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#CripTheVote 2019: Accessibility

Alex Haagaard
Oct 13, 2019
5 min read

A yellow photographic background showing a close-up view of a person using a manual sports wheelchair. A stylized speech bubble contains the words "Centering The Margins" in white. Along the bottom are the logos for Ontario Trillium Foundation, Laidlaw Foundation, YWCA Hamilton, Disability Justice Network of Ontario, and The Awesome Foundation.

Introduction and discussion questions by Gabrielle Peters and Alex Haagaard.

When it comes to disability-focused legislation, Canada has lagged behind the United States. The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed in 1990, and created requirements for accessibility of public and commercial spaces, provision of reasonable accommodations by employers, as well as broadly prohibiting discrimination on the basis of disability. Even though the ADA is American legislation, Canadians have benefited from the resulting changes in design standards and innovations it brought about. As companies on the other side of the border created products to comply with ADA regulations and as other companies brought their own practices in line with it, the results traveled northward. While American disability activists point out numerous flaws with the ADA especially around its enforcement, the impact of this legislation is difficult to overstate. The first disability rights legislation to be passed in Canada was the Accessibility for Ontarians With Disabilities Act (AODA), which was passed in 2005. The AODA created requirements and guidelines on how to remove and prevent barriers within public and commercial spaces and services. Manitoba passed similar legislation in 2013, and Nova Scotia followed suit in 2017. Canada’s other provinces and territories have not passed any comprehensive disability rights legislation.

Canada’s first federal disability legislation, the Accessible Canada Act (ACA) received royal assent in June 2019—this is the final step toward a bill becoming law in this country. Unlike the ADA or AODA, the ACA does not apply broadly to the private sector, because the licensing and regulation of most businesses is under the control of the provincial governments.

The ACA applies to organizations under federal jurisdiction such as:

Parliament
Government of Canada, including government departments, Crown Corporations, and agencies
Federally regulated private sector, including organizations in the transportation sectors, broadcasting and telecommunications services, and the banking and financial sectors
Canadian Forces and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP)

For those hoping for a better version of the ADA, the ACA is not it. At the same time legislation is a beginning and can be expanded and improved as it is further defined and interpreted. One very significant problem with the ACA is the federal government failed to link the legislation to receipt of federal funding. The government failed to use the big stick it has at its disposal - namely making receipt of federal funds conditional on compliance with the ACA. This would have expanded the reach of the legislation as well. We also will have to see whether the language of ‘may’ instead of ‘shall’ will make this legislation more of a wish list than something that is enforced.

Those governed by the ACA are supposed to create accessibility plans, have tools for feedback and create progress reports. One of the concerns is that oversight of it has been broken up so some will be under the CRTC, some under the Canadian Transportation Agency and the remainder under the Accessibility Commissioner who will be appointed by the Governor General.

While recognizing the specific failures of the ACA, it is also important to consider the limitations of accessibility legislation more generally. DJNO co-founder Sarah Jama has spoken about the difference between typical conceptions of accessibility, and disability justice:

““When people talk about accessibility, it’s usually around how we build a world around this pre-existing society that fits people with disabilities.” Disability justice, though, involves building a society “that’s free and fits everybody,” she says, and asking “How do we interact with our justice system? How do we interact with our education system? How has our health-care system hurt us in a variety of ways that attack our bodily autonomy?””

In this online town hall, we will be discussing:

the ways in which accessibility has historically been a project of whiteness
how to think about accessibility within a disability justice framework
how legislation can be informed by disability justice and what that might look like
what policies and standards you would like to see implemented in future federal disability rights legislation

This discussion will be co-hosted by @djnontario, @alexhaagaard and @mssinenomine who will be tweeting questions every ten minutes starting at ten past the hour. You can see the questions by navigating to the profile of any of these accounts.

@alexhaagaard and @mssinenomine will be retweeting the responses that people post, so you can follow their accounts to see the rest of the discussion. You can also search Twitter for the #CripTheVote hashtag, and set the search page to "Latest", to see everything that is being tweeted to the hashtag.

We realize that Twitter chats can be hard to follow for some people. While the chat is taking place, @djnontario will be tweeting the chat questions only. If you are having trouble keeping track of the chat, you can click on the @djnontario profile and check that account's feed to find out which questions have been posted.

You can also find the chat questions at the bottom of this post.

After the discussion takes place, we will be posting a summary of it to the DJNO blog.

This chat is about accessibility and it is also about disability justice. We will be discussing how the marginalization of disabled people intersects with other forms of oppression including racism, colonialism, poverty, cissexism and heterosexism.

Racism, trans antagonism, homophobia, misogyny and lateral ableism are not welcome in this discussion and will not be amplified by the host accounts.

Remember to use the #CripTheVote hashtag when you tweet, so that others can see what you are saying!

If you respond to a question such as Q1, your tweet should follow this format: “A1 [your message] #CripTheVote"

You may also want to include other relevant hashtags with your tweet, such as #CdnPoli #elxn43 #ItsYourVote and #a11y.

Please introduce yourself! If you’re comfortable with sharing, where in Canada do you live?
Like disability, there is confusion about what accessibility is and who requires it. How would you define accessibility? Do you ever hesitate to use the word?
Are there accessibility needs you have that you wish were more understood? What are some examples of inaccessibility that you encounter?
Disability rights is characteristically white and middle class. How has this affected the way people understand accessibility? What are some ways you see other parts of your identity or lived experience impact your accessibility?
How would your life be different if accessibility standards were universally upheld and you could reliably count on your needs being met?
What are some of the ways that you routinely encounter inaccessibility in public and commercial spaces? How does this affect you?
Do you have any way of filing a formal complaint or seeking a solution to these kinds of inaccessibility? If so, what does that involve? Is the process of filing a complaint accessible to you?
Accessibility is often thought about as a way of retrofitting the world to meet the needs of disabled people. What kinds of barriers and injustices tend to get ignored when we focus on accessibility in this way?
If you were given the task of writing legislation to meaningfully change the lives of disabled people in Canada for the better what would you call it and what are some things it would include?

#CenteringtheMargins, The Issues: Housing Affordability and Access

The federal government needs to commit to a strategy to create permanent and affordable housing options. It is necessary for shifts to be made which no longer allow for housing to be conceptualized as a commodity in Canadian society. The affordability of housing is key, and specifically important to consider for access to housing for racialized people. The 2019 census showed that 20.8% of people of colour in Canada are low-income, compared to 12.2% of non-racialized Canadians. Additionally, just over 50% of people of colour households in Canada live in homes which are not affordable, that require repair or maintenance and that are overcrowded and unsuitable. This compares to 28% of non-racialized households.

It is vital for the federal government to commit to recognize housing as a fundamental human right to mitigate these inequitable disparities.

Read more about how Housing Inaccessibility and Affordability relates to Disability Justice in our last post here.

#CripTheVote 2019: Housing

Alex Haagaard
Oct 4, 2019
7 min read

Updated: Oct 6, 2019

A red photographic collage background showing an apartment building, and a person wearing a denim jacket and backpack and carrying a stack of books. A stylized speech bubble contains the words "Centering The Margins" in white. Along the bottom are the logos for Ontario Trillium Foundation, Laidlaw Foundation, YWCA Hamilton, Disability Justice Network of Ontario, and The Awesome Foundation.

Introduction by Gabrielle Peters and Alex Haagaard. Discussion questions by Gabrielle Peters.

Canada is in the midst of a housing crisis. As of 2014, nearly one in five Canadian households were experiencing extreme housing affordability problems. In 2016, a Statistics Canada report found that eight percent of Canadians over the age of 15 had experienced “hidden homelessness,” where they had to live in someone else’s home, in their vehicle, or in another temporary situation because they had nowhere else to live. This year, in all of Canada’s largest cities, the average rental rate for a one bedroom apartment has risen by more than five percent, year over year.

The 1996 Federal Budget ended 50 years of direct involvement in social housing. This unilateral decision by the then federal government, combined with other factors such as increased speculation, is often pointed to as one of the major causes of the current crisis levels of homelessness. In 2017, the federal government announced it was ‘getting back into the business of housing’ and introduced a ‘National Housing Strategy.’ However it is estimated that at the current rate of investment and building it will take decades to get back to pre-crisis levels of homelessness.The ‘return’ to housing rhetoric also somewhat obscures the fact the 1996 federal government decision did not withdraw federal involvement in the housing market or homeownership sector, just any federal funding for meeting housing needs. The withdrawal of federal funding for social housing also occurred in the context of an ongoing decline in federal-provincial transfer payments that had been taking place since the 1980’s.

In 2017, commenting on the NHS (National Housing Strategy) in the Globe and Mail, University of Toronto Professor David Hulchanski said, “The word affordable is mentioned about 70 times, with no definition of affordable housing.” While the decision to resume federal involvement in social housing has been widely applauded, there have been numerous criticisms and concerns about whether the NHS (National Housing Strategy). For example, while one of NHS stated goals is to reduce homelessness by 50 percent, only 1/20th of the total funding is dedicated specifically towards Reaching Home, the federal government’s homelessness initiative.

The role that Canada’s federal government plays in affordable housing strategy is complex. It shares control over this issue with provincial, territorial and municipal governments. Provincial and territorial governments have authority over the construction of housing, except on First Nations reserves. That is, they have the power to decide what kind of housing is created where, and by whom. This includes construction of housing for the private market, as well as publicly-subsidized construction or acquisition of housing for low-income tenants. The provincial and territorial governments may transfer some of all of this authority to municipal governments.

The federal government is able to influence the availability of affordable housing in Canada through financial initiatives that include allocating funding to provincial and territorial governments, and providing low-cost loans to developers, for construction projects that meet certain standards of size, affordability and accessibility. In June of this year, the federal government passed Bill C-97, which enshrined the right to adequate housing within Canadian law. However, this legislation did not establish a mechanism to legally enforce this right at an individual level.

The relationship between disability and access to housing is also complex. Disabled people disproportionately live in poverty, and are therefore more likely to be seriously affected by high housing prices. The 2016 Statistics Canada report on hidden homelessness found that 26 percent of people with three or more disabilities had experienced this situation, compared to six percent of nondisabled people.

People living at the intersection of disability and race experience poverty and homelessness at higher rates. According to IRIS, people living with disabilities are two times as likely to live below the poverty line, and 28.2% of racialized people have experienced homelessness (compared to a national average of 19.1%). These statistics are higher for Indigenous people, they only make up 4.3% of the overall Canadian population but comprise 30.6% of the youth homelessness population. Black disabled people, Indigenous disabled people and disabled people of colour face additional barriers resulting from historical, current, systemic and individual acts of racism by landlords placing them at greater risk of housing insecurity and homelessness.46% of women who report having been homeless have a disability.

For disabled women housing is also intertwined with the issue of violence. DAWN Canada’s More than a Footnote report points out:

“Research and literature around homelessness has tended to focus specifically on various groups and/or identities and as such often miss the intersectional nature of the issue. For example, the experience of immigrant and refugee women around homelessness, particularly the complexities of these experiencinces, including the intersections of disability, trauma, mental health, intimate partner violence (IPV) etc. remain under-examined.”

In a survey of staff (not necessarily trained in accessing accessibility) of women’s shelters across Canada, over a third (38%) reported accessibility barriers were a “major” challenge to their facilities. This means that while disabled women face a well known and documented higher rate of violence, they also face far fewer options for escaping it.

Disabled LGBTQI2S youth remain over-represented among the homeless population and face additional risks and barriers to accessing housing.

The Canadian Association for Community Living estimates that between 100,000 and 120,000 adults with intellectual disabilities face a housing and supports gap and as a result are over-represented among the homeless population.

It is also important to remember that in addition to facing greater risks of homelessness, disabled people are also likely to suffer significant health impacts by being homeless and symptoms and outcomes of whatever underlying health condition exist worsened in addition to being at risk of developing complications, comorbidities or additional health problems.

On the private market, features that improve accessibility are associated with higher rental rates, which means that disabled people with specific access needs face greater difficulty in finding suitable low-cost housing. For example, in a city like Toronto or Vancouver, an apartment located in a basement or in an older walk-up building is typically hundreds of dollars cheaper per month than a comparable unit in a newer building with an elevator. But for someone with impaired mobility, chronic pain or chronic fatigue, this may not be an option. “Micro-apartments,” and “co-living” situations with shared kitchens and bathrooms have received attention as innovative options for affordable housing—however, these are inaccessible to wheelchair users, neurodivergent people, and those with severe allergies and immune disorders.

Young Canadian adults have been moving away from urban centres at higher rates, in large part because cities are so unaffordable. However, rural and suburban areas have less extensive public transportation, less access to specialized healthcare, fewer opportunities for accessible employment, and more limited public infrastructure like sidewalks and paved roads. All of these factors can pose significant access barriers to disabled people.

Finally, in addition to those facing homelessness it’s important to remember the thousands who are not counted as homeless but in essence are. Thousands of disabled people under the age of 65, including many young disabled people, are currently forced to live in long term care facilities for the aged due to a lack of support and options available to them in the community. This is in direct violation of the UN Convention on the RIghts of Persons with Disabilities that Canada ratified. Furthermore, thousands more disabled people are ‘housed’ in prisons. In both these places the number of disabled people is rising and none are counted in statistics about homeless rates.