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Empower U: Learn to Access Your Disability Rights Training on Canadian Human Rights, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and its Optional Protocol (OP) training aims to increase awareness of how to address discrimination using more familiar Canadian human rights laws such as Human Rights Codes and the newer international Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). This is training for persons with disabilities by persons with disabilities. The training is part of a project funded by Employment and Social Development Canada and implemented by the Council of Canadians with Disabilities (CCD) in collaboration with Canadian Multicultural Disability Centre Inc. (CMDCI), Citizens With Disabilities – Ontario (CWDO), Manitoba League of Persons with Disabilities (MLPD) and National Educational Association of Disabled Students (NEADS). Read more.
The Council of Canadians with Disabilities Supports Quebecer, Jonathan Marchand, as he brings his cage in front of the National Assembly in Quebec to obtain his and his friends' release from long-term care facilities
MEDIA RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE | AUGUST 12, 2020
WINNIPEG – The Council of Canadians with Disabilities (CCD), a national disability rights organization, is expressing its support for 43-year-old Jonathan Marchand as he begins a protest to obtain his and his friends’ release from long-term care facilities in Quebec.
Marchand, who uses a ventilator, has escaped from his long-term care facility (CHSLD) and is camping out in the public space in front of Quebec’s National Assembly. He is requesting an in-person meeting with Premier François Legault in order to discuss his proposal for providing community-based personal care supports for people with disabilities so that they can live dignified and fulfilling lives in the community instead of being warehoused in long-term care facilities.
Today, and in the days to come, other people with disabilities and their loved ones will join Marchand in occupying the public space in front of Quebec’s National Assembly. Others will join online.
“The fact that Jonathan is taking this action in the middle of a pandemic speaks to both the urgency of this situation, and the desperation of people with disabilities who are forced to live in long-term care facilities,” says Dr. Heidi Janz, Chair of CCD’s Ending-of-Life Ethics Committee. Marchand is also a member of this Committee. “Canada has become a country where it’s infinitely easier for people with disabilities to receive assistance to die than it is to receive assistance to live. This is an egregious violation of fundamental human rights,” Janz explains.
Marchand agrees, “Everyone has to be able to choose where, how and with whom they live, living in the community is a human right!"
A solution is still on the table, coming from people aware of the stakes, the pilot project of Coop ASSIST aims to implement Self-directed Personal Assistance in Quebec. In addition, Marchand invites the population of Quebec to visit the reform.quebec website to support a complete reform of the support system for people with disabilities, the elderly and family caregivers. His crowdfunding campaign is also available at savejonathan.com for people outside Quebec. "I'm not just doing this for myself, my goal is to open the cage door by creating a precedent. Everyone is worth it and we must leave no one behind,” he insists.
The Council of Canadians with Disabilities joins Jonathan Marchand and Quebecers with disabilities in calling on Premier François Legault to meet with Marchand and work to enable Quebecers with disabilities to live dignified and fulfilling lives in the community instead of being warehoused in long-term care facilities.
For more information, contact:
Jonathan Marchand
Tel: 581-999-4862
Email: jonathan@jmconsultant.ca
Website (Quebec): http://reform.quebec/
Crowdfunding (Canada): http://savejonathan.com
Dr. Heidi Janz
Chair, Council of Canadians with Disabilities, Ending-of-Life Ethics Committee
Email: hjanz@ualberta.ca
Tracy Latimer
The Latimer Case
The Latimer case directly concerned the rights of persons with disabilities. Mr. Latimer's view was that a parent has the right to kill a child with a disability if that parent decides the child's quality of life no longer warrants its continuation. CCD explained to the court and to the public how that view threatens the lives of people with disabilities and is deeply offensive to fundamental constitutional values. Learn more.