Reflections On Being Thrown Out of Parliament

By John Feld

(John Feld is one activist who is not afraid of taking a little personal risk, so long as the cause is right. On Wednesday, September 9th, he and a group of people with disabilities from Ontario made their presence felt in the House of Commons.)

My only regret is that we didn’t plan it well enough. We should have organized ourselves so that when I rose to speak, I was surrounded in the gallery by people in wheelchairs, especially powered chairs with the power disconnected. That way it would have been much more difficult for the security guards to throw me out. I could have forced the Prime Minister and the assembled members of parliament to listen to me for more than ten seconds before they carried me out.

Even with our brief demonstration, we received national media coverage. Within days of our protest, Joe Clark asked for a meeting with leaders of the disability rights movement in which he told them that he was aware of our concerns and would attempt to include people with disabilities in the Canada Clause of the Charlottetown Accord. In the end, our protest was futile. But we learned from it. I hope that the politicians learned something also.