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.