APPENDIX B: CORE SUPPORTS

I. Full Citizenship

Overview

Citizenship implies presence of a collective identity and sense of agreement amongst individuals about the rights and responsibilities that are necessary for diverse populations to cohabitate. For individuals to experience the status of full citizenship there must be opportunities for full participation in all aspects of society regardless of socio economic status, ability, gender, culture, religion, age, or political philosophy.

Persons with needs or interests that are considered to be different from the general population often require the support of government to ensure that their diverse needs are satisfied. Government can provide this support by creating laws that prohibit discrimination of citizens with diverse interests and needs and entering into agreements that promote the inclusion of persons with disabilities. Some of the laws and agreements that support the rights of Albertans to experience full citizenship include the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and Alberta’s Human Rights, Citizenship, and Multiculturalism Act.

Historically, Canadians with disabilities have been viewed as an apolitical population and as a lifelong liability to government. Historically, it was not anticipated that persons with disabilities would graduate from an accredited education program, live independently or work in a career that would provide a salary comparable to non-disabled persons. Consequently, during the creation of existing laws, persons with disabilities were often not fully considered within the scope of interests represented by politicians.

For Aboriginal persons this has been even more problematic. Three levels of government are involved in providing services and programs for Aboriginal people with disabilities, and the activities of these three levels are often not coordinated. The overall result is Aboriginal people with disabilities, in addition to the common issues, frequently face unique barriers to achieving full citizenship. However, many Albertans are beginning to claim their citizenship rights.

Full reclamation of citizenship rights for persons with disabilities will require the recognition and full utilization of relevant legislation as a foundation for facilitating social change.

Legislative Context of Citizenship in Canada

Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms states that, “every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal participation and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age, or mental or physical disability.”

Alberta Human Rights, Citizenship, and Multiculturalism Act

Alberta’s human rights legislation protects the diversity of interests and equality of rights of Albertans with and without disability. The citizenship of Albertans with disabilities is protected by the Alberta Human Rights, Citizenship, and Multiculturalism Act by prohibiting discrimination in the areas of employment practices, tenancy, services and facilities, or accommodation that is generally available to the public. The Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Board administers this legislation with the intention of, “returning the complainant to the position he or she would have been in if the discrimination or harassment had not occurred.”

International Declaration of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

In 1975, the United Nations facilitated an agreement among the international community called the International Declaration of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Canada’s agreement to this Declaration means the citizenship rights of Canadians with disabilities were nationally supported and internationally endorsed. The role of the Declaration is to provide a guideline to political bodies for ensuring that the interests of persons with disabilities are equitably represented in Canadian laws and policies. Some of the citizenship rights in the Declaration include a right to equitable civil and political rights and the right to medical and psychological treatment, social rehabilitation, education, vocational training, and financial aid, which will enable full participation in community.

Convention on the Rights of the Child

Although the issue of citizenship for persons under the age of 18 years is controversial amongst Canadians, children with disabilities are recognized within the context of the Alberta Disability Strategy as having citizenship rights to full participation in living, learning, recreational, cultural and religious activities. The Convention on the Rights of Children is an international instrument that represents a collective recognition of the rights of children. Canada ratified the Convention in 1991.

n the Convention on the Rights of Children, children with disabilities are explicitly recognized as having unique interests and needs which require support from families, communities, and governments so that their full potential is realized. Article 23 of the Convention outlines the collective agreement of these unique interests and rights of children with disabilities.

Among these is recognition that children with disabilities require a standard of living that ensures dignity, promotes self-reliance and encourages full participation in society. Article 23 also notes that children also require opportunities to achieve their maximum global development by having equitable access to education, health care, recreational opportunities, vocational services, cultural activities, and religious practices.

The existence of these legal/constitutional guarantees notwithstanding, some of the potential threats to citizenship for many Albertans include laws and policies that are too narrow in scope and neglect the interests of persons with disabilities, and education programs that fail to accommodate the learning needs of students with disabilities.

Elements for Creating an Environment of Full Citizenship

There is no singular way to create full citizenship for Albertans with disabilities because they are a heterogeneous population with diverse interests, needs, and beliefs. However, there are four supports that are widely recognized as fundamental to the creation of an environment leading to full citizenship. These are:

• Personal Supports.
• Education and Learning Supports.
• Employment Supports.
• Financial Supports.

The success of creating an environment of full citizenship is based on the presence of these supports in an individual’s life, the degree to which the individual’s needs are matched with these supports, and the coordination of these supports across various systems.

At the present time, Alberta has no formal protocol for coordinating disability supports across systems. Consequently, there is not an equitable distribution of disability supports available to all Albertans with disabilities. These broad areas of support are discussed in greater detail in subsequent sections, but the following is intended to introduce the components.

Personal Supports

Personal Supports or disability supports refer to a range of technical aids, assistive devices, and personal services that are necessary to accommodate the functional limitation created by the individual’s impairment in daily activities. At the present time, the Alberta government provides personal supports, with limited success, to Albertans with disabilities across lifespan in three sectors: Personal Care Services; Technical Aids, Assistive Devices and Adaptive Technology; and Transportation and Housing. Personal supports are the most essential aids identified by persons with disabilities and their family/support persons for full participation in society.

Education and Learning Supports

ducation and Learning supports are fundamental for students with disabilities to realize and maximize their learning potential across lifespan. In order for students to fully participate in their learning environment there must be an opportunity to exchange information and to participate in school culture. Barriers to communication or to participation in school activities, which are not offset by learning supports, have the potential of jeopardizing the learning capacity, education attainment, and labour force participation of persons with disabilities.

Employment Supports

mployment supports refer to aids in the workforce environment that are required by persons with disabilities. A secondary function of employment supports is to equip employers with accurate information about disability and employment, and accommodating persons with disabilities in the workforce. Some employers are hesitant but most employment supports in the workplace involve altering work schedules, adapting equipment with technical devices, and renovating the workspace to meet the accessibility needs of the employee.

Financial Supports

Disability-related expenditures can create a financial hardship on Albertans and their family/support persons. These expenditures are the product of environments that are not inclusive of the needs that persons with disabilities require in living, learning, working or recreational activities. Albertans who are unable to pay for disability-related costs themselves usually rely on assistance from family members or some form of financial support program.

There are a variety of federal and provincial funding programs available to persons with disabilities who are not able to work in the labour force on a full time basis or who are not able to finance their cost of living with their existing employment. The eligibility criteria for various financial support programs are dependent on diagnosis, age of onset of disability, permanency of disability, functional limitation, and probability of returning to work. Consequently, many Albertans must endure multiple assessments to fulfill program requirements or navigate numerous systems to access the maximum amount of financial support for disability-related needs.

Outcomes and Strategies

Specific Outcomes

1. Civil, constitutional and human rights will be assured for all Albertans.
2. Alberta’s communities will be barrier free and physically accessible. All Albertans will be able to access the buildings, spaces, services and programs that they desire.
3. All Albertans will have the opportunity to participate in and provide leadership to public policy processes, and to activities and associations that define their community.

Visionary Outcome:

All persons are included in all aspects of Alberta society.

Short-Term Strategies

Strategy 1: Utilize the Disability Lens.

The disability lens is a tool designed to help those responsible for developing policy, programs, services or other initiatives to ensure that they have respected the rights and needs of persons with disabilities. A disability lens must be applied to all activities of government (provincial, regional and local) and to all initiatives funded by government (e.g. education, employment and recreation) to be comprehensively effective. (See Accountability Framework section)

Strategy 2: Conduct a full, collaborative review of complaints to the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission and recommend ways to enhance the effectiveness of the human rights complaints process relating to persons with disabilities (e.g. timing and follow-up).

The intent of the review would be to understand the patterns and systemic issues involved and to generate recommendations for proactive legislation, regulations and standards that would deal with the underlying problems and barriers.

Strategy 3: Develop and launch a province-wide disability awareness campaign.

Attitudinal and systemic barriers add significantly to the daily challenges faced by Albertans with disabilities. Social marketing principles, which have proven to be effective in health promotion, must be applied to change attitudes and behaviours regarding persons with disabilities. The primary message would be that persons with disabilities also have abilities and they have untapped potential for contributing to our society and economy.

Strategy 4: Identify provincial and federal initiatives targeted at the health issues causing the high number of disabilities among Aboriginal people and make a coordinated effort to involve all provincial government ministries.

Strategy 5: Provide information for people with disabilities about available services and opportunities and where to access them.

Recommended Strategies

Appeals

1. Require all government programs for persons with disabilities to have a speedy, objective, independent, transparent and advocate-supported appeal process. Appeals for persons with disabilities should be quasi-judicial, like other appeals conducted by the government.
2. Require current appeal processes to ensure greater consistency in timelines, rules and mechanisms. The processes should have arm’s-length objectivity and speedy timeframes for appeals to be initiated.
3. Simplify appeal processes.
4. Implement a single appeal’s mechanism for all programs for persons with disabilities that are linked to the proposed enhanced Community Supports model (see description in Personal Supports section) and supported by the equivalent of a community legal aid clinic for persons with disabilities.
5. Ensure that appeal hearings are held in locations that adhere strictly to the Barrier Free Design Building Codes as prescribed by the province of Alberta.
6. Support the appeals recommendations of Alberta Learning’s Special Education Review, if appropriate.

The Building Code

7. Appoint representatives of persons with disabilities, including an Aboriginal person and a community service provider, to the Building Code Committee.
8. Add a disability sensitivity and awareness component to the training manual for building inspectors.
9. Require Building Code standards for all public washrooms.
10. Include accessible fire exits in the Building Code.
11. Add sections to the Building Code to address the needs of persons with visual impairments or who are blind, persons with hearing impairments or who are deaf (i.e. colour contact on curb cuts, stair nosing, texturing, tactile numbers on doors, visual alarms) and persons with mobility impairments such as arthritis (i.e. lever taps, adapted door handles and adapted doors in public buildings).
12. Expand the range of buildings covered under the Building Code to include buildings less than 4,000 sq. meters, historic buildings, and all renovated buildings.
13. Review the monitoring and enforcement of the Building Code.

Alternative Communications

14. Establish an Alternative Communications Advisory Committee (ACAC) as an ongoing conduit between community groups and provincial government ministries.
15. Require all provincial government ministries to establish task groups to develop outcomes, performance indicators and strategies for implementing an Alternative Communications Policy. These groups would report regularly to the ACAC.
16. Develop new partnerships with community groups to better understand and address the diversity of needs plus identify optimal service delivery mechanisms and providers.
17. Increase the funding for interpreter services.
18. Use an outcomes monitoring system to measure the effectiveness of alternative communications in improving access to required services for persons with disabilities.
19. Use a disability lens to remind decision-makers responsible for all new government initiatives that they are obligated to ensure accessibility to information and consultation.
20. Develop a text-only version of the Alberta Government Web site to be used by persons with visual or auditory impairments.

Accessible Transportation

21. Address the current lack of accessible transportation and infrastructure for rural/remote communities.
22. Establish monitoring standards for special transportation grants to local governments.
23. Establish procedures to ensure that Alberta Infrastructure checklists are being used and that appropriate decisions have been taken prior to releasing government funding for transportation initiatives.
24. Expand the efforts of the Barrier-Free Advisory Committee to include travel between communities and throughout Alberta.
25. Ensure that municipal, provincial and federal initiatives are linked and effectively facilitate inter-provincial travel.
26. Provide transportation subsidies in the form of a public transportation pass for persons with disabilities who receive AISH or other income assistance similar to available seniors’ passes.
27. Require Alberta Transportation to include in their business plan performance measures related to the availability of appropriate, accessible and affordable transportation in Alberta communities.

Mobility Rights

28. Develop a community assessment tool and community participation index that local authorities can use to determine the accessibility of their facilities and programs. This must take into account that accessibility extends beyond physical access.
29. Require local governments to state goals and monitor performance in relation to:
    • The provision of accessible/affordable transportation and housing.
    • Access to buildings/programs/services.
    • The availability of personal supports.
30. Using information obtained from the above performance monitoring, publish guides to community accessibility to be used as feedback to municipal authorities and a resource for persons with disabilities who are relocating.
31. Encourage administrators of disability support programs to create methods of taking their service to communities where services are not currently located.
32. Introduce the concept of individualized funding to as many programs as possible. Individuals need to have the resources in their own hands to purchase required supports and support services locally.
33. Work with all governments to address the need for housing for First Nations, Metis and Inuit persons with disabilities.

Sensitivity and Awareness

34. Develop a cultural awareness-training manual for all provincial government ministries and service providers to ensure the culture of Aboriginal peoples is understood.
35. Make disability sensitivity/awareness training and Aboriginal cultural sensitivity training mandatory for all front-line workers in the provincial government who deal with the public.
36. Develop and implement an evaluation tool to monitor the treatment of persons with disabilities.

Accessible Justice

37. Ensure accessibility to the justice system for persons with disabilities by:
    • Ensuring that they have advocate support as required.
    • Expanding the federal Court Challenges Program to the provincial level to cover Section 15 equality rights violations at all government levels.
    • Increasing sensitivity in the justice system to systemic barriers affecting the behaviour of persons with disabilities.
    • Ensuring that communications about justice matters are available in alternative formats and understood by persons with disabilities. A person may have disabilities that limit his or her comprehension of the impact of the information being conveyed.

Participation in Public Processes

38. Develop a community participation index as part of the outcomes monitoring system.
39. Require provincial government ministries, regional authorities and other agencies that seek provincial funding to state how they have involved, or plan to involve, persons with disabilities in the development and delivery of the initiative.
40. Develop a strategy to involve Aboriginal persons with disabilities in the development and delivery of programs and services that affect them.
41. Develop a strategy to ensure the inclusion of Aboriginal persons with disabilities in public policy planning and decision making processes and to have an equitable representation of this group on public boards, regulatory bodies, etc.
42. Ensure representation of persons with disabilities on public boards, regulatory bodies, etc.
43. To ensure strong advocacy for persons with disabilities in the future, recruit young people to participate in succession planning and community mobilization initiatives.