Disability Wrath: A Year of Colonial Expansion, Ableist Violence + Carney Nationalism

By Brad Evoy, Executive Director, DJNO.

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Friends,

It's been a busy year since our last reflections on this most colonial of days. It is always a day that brings much nationalist fervor and pomp, but this year—I think—illustrates the danger of Canadian nationalism more than ever.

As people celebrate today, we know that both recent migrants and indigenous nations are less safe than ever due to the actions of the Mark Carney government. We know that the endless exploitation of the land, the waters, and of human lives has been intensified through legislation passed federally and provincially under the thrust of anti-American progressivism (which is really just neoliberalism).

We also know that disabled people continue to be pushed into economic instability and wider uncertainties around housing and care. The resulting criminalization of unhoused disabled people and the continued increase in Medical Assistance in Dying across these territories is a stark reminder of what thirty years of social murder has wrought here. These are the solutions offered to disabled people by the wealthy, ruling class of so-called Canada and Ontario.

In so-called Ontario, it is now harder than ever to build accessible homes, more likely to face dangerous housing discrimination, and more likely to encounter deadly and now armed special constables through all areas of our lives. Yet, it is equally the case that our social systems—social assistance, housing supports, accessibility legislation—are all either underfunded or kept in states of perpetual brokenness. Legislated poverty is the watchword of the day as we enter a new era of tariffs and economic uncertainty where our communities are once again left behind.

Meanwhile, all levels of government prepare to break open the very veins of the land and exploit every opportunity they can in the Ring of Fire and elsewhere—all while continuing colonial acts of disablement and death all along these territories. And, it is not just here, as we have seen with continued inaction—other than calming, empty words—from all levels of government here internationally. Canada illustrates its the complicity in death and disablement around the world through continued material support for genocide and imperialism—particularly in Palestine by Israeli Occupying Forces.

For disabled people across our intersections, then, we live in a time where our lives and those of our siblings around the world are in various degrees of danger, dispossession, further disablement. We know that we are interconnected, that our resistance to these realities then also are interconnected.

On this day, founded in dispossession, we have to remember that Disability justice—if that is what we truly believe in—is not merely a set of words. It is a set of material commitments that, while we may fall short of them, are there for us to live up to. DJNO is part of that, but I hope that in the coming days and weeks of 'Disability Pride' we can think together and dream together. But not just that: We can build together the ways and means to—ultimately—overcome and challenge the current moment.

There is much to do, much to fear, and much which fills our whole communities with rage—here and around the world. But, we can build a world where each and every one of us can be free, together.

Organizational Submission Regarding Bill 33 the Supporting Children and Students Act, 2025

To the Honourable Paul Calandra, Minister of Education, and Members of Provincial Parliament,

We write to you on behalf of the Disability Justice Network of Ontario (DJNO) to reflect, once again, on legislation that falls short of the needs of disabled students and to urge you to reject police-in-schools initiatives. While we recognize that police presence and policing practices are already ubiquitous within Ontario schools through local police–school board protocols, (re)stationing armed officers in schools will only further exacerbate negative outcomes for students across this province. 

We call on you to stand in solidarity with students, caregivers, educators and community members across this province by responding to our collective call to reject Bill 33. 

Bill 33 is evidently part of a broader pattern of austerity—one which targets public education at all levels. From K-12 to post-secondary, this government cannot continue to cut vital supports while imposing top-down policies that will inevitably hit disabled, racialized, low-income, and marginalized students the hardest. 

In mandating that school boards collaborate with local police departments—and in its other proposed amendments—Bill 33 represents a fundamental overreach of provincial power. It strips school boards, educational institutions and local communities of the ability to make context-specific decisions based on the needs and leadership of those most impacted. The proposed legislation will not make education more accessible, nor safer, at any level. 

What ties all of these proposals together—whether it be the mandating of police in schools, increased Ministry oversight over local school boards, fee changes, or interfering with university admissions processes under the false pretense of “merit”—is a refusal to address the real crisis: the chronic underfunding of education in this province. Instead of investing in the resources and supports that students have asked for time and time again, this government continues to scapegoat local decision-making, community-centred student supports and marginalized communities more broadly. 

This is not about safety or support—it’s about entrenching control while deflecting responsibility.

Since launching our Education Project in 2023, DJNO has supported Black, Indigenous, and racialized disabled youth in navigating carceral and ableist violence across Ontario schools. Through direct peer support, systems navigation, workshops, consultations and beyond, we have learned from countless students about their experiences with both police presence and police(ing) practices in schools. Whether by police officers themselves or staff carrying out policing practices, students have reported being physically restrained, secluded, detained and outright denied their right to access a dignified education. 

Beyond the physical presence of armed officers, reinstating police-in-schools programs will only re-intrench cultures of control and ableist violence within educational spaces. Whether through corporal punishment, surveillance, criminalization, medicalization or other means of pathologizing children and youth, this Bill undeniably reinforces the school-to-prison pipeline. 

While those in power may argue that police make schools safer for the “majority” of students, let us be clear that even one student feeling unsafe from police in schools is one too many. We know that disabled and neurodivergent students—especially those living at the intersections of poverty, racialization, gendered oppression and beyond—are disproportionately subject to police violence within schools. 

Time and again, caregivers, students, and educators have spoken out about the emotional, physical, and psychological dangers of police in schools. The data has consistently been clear. 

Within the scope of our own research (pdf attached), survey data revealed that 65% of Black and racialized disabled respondents felt that their disability and/or race, ethnicity, or culture influenced their negative interactions with police (Figure 1). 

Figure 1 and 2:

Here in Hamilton, hundreds of students, caregivers, educators and community members have shared stories of police violence in schools and expressed clear and sustained opposition to police-in-schools programs. 

Let us be clear: police are not teachers. They are not Educational Assistants. They are not Early Childhood Educators. They are not counselors. And they are certainly not equipped to support disabled youth. 

At every level, Bill 33 prioritizes control over caring, accessible learning spaces. 

Students suffering at the hands of a failing education system should never be met with the use of force, nor isolation. Policing is not a solution to under-funded and under-resourced schools. 

We reject this Bill in its entirety, and if supporting children and students is truly central to your motivations, we trust that you will do the same. 

Submission prepared by Disability Justice Network of Ontario (DJNO) Education Project Team on behalf of the whole Network.

PDF Download:

Bill33-SubmissionFromDJNO.pdf

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Letter to Ontario Cities: Protest Bylaws and the Threat to Freedom of Expression and Dissent

Dear Mayors Chow, Horwath, and Sutcliffe:

The Disability Justice Network of Ontario wishes to express our increasing concern with the growing element in each of your cities regarding the development of protest bylaws in your cities. The simple fact of the matter is that these Bylaws are being proposed—regardless of individual city councillors’ ideals or justifications—inside a wider ecosystem of cities responding to the work of human rights defenders and regressive political actors equivalently. The result, however, will only be to stifle dissent, collapse movements, and limit the freedom of expression of countless Ontarians concerned with the upholding of basic principles of human rights and dignity.

While we are sympathetic to the need to defend religious freedom and have a long history of promoting the intersectional needs of our own communities, there is little to suggest that such bylaws would actually achieve this. Instead, these laws would which would paralyze movements for justice. Such laws would represent another in a long line of instances—from the 2010 G20 demonstrations in Toronto to the 2019 Hamilton Pride community defence to the constant monitoring of Indigenous land defence—where hate crime legislation is used to target, defame, and criminalize the very peoples it is said to defend. We know, through long histories in social movements, that far-right provocateurs of various stripes (including outright fascists) will not be prosecuted through such legislation. Instead, the weight of history shows us where such ideas will lead us. It is our view that, as T.Y. Kui asserted last year in Briarpatch Magazine, “Anti-hate infrastructure does not actually exist to protect potential targets of reactionary violence from street-level harassment and assault, or even from far-right mass murderers”.

We also know that this concern is not limited to your cities or to Ontario. As UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, Irene Khan, has said: 

The right to peaceful assembly, protected under article 21 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, is closely related to freedom of expression. States have an obligation to allow peaceful assemblies, including peaceful civil disobedience, to take place without unwarranted interference, as well as an obligation to protect the participants. The possibility that a peaceful assembly may provoke adverse or even violent reactions from some members of the public is not in itself sufficient reason to prohibit or restrict the assembly.

In cities where major protests have occurred (and will continue) to defend Black, Indigenous, Palestinian, and other marginalized communities, one must elevate these words all the more and remind you of your responsibility to these very communities. Today, members of your Councils may defend these bylaws in the names of those marginalized, but tomorrow they may be used to repress our very voices.

Moreover, we must also raise with you the creeping scope of such legislation. We know our disabled communities will speak out against low social assistance rates, continued inaccessibility, lacking rent control, institutionalization, alongside constant issues of environmental and medical racism. But if every legislature, parliament, and city hall through these types of legislation are insulated from hearing our voices on these issues—what good does it truly serve? Who will be left unheard? Rather, we are again silenced and pushed further to the margins—counter to the justification of such law.

Rather, there is much cities in Ontario can do to defend the voices of marginalized peoples across the Province. You can redouble your own investments into access to justice—even if it means marginalized peoples can challenge your cities. You can support wider advocacy at the Provincial and Federal levels to support the concerns of peoples most impacted by these types of legislation. You can build and strengthen the power of city Ombudsmen to keep your very cities accountable. You can uproot institutionalized violence against racialized, queer and trans, and disabled communities that are embedded in the systems within and beyond your cities.

In a time of economic and social uncertainty—where countries near us are literally disappearing and deporting people for expressing dissent for human rights—we cannot build the infrastructure to empower these forces down the line. We cannot create systems that will only empower those very people and ideologies that such legislation is framed to protect us against. We will live to regret it, if you do.

With sincerest respect, 

Brad Evoy,

Executive Director, Disability Justice Network of Ontario

CC: Robin Jones, Association of Municipalities of Ontario President and Village of Westport Mayor