Contents
Access 3CityTalk | Live — "Beyond Obligation: How Can Cities Embrace Accessible Infrastructure?" 
U.S. Access Board Webinar: Doors and Gates (May 2) 
Real Property Roundtable 
Budget 2024 
Joint Statement 
Human Rights 
Driving change: CHRC’s 2023 Report to Parliament 
Housing 
Disabled People Are More Than 2X As Represented Among Recently Evicted Renters As In General Population 
Medical Aid in Dying 
Medical Aid in Dying Webinar 
Newsletters 
Cooperation Canada Newsletter 
Disability Without Poverty Newsletter 
EASPD Newsletter 
Euthanasia Prevention Coalition 
Fighting Blindness Canada 
Global Leadership Exchange 
National Empowerment Centre 
SFU Public Square 
Passages 
Remembering What Roy McMurtry Achieved for People with Disabilities 

Access

CityTalk | Live — "Beyond Obligation: How Can Cities Embrace Accessible Infrastructure?"

Canadians struggle every day to access the places where we live, work, learn and play because of physical barriers to accessibility. Almost 50% of adults have experienced a permanent or temporary physical disability or live with someone who has. Disability can affect anyone at any time regardless of their background, status, or circumstance. Accessibility is a universal issue, and making our public spaces universally accessible unleashes our collective economic and social power. Canadians must recognize that accessibility is not just a legal obligation, but also an ethical and social responsibility. Now more than ever, we need to incorporate tools that will encourage decision-makers to adopt an accessibility lens to all new infrastructure and continually apply innovation to enhance accessibility beyond code compliance.

Click on the following link to register: Webinar Registration - Zoom

U.S. Access Board Webinar: Doors and Gates (May 2)

Click on the following link to access the information online: Doors and Gates (accessibilityonline.org)

Real Property Roundtable

On behalf of PSPC Real Property, IPS* is supporting a project to develop an engagement framework for accessibility and inclusivity needs that PSPC will use for all Real Property projects. This is being done as part of PSPC’s goal to help create a barrier-free public service by 2040.

The initial step in this phase of the project is to develop an engagement plan that will be used to guide formal dialogues and activities in the next phase. Our final activity is to present our proposed engagement plan at a virtual Roundtable that we would like to invite you to participate in on April 24.

REGISTER BY CLICKING HERE: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/roundtable-discussion-accessibility-inclusivity-in-the-built-environment-tickets-876856339917?aff=oddtdtcreator

Your participation is essential. It will allow us to validate our understanding of the current landscape of inclusive and accessible conversations and spaces and ensure we have included both the voices, topics, activities that will make the next step of formal dialogues and activities accessible, impactful and inclusive.

We hope you can join us and help us hone and finalize our engagement plan. If you are unable to attend, please feel free to extend this invitation to a colleague you believe might wish to attend this dialogue in your place. 

Date: April 24, 2024

Time: 11am- 1pm EST

Zoom: link available through registration 

We are tracking registrations via Eventbrite. There is no cost to register, and if you experience any issues registering for the meeting, we would be delighted to help you. We can be reached at  engage@publivate.com

We look forward to speaking with you, and we appreciate your help in making this dialogue a success. 

Thank you, 

The IPS team

Budget 2024

Joint Statement

Click on the following link to access the information online: Joint Statement from National Disability Network’s Response to Budget 2024 (constantcontact.com)

Human Rights

Driving change: CHRC’s 2023 Report to Parliament

Click on the following link to access the Canadian Human Rights Commission’s Report: mailcoach.chrc-ccdp.ca/webview/campaign/265442fe-1023-4c29-9569-c20ad2b13d59

Housing

Disabled People Are More Than 2X As Represented Among Recently Evicted Renters As In General Population

Click on the following link to access the information online: NEW: Disabled People Are More Than 2X As Represented Among Recently Evicted Renters As In General Population (substack.com)

Newsletters

Cooperation Canada Newsletter

Click on the following link to access the newsletter online: Member Insights | Aperçu des membres (mailchi.mp)

Disability Without Poverty Newsletter

Click on the following link to access the information online: BREAKING NEWS: Budget 2024 disappoints (hs-sites.com)

EASPD Newsletter

Click on the following link to access the information online: EASPD Press Release (mailchi.mp)

Click on the following link to access the information online: EASPD Newsletter

Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Click on the following link to access the information online: California assisted suicide expansion bill is dead. (mailchi.mp)

Fighting Blindness Canada

Click on the following link to access the information online: Join us for a livestream of Point Vancouver! (mailchi.mp)

Click on the following link to access the information online: Sharing the latest vision research news, event updates, resources, and more. (mailchi.mp)

Global Leadership Exchange

Click on the following link to access the information: Match Opportunities (mailchi.mp)

National Empowerment Centre

Click on the following link to access the newsletter online: Free Emotional CPR (eCPR) Trainings Open to the Public (ymlp.com)

SFU Public Square

Click on the following link to access the information online: Spring at SFU Public Square (campaigner.com)

Passages

Remembering What Roy McMurtry Achieved for People with Disabilities

Many Great Accomplishments for People with Disabilities Never Reach the Headlines

Last month, Canada lost a giant of Canadian politics and law. Roy McMurtry had been Ontario’s Attorney General for a decade and later Chief Justice of Ontario’s Superior Court. He then went on to serve as Chief Justice of Ontario’s Court of Appeal.

Political leaders, community leaders and political columnists have all marked his death with speeches and articles recounting his many achievements over his long and impressive career. However, it is also important to honour his memory by highlighting his accomplishments for people with disabilities. These did not lead to headlines during his lifetime but have made a major difference in our lives.

AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky recounted Roy McMurtry’s biggest accomplishments for people with disabilities in a guest column that ran last week in the Toronto Star’s Metroland papers. These run online in communities around Ontario. He described those accomplishments from a broad disability perspective and from a very personal perspective. We set out that guest column below, as it appeared in the April 5, 2024 Muskoka Region publication.

Today, April 9, 2024, this guest column was quoted in the Ontario Legislature during tributes in memory of Roy McMurtry. NDP MPP Lise Vaugeois’s tribute in the Legislature concluded with these words about Roy McMurtry:
He was a model politician and jurist who put fairness and inclusiveness at the forefront of his work. In the words of lawyer and disability activist David Lepofsky: “May we each be a Roy McMurtry to someone else.” May we each be responsible for opening more doors to make our province more humane and inclusive.

Muskoka Region April 5, 2024
Originally posted at https://www.muskokaregion.com/opinion/contributors/may-we-each-be-a-roy-mcmurtry-to-someone-else-remembering-ontarios-former-attorney-general/article_28965622-9d9b-5dcd-8116-0f782dc3bc16.html

OPINION

May we each be a Roy McMurtry to someone else: Remembering Ontario’s former attorney general and chief justice who helped open up the legal system to people with disabilities
Roy McMurtry - 1932-2024

By David Lepofsky

David Lepofsky is a retired lawyer who chairs the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance.
Ontario is honouring the late Roy McMurtry’s important high-profile achievements for Canada. I’d like to honour his many less-visible enduring accomplishments, such as those serving unmet needs of people with disabilities.
His pivotal road in the 1982 patriation of Canada’s Constitution, with its new Charter of Rights, was vital for people with disabilities. People with disabilities tenaciously fought to get Parliament to amend the proposed Charter by adding equality for people with “disabilities. That amendment became the only new right Parliament added.
In 1982, we also relentlessly campaigned to get Ontario’s Tories to amend the Ontario Human Rights Code to ban disability discrimination in jobs, goods and services. A Tory caucus backlash threatened to kill the bill. McMurtry was a key player in quelling that backlash.

I was active in the campaign to win disability rights in the Charter and Ontario’s Human Rights Code but never lobbied McMurtry about these, or even knew him. Decades later, I got to thank him.
In 1982, as attorney general, he appointed a young Rosalie Abella to lead a judicial inquiry into whether lawyers adequately served the legal needs of people with disabilities. The resulting 1983 Abella report called for dramatic reform to legal education. For years, I’ve taught law students and lawyers how to serve clients with disabilities, including as Osgoode’s 2014 Roy McMurtry Clinical Fellow, fulfilling Abella’s vision, which traces back to McMurtry.

In 2005, Chief Justice McMurtry appointed a committee to identify ways to make courts accessible for people with disabilities. I’ve had the honour of working to drive change, serving on that committee and its successor.
My perspective is also deeply personal. In 1982, I was a young blind lawyer suffering huge difficulties landing my first job. I’d graduated with honours from Osgoode Hall and gotten a Master of Laws at Harvard. Nevertheless, it was a depressing struggle just to get an interview.

My plight reached McMurtry. He opened hitherto closed doors for me, believing I deserved a chance. Thanks to him, I enjoyed a wonderful 33-year career arguing civil, constitutional and criminal cases for Ontario, including 30 in the Supreme Court of Canada and 200 in the Ontario Court of Appeal. Those experiences also equipped me with the skills I needed to do volunteer advocacy for disability rights in my spare time and now in retirement. When the media quotes me calling out some disability injustice, it all traces back to McMurtry.

McMurtry never sought any praise for his efforts for me. He never discussed it publicly, respecting my privacy. I kept it largely to myself until my retirement party, which McMurtry graciously attended. In my retirement speech to my Crown colleagues, I told my story and urged my colleagues to be a Roy McMurtry to someone who needs a fair chance.

I’ve been honoured to know him as Attorney General McMurtry (my boss), as Chief Justice of Ontario, where he heard my courtroom legal arguments, and later, as Roy, my friend and mentor. May he rest in peace. May we each be a Roy McMurtry to someone else.

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