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CCD seeks to focus attention on and prevent private and societal actions that make people with disabilities die prematurely. Death-making is rooted in fear, prejudice and negative perceptions about life with a disability.

The International Portfolio:

• Provides advice and leadership on international issues that effect persons with disabilities
• Identifies international issues of concern to persons with disabilities
• Provides advice to CCD National Council and the federal government on reforms that would improve the affect of Canada's foreign aid and policy on persons with disabilities.
• Monitors and advises on the implementation on the United Nations Convention on the Rights the Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in Canada

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.

The Access to Technology Portfolio:

• Identifies technology issues of national concern to persons with disabilities
• Provides advice to CCD National Council on reforms that would improve the access to technology of Canadians with disabilities

CCD is committed to the principles of self-determination and the positive promotion of the image of Canadians with disabilities in society in a manner that is consistent with the principles of equality, personal security, freedom of conscience and human dignity.

CCD believes that the devaluation of the lives and experiences of persons with disabilities has been used to justify acts of violence against people with disabilities, including the murder of people with disabilities.

CCD's members are provincial/territorial cross-disability, consumer-controlled, human rights organizations and national uni- and cross-disability, consumer-controlled, human rights organizations and six individual members at large ensuring a intersectional council.

The member organizations and members at large are:

CCD's approach to international cooperation is based upon human rights and our disability rights principles of equality, consumer-control, self-representation, citizenship, and empowerment. Canadians with disabilities focus on the need to remove barriers to participation that individuals with disabilities face within their communities. CCD's International Development Committee provides leadership on international issues.

The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) is the first human rights convention of the 21st century. The CRPD is an international law that provides guidance to countries on how to meet the human rights of persons with disabilities. The CRPD also has an Optional Protocol, which is another international law that provides a mechanism for individuals and groups, who have exhausted all domestic avenues of redress, to have claims of discrimination heard by the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.