Chairperson's Update - December 2023

In this edition of the update, we are sharing information about some of our key activities over the last few weeks.

Disability and Work Conference – CCD Chairperson Heather Walkus and CCD 1st Vice Chair Ingrid Palmer hosted the 2023 Disability and Work conference which took place in Ottawa on November 29 and 30, 2023.

Raising Awareness – CCD has been active in the media. We do this to raise public awareness of the barriers that people with disabilities are facing.  Check out the following media pieces:

Click on the following link to access the information online: https://www.iheartradio.ca/580-cfra/audio-podcasts/oaw-improved-accessibility-measures-needed-for-8-million-canadians-with-disabilities-advocate-says-1.20869237

Click on the following link to access the information online: https://www.iheartradio.ca/610cktb/news/canadians-with-at-least-one-disability-has-doubled-in-10-years-1.20858423

Click on the following link to access the information online: https://montrealgazette.com/news/national/more-than-a-quarter-of-canadians-have-at-least-one-disability-statcan

Litigation – Along with the National Pensioners Federation and the Public Interest Advocacy Centre are seeking to intervene in a case, International Air Transport Association, et al. v. Canadian Transportation Agency, et al, that will be heard in the Supreme Court of Canada, concerning Canada’s ability to establish a complementary, but distinct, consumer rights regime for air travel to supplement an incomplete international regime. Canada’s ability to legislate in this area is being challenged by various carriers and their organizations. We believe that Canada’s ability to legislate in this area is in line with a principled statutory interpretation of the international regime’s exclusivity clause, other parallel consumer rights regimes, as well as the Charter values of human dignity and substantive equality to recognize additional barriers faced by some consumers.

Research - This month we had an Advisory Committee meeting for the Developing Principles, Guidance and Good Practices for Community-Based Emancipatory Research on Accessibility Standards research project. This is an Accessible Standards Canada research project.

This research project is investigating what needs to be in place so that standards research can be conducted in a way that is consistent with community-based research principles. The research is being undertaken by the f Council of Canadians with Disabilities, IRIS – Institute for Research and Development on Inclusion and Society, Wavefront Centre for Communication Accessibility, Faculty of Law, University of Windsor, Yvonne Peters, Humans Right lawyer, Canadian Multicultural Disability Centre.  

The project’s objectives are as follows:
1) Identify principles, guidance and good practices for community-based emancipatory research that engages and is guided by diverse people with disabilities and Deaf and Hard of Hearing persons, and explicitly uses an intersectional approach, which could be adopted for standards development.
2) Identify methods for incorporating community-based emancipatory research principles and approaches, which seek to engage diverse people with disabilities and Deaf and Hard of Hearing persons in lead knowledge development re. barriers and innovations, for standards development.

Charity Insights Canada Project – CCD has been participating in the Charity Insights Canada Project (CICP) . CCD 2nd Vice Chair Tracy Odell took the lead on this work.

The Charity Insights Canada Project provides the following description of itself:

The CICP-PCPOB is a project that will ensure that policymakers, practitioners, researchers, and the general public have accurate, timely, and comprehensive information about the charitable sector in Canada. Its three main goals are:
(1) To inform the sectors’ stakeholders and researchers by surveying a representative sample of registered charities regularly to collect longitudinal data on critical aspects of the charitable sector.
(2) To build a lasting and flexible infrastructure to promote access and understanding of the data collected about the sector.
(3) To strengthen the relationship between the sector and policymakers in designing evidence-based policies on issues impacting the charitable sector.

You can read the reports by clicking on the following link: https://carleton.ca/cicp-pcpob/homepage/all-reports/