We're Hiring an Operations Manager!

Navy blue image with bold white text that reads "DJNO IS HIRING!". Over the D in DJNO there are 7 petals that are varying shades of yellow and blue that make up the DJNO logo.

December 12 2022

POSITION: Manager of Operations

TERM: One year (with the possibility of renewal)

PAY RATE: $58,530.00 – CA$63,840.00 per year

MANAGER OF OPERATIONS- JOB DESCRIPTION

The Disability Justice Network of Ontario (DJNO) is expanding! In order to meet our growing needs, we are seeking to hire an Operations Manager to join our leadership team. The successful candidate will provide inspired leadership for the operation, which involves making important policy and strategic decisions, as well as the development and implementation of operational policies and procedures. You will also be assisting with administrative tasks needed to help the organization function.

Successful candidates will have a bachelor's degree in operations management (or a related field) and have prior experience in a management or leadership position. A deep understanding of financial management is also a plus.

In this position of Operations Manager, you will have the following responsibilities:

• Provide inspired leadership for the organization.

• Oversee budgeting, reporting, planning, and auditing in collaboration with DJNO’s accountant.

• Supports the Executive Director in hiring.

• Help create a work culture that encourages top performance and high morale.

• Ensure all legal and regulatory documents are filed and monitor compliance with laws and regulations.

• Support worker communication and project planning among staff. with the management team.

• Managing the donations and tracking them

• Identifying and applying for grants where they align with our mission, vision, and values

• Responding to emails

• Other tasks as identified by the Executive Director of DJNO and the Board of Directors.

OTHER INFORMATION:

The Disability Justice Network of Ontario (DJNO) is committed to the core principles of Disability Justice. We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive staff, and we especially encourage applications from Indigenous, Black, and people of colour candidates, as well as candidates with disabilities and people who identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community, working class community, or any and all of the aforementioned intersecting identity groups.

To apply, please submit a resume and a cover letter to info@djno.ca by December 30th 2022. If you require accommodations at any point of the application process, please email info@djno.ca.

Full version can be viewed here:

Megan Linton Testimony Against MAiD expansion, November 18 2022

On November 18, Megan Linton, PhD Student, researcher, and team member at the Disability Justice Network of Ontario testified at the MAiD Committee against the expansion of Medical Assistance in Dying, at Parliament Hill. To date, she is one of only a handful of young people who have been brought into committee as a witness to discuss MAiD and its continued expansions.

Listen to this clip to hear what she had to say:

MAiD Brief Submission:

In addition to the above testimony, Megan also submitted a brief to members of the AMAD committee, which can be viewed here

Testimony Script:

"I research institutions for disabled people. An ongoing phenomenon stretching back more than a century and a half in Canada. As a result, I have sifted through hours of class action settlements, years of inquests, archives, interviews with survivors. All filled with the stories of death. of friends, roommates, and fellow inmates and disabled people who died by suicide, who hung themselves by the rafters or who died by suicide years after escaping the institution, though still haunted by their experiences inside it. For many years, these suicides were a catalyst for great social change, resulting in government commissions and inquiries into these deaths. Last week, Minister Lammeti expressed the intention of track two of MAiD as necessary because disabled people are unable to complete suicide.

For the last century and a half, disabled people have been trapped in institutions, away from their communities, reduced to a point of efficiency and mere practicality here in these institutions which were used as tools for eugenics removed disabled people from society and access to reproduction. Today, the same logic is maintained in institutions, where access to pleasure, leisure or pain management are seemingly non existent. Instead, these institutions like prisons long term care homes and psych institutions maintain conditions of neglect, isolation, and such disregard for individual autonomy that it produces depression and suicidality in people both inside the institution and those who fear it in their future. People are very fear in their discussions with me: they would rather die than live in an institution.

The view into institutions, no matter how murky, is a view into austerity. Privatization yielding bed sores, neglect, and forced feeding. We've had a view into the institutions where people use MAiD, like Chris Gladders in his retirement home before you passed track two changes (to MAiD). There, where feces stained the floor, instead of cleaning it up you made changes to expand track two.

And now, the deaths have become so frequent that we are haunted by the possibility of loss at all times. Disabled people are dying en masse in institutions they had been fighting to leave because of track two MAiD. These were beautiful lives and lives that as a disabled person...we look into the windows of these institutions and we fight for a way out for all of us. Not just for an individual, through an individual death. You ask us for the protections of disabled people. It is clear: track two MAiD must be ended. You look into these windows, smashed opened by dead bodies, and you see people suffering in conditions that you created, and instead of offering a solution, a help out the door through provisions of accessible housing, home care and pain management...you offer people death. Do not be mistaken: this provision of death for disabled people under track two MAiD is eugenics and must be repealed as soon as possible

We must look at the political economy and the timing of these decisions. Why now, with the increase of pandemics and incurable illnesses like COVID and Long COVID? Why now, with pandemic healthcare rationing, and with healthcare under the budget axe? The expansion of MAiD must be viewed within the context of the economic order with which we live under which is eviscerating the social contract by encouraging government to retreat from its responsibility to the public welfare, and instead kill us. You feel generous to provide mercy from the austerity which you designed. To all of you: disabled people do not need your help to die. You have been killing us for years. We need your help to get out of the institution which you trapped us in. The only safeguard for MAiD is foreseeable death"

Focus Group Exploring Medical Racism and Ableism in Healthcare

On Saturday October 21st 2022 from 6 PM - 8 PM we will be hosting an online focus group with disabled Black and racialized disabled community members in Hamilton and across Ontario, in order to deepen our understanding of medical racism and ableism in healthcare. We'll ask questions and collaboratively build a toolkit that will help Black and racialized disabled people combat medical racism and structural ableism they may face while receiving healthcare. Honorariums will be provided to each participant. All questions are optional, and the results of the focus groups will be kept anonymous. There will be 12 focus groups throughout the next few months. All participants can participate virtually. If you cannot make the October 21st date, register through Eventbrite to be included in upcoming focus groups on the same topic at a later date.

This project is being run in collaboration with the Refuge Hamilton Centre for Newcomer Health and the Black Health Alliance.

Focus group questions can be provided in advance upon request, and all participants will be asked to sign confidentiality agreements in order to keep the space safe. Closed captioning will be provided at each focus group meeting. ASL caption can be provided upon request at registration. For other access needs, please email info@djno.ca