English

Report Prepared for CCD by Joëlle Pastora Sala
Law Student, Faculty of Law University of Ottawa

With the end of March, we said goodbye to the old fiscal year, and made our acquaintance with the new fiscal year.  In this Update, we look back on the accomplishments of our 2011-12 fiscal year and provide a bird’s eye view of some things to expect during the next 12 months.

April 2012 and the Coming Months

30th Anniversary of Charter of Rights and Freedoms

During the month of February, CCD’s attention was focused on human rights issues.  CCD spoke out in support of access to justice by persons with disabilities, access to employment and accommodation of students with disabilities by the public school system; shared a disability rights perspective on an end of life issue; and promoted knowledge dissemination on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

CCD and DAWN Canada Celebrate Victory at Supreme Court

For immediate Release

April 17, 2012

April 17, 1982 signalled a new era beginning for Canadians with disabilities, as Canada’s new Constitution came into force. In the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Canada made a constitutional commitment in Section 15 to equality before and under the law for those living with disabilities.  (Section 15 came into force in 1985.)  Canada’s constitution was the first to include equality rights protection of people with disabilities.

The disabled community, led by CCD, had worked hard to ensure that disability was included amongst the groups enumerated in the equality rights clause in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. And so a great experiment was begun. Believe it or not, even as the Charter became the supreme law of Canada, there was not yet a consensus about what Charter equality meant and how it would be applied in actual cases. Almost anything was possible.

On October 31, 1980, I arrived in Ottawa ready to participate in a weekend meeting of the National Council of the Coalition of Provincial Organizations of the Handicapped (COPOH) (now known as the Council of Canadians with Disabilities). I attended this meeting under much protest from my family. My sister was getting married, and here I was, choosing to miss her wedding so I could discuss the Constitution and the inclusion of disability rights.

Re:  Employment and Persons with Disabilities
Prepared by CCD Social Policy Committee
for
HRSDC Stakeholder Engagement Meeting
On Employment Barriers for Canadians with Disabilities
Ottawa,
February 8th, 2012

François Aubry
February 2012

Presentation

On December 13, 2002, the Government of Québec instituted, as part of a major law passed unanimously by the National Assembly, the Act to combat poverty and social exclusion (Bill 112), a strategy to reduce poverty and social exclusion.

If you are looking for something to read, consider The Voice of People with Disabilities: Making a Difference in Manitoba, an anthology in which people with disabilities describe their efforts to make Manitoba accessible and inclusive.  In her Foreword to the book, the Honourable Jennifer Howard, Minister Responsible for Persons with Disabilities, stated, “Just a short time ago, it was widely believed that people with disabilities had little to offer society.