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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 Latimer Case: The Reflections of People with Disabilities - Biography of Tracy Latimer, 1980-1993
A Life Cut Short
by Elizabeth Semkiw
Tracy Latimer was born on 23 November 1980. She had Cerebral Palsy and was the eldest of four children. Tracy lived on a farm with her family near Wilkie, Saskatchewan.
Tracy attended a developmental program at the same school as her brothers and sister. She traveled with the rest of the students on the school bus, and had a specialized wheelchair to get around. Some of the things that she enjoyed at school were aquatics, music and pet therapy. She loved special days and events at the school. Tracy spent a lot of time outdoors with her peers.
Tracy loved her family and enjoyed being talked to, hugged and being rocked. She enjoyed many activities including walks, music, sleigh rides and wiener roasts.
Tracy enjoyed watching television, especially hockey games, and she loved watching the bonfires her family had. Despite her many medical problems, Tracy was a happy girl who showed her likes and dislikes and smiled and laughed with others.
Tracy died 23 October 1993 when she was murdered by her father, Robert Latimer.
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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.