanding of disability outreach and rights in Alberta extended far to also encompass the Alberta Medical Association, which is looking at public health, and accessibility audits. From meeting her, I finally saw how many opportunities remained to be probed, if I would take the opportunity.
Unfortunately, my efforts to reach out to the University of Alberta on accessibility are still ongoing; at the same time, I still wish to speak with the Edmonton Mayor Office's disability person and the Accessibility Advisory Committee. However, given my progress, I feel comfortable allowing these contacts to remain in the back for now.
The leader of VAD surely is a difficult person to surpass in terms of distinction. However, the Quebec Senator managed to usurp this position. Not only was she a student at my university, from a small town, but she also is a paraplegic who did paralympics for 20 years. This is all before she became a senator 4 years ago, which is truly incredible from every angle. I did not expect a senator to come from such a background, simply because of how different the US is in this regard. There, senators are typically from some kind of lawyer background, which can be rather frustrating. So meeting someone from a different set of experiences was truly refreshing!
She gave me an incredibly fair perspective on Canadian disability rights, alongside a perceived comparison to American disability rights. In particular, Canada is always striving to be there for citizens, even though it fails sometimes. One major challenge: Canada lacks a proper federal basis for disability rights, often giving most control to the provinces. (For instance, the Alberta Office of Advocacy for People with Disabilities is rather unique among the provincial governments.) The recently released Canada Accessibility Act promises to shift responsibility for access onto governments. However, there remains a great need for standards that are consistent across Canada. Right now, the federal government is developing new standards to provide toolboxes for each province and municipality.
Talking to the senator opened my eyes to the scope of work that remains to be done. To me, this is good, but it also means Canada is not nearly as accessible as it could be right now! For my case, I much better understand how accessibility is divided across different levels. Municipality, province, and region all have divergent approaches to ensuring access to people with disabilities. Beyond physical access, there are also aspects of living such as housing and employment -- and these are also handled very differently depending on the level! Many private organizations appear to focus as the local level, without touching the federal level. As a result, there's many groups, public and private, that stand to be connected. The senator emphasized that these groups each have specific needs to be satisfied in the process of bringing them together. Another quietly brilliant idea was reaching out to paralympic groups, of which there are apparently several in Canada.
In a way, these two meetings were overwhelming -- it is definitely impossible for me to finish accessibility work here, but that means there are infinite approaches I can attempt. Through them, however, I can establish so many contacts simultaneously, and kickstart many efforts. In fact, discussing my findings with the lab post-doc led me straight to a faculty member in kinesiology who focuses on adaptive physical equipment and disability rights. Come June, how many more insights into Canadian disability rights will I have?
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