Focusing on the Future

By Raymond D. Cohen

Canadian Abilities Foundation president Raymond Cohen recently met the Honourable Ken Dryden, Minister of Social Development, to talk about the Charter, employment rates, community roundtables with people with disabilities, and other issues of importance to the disability community.

Raymond Cohen: Minister Dryden, before we get started, I would like to express that in anticipation of meeting you today I consulted with some of my colleagues within the disability community – and the questions I have for you reflect the concerns of various disability consumer group leaders throughout the country.

The last time I had opportunity to meet you was at the UN International Day of Persons with Disabilities, last December 3, at an Ottawa event hosted by the Canadian Association of Independent Living Centres (CAILC). One of the central themes of the day was a focus on corporate/non-profit partnerships, and the proceedings were webcast
across the country. (Note to reader: Minister Dryden’s presentation, along with the rest of the day’s proceedings, are available by visiting the site map of the CAILC website at www.cailc.ca.)

Among the highlights that day was Access Guide Canada (www.abilities.ca/agc) and the Canadian Abilities Foundation’s partnership with the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and how it, along with support from your department, has facilitated the development of Access Guide Canada.

You may recall that Access Guide Canada consists of an online directory of accessible resources located in communities across the country – restaurants, hotels, meeting places and so on. When people with disabilities and their families come across places that are
accommodating to them, they can upload the information onto our website. Others, in turn, are then able to turn to the site to find the resources they need.

I am wondering, Mr. Minister, if you could share your impressions of Access
Guide Canada and other presentations from that day.

Ken Dryden: These are all interesting, useful, worthwhile instruments providing ways to do better for people with disabilities. Access Guide Canada is a way of offering direction to people who will be following in your steps [as a person with a disability] so you can pass on your experiences, so they can have better experiences. At the same time as
you’re doing that, you’re not only assisting other people with disabilities, you’re also rewarding people who do offer access. You’ve passed on the word. And so those who have done a better job are rewarded for it. They have more people coming their way; they have more customers and clients; their business works better. And good for them!

It’s another one of those ways in which accessibility being made a little bit more front-of-mind today will likely make things better moving into the future.

RC: Mr. Minister, I think most people recognize that accessibility has improved in Canada over the last many years – but there also seems to be a consensus that we still have a long way to go. As you are no doubt aware, April 18 was the 20th anniversary of the addition of Section 15 to the Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, which was introduced to remedy the systemic discrimination faced by marginalized groups,
including people with disabilities. Section 15 has been widely criticized as being an
inaccessible tool that places the onus on the individual for a long, costly fight to prove discrimination. Many advocates are of the view that a stronger mechanism is needed to enforce the Charter and to support federal leadership. Ontario is enacting its own legislation to encourage a more level playing field for people with disabilities.

As the lead minister responsible for disability issues, can you tell me what
you envision to ensure access for Canadians with disabilities? Is there any
thought going to, for example, a Canadians with Disabilities Act?

KD: There’s some conversation about that. I appeared before the Subcommittee on Persons with Disabilities a few days ago, and it’s one of the issues we discussed. It’s an area to look into to see how the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has worked in the U.S., the extent to which it has worked and why, what its limitations are and whether it’s something that can add to the mix of what is available in Canada.

The Charter has had a pretty significant impact. But the question is why it hasn’t had more. And, is there something within the Charter, and using the 20th anniversary as a way of re-energizing it, where it can continue to have a big impact – or does it need a boost with something else?

My feeling is that if people with disabilities went back to their experiences of 20 years ago and compared them to today, in most cases these would be fairly different – and in some cases, really quite dramatically different. I know that it often doesn’t seem that way; it can sometimes feel like nothing ever changes.

But I think that probably the biggest effect of the Charter is that many more people with disabilities are more in sight than they once were. They’re not in institutions, they’re not in homes. And once in sight, then everybody has a chance to experience each other. And you start to see abilities and not just disabilities. And you start to be haunted by what it is that stands in the way of that other person living their life the way that you’d like to see that life lived. What it does, at least, is to take an issue from out-of-mind to, at a minimum, back-of-mind. And I think the challenge is to go from out-of-mind, to back-of-mind, to front-of-mind.

RC: Mr. Minister, let’s talk about employment and its obvious connection with poverty among people with disabilities in this country. The employment rate for men with disabilities is 59% compared to 84% of non-disabled men, and 48% for women with disabilities compared to 72% for women without disabilities. (Note to reader: See Government of Canada (2004) “Advancing the Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities.”) The disability community has identified the need for a comprehensive federal labour market strategy. What is your department doing to address this issue?

KD: Well, to some extent this is one of those areas where we have to figure out how far things can be taken. There are a lot of people who will suggest that a big employment strategy for persons with disabilities will not go nearly as far, or have nearly as much of an effect, as one would hope and one would imagine. That may or may not be true – but I
think we have to find out.

I was at OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) meetings in Europe about three weeks ago, and some of the conversation had to do with poverty. Most of the focus in the OECD is to try to increase employment as the central tool to dealing with poverty.

I’ve had a couple of community roundtables with persons with disabilities. After the first two hours of people saying what they’ve rehearsed about the issues that are front-of-mind to them, one of the questions I ask is: Okay, now let’s move, imagine, 10 years into the
future. What is it, what area, what those couple of things that could make the biggest difference? And, is employment one of those? Tell me how it would work, but also tell me, what are the limitations preventing that? What are the other supports that need to be in place if, in fact, employment is going to work? And let’s contemplate all the elements so that we can, at least by the end of the roundtable, have a better idea of what the real possibilities are. Let’s investigate. Let’s get a good idea of whether this is a much smaller or a much bigger possibility than casual conversation might determine.

RC: Regarding these roundtables with representatives of the disability community,
do you intend to continue this kind of dialogue on a predictable basis? And based on your discussions so far, what do you envision to be the next transformational step for the disability community in this country? What do you see as the priorities?

KD: I will be having more. We may change the format a little bit. While you know that there are some different stories that you will hear regionally, the great percentage of what one learns would not be dissimilar in St. John’s or Vancouver. So what I don’t want to
happen is to hear essentially the same story 10 or 11 times.

If you’re inviting 20 or 25 people to a session like this, those people are going to have in their minds a well-conceived, well-rehearsed message about the things that seem the most important to them as individuals. That’s necessary, because that’s what’s on people’s minds. They want to get that out first. The second go around the table is people representing the group that they are affiliated with. They may be executive director of this or that, and they feel certain responsibilities.

The question is, what happens the third time? What I think is the most important shift is to ask people, knowing what you know and having experienced what you’ve experienced, to take me through what the next 10 years could be like. Perhaps even put yourself ahead 10 years. See where it is you really believe you could be and then identify some of the ways in which you got there. That’s where it’s hardest, because people keep moving back into the present. So what we may do in some of the future round tables is either extend the length of the meetings or perhaps identify a couple of areas that we really want to investigate. One of them will be employment.

The roundtables are necessary to do, but in order for them to work as well as they need to work, we need to be able to find a mechanism of shifting into the future and keeping ourselves focused: Okay, if we did this, what would that mean? What might the cost of that be? What does that represent in terms of a choice? If we’re going in that direction,
what direction are we then not going in?

It helps to step back and say, what is just annoying and what is really critical? We want to find the really critical. You can’t deal with 50 annoying things. It’s too many things. Chances are there are only two or three that really are very important and if you do something about them, you might achieve something. Our job in the present is to make next year better enough and bigger enough that people at that time will want that much more of it and continue into the future incrementally. That’s how you end up really making something significantly different than it is today. What is it that we can do in the area of disabilities in that way?

But it is a difficult thing to get away from those 50 annoyances. You have the same battle in child care. The battle never stops. But if you get things kind of moving in that sort of direction, you’ll have more and more people looking for the critical and discarding the annoying.

RC: In terms of funding, I’m sure it’s no surprise to you that many organizations for people with disabilities have been underfunded for many years – and, in some cases, they have not received financial support at all. Is there any initiative afoot to look at the way in which disability-related organizations might be supported, moving forward?

KD: In terms of a significant difference from where we are now – not at this moment. What is required is a changing of the atmosphere – and again, child care is a good example in that way. You can fight the little fights or you can attempt to fight the bigger fight. You fight the little fight and it’s always two per cent more here, three per cent there. The five per cent might be significant, but I’m really talking about something
much more than that.

What is required is an atmosphere of change, of possibility, of excitement, of priority – of real first priority. And how do you shift into that? I think that’s part of this challenge and, again, that’s where those roundtables kick in – where that 10-year approach and long-term focus kick in.

I always believe that if you’ve got a real plan you’ve got real possibilities. I know what it’s like around a cabinet table, where you’ve got so many different things fighting for their own attention. And what is it that really gets the most attention? It’s usually not the thing that is the biggest embarrassment, requiring that you go out and do something
about it. No, it usually is the area of biggest opportunity.

RC: One of the things that excites me about some of the work that your department is doing is within the Office for Disability Issues. There has been a community consultation that’s been going on. Many of the organizations across the country were invited to participate in looking at the way that funding occurs. I believe that process is still ongoing. I’m sure that it’s not nailed down yet in terms of process, but it is still encouraging to see that it’s being looked at – and that organizations are being asked for their views.

On another note, Minister Dryden, as you’re aware, we will at some point be facing an election in this country. It’s worth noting that this issue of ABILITIES magazine is going to reach many potential voters with disabilities. What can you tell them about your work over the past year as Social Development Minister, and what will a new Liberal
government provide to move the disability agenda forward?

KD: What I would like to be able to do persons with disabilities and groups to focus in on finding those couple of big triggers to see if we can find a way of really generating a new significant push. Again, I don’t know whether it’s legislation; I don’t know whether it’s an employment focus. But I believe there is a right trigger and it’s up to us to find it.

I think that the place to learn from and to start finding your answers is listening to people’s personal experiences. I say, tell me what your disability has meant to your day-to-day and therefore to your mood, your sense of self and the rest. Tell me those things that weren’t there for you – the things which, had they been, would have allowed for this and that. If you head down those paths, you start to get a much better sense of a collective story out of those individual stories and therefore a much better basis on which to frame policy. We’re going to discover in that some of those crucial elements. That’s where one
starts. The bigger answers emerge out of the smaller stories.

RC: Mr. Minister, it looks like there are some exciting developments evolving west of the Rockies which could have potential for the rest of Canada as well. There are people out of an organization called PLAN in British Columbia who have put forward an idea for a disability savings plan somewhat along the lines of an RRSP. The idea is to assist people with disabilities who are now, frequently and for the first time, outliving their parents. It also looks at some of the expenses that go along with living with a disability, which as we all know are extraordinary. (Note to reader: More on the Disability Savings Plan is available at www.plan.ca.)

The other point of interest, as you may well know, is that the Olympics will have two legacy objectives of paramount importance to the disability community. The 2010 Olympics has for the first time ever both accessibility and inclusiveness as important legacy goals. I have personally been involved with a BC-based coalition in the development of “Measuring Up: Communities of Inclusion and Accessibility.” This initiative evolved out of the Accessible and Inclusive Cities and Communities Strategy of which you may also be aware. (Note to reader: More on this is available on the Philia website, www.philia.ca.) Support for this initiative has been provided by Legacies Now.

KD: Yes, I’ve met with Marion Lay, who’s the head of Legacies Now. That is a very exciting program. As she understands, the power of the Games is in the anticipation of the Games. There’s no power once they’re over. There’s a remarkable amount of power in advance. And this is a real good hook, and as I said to Marion, you don’t worry about
overusing it as a hook. What are the Olympics about, really? Really what they are is buying the attention of the world for three weeks – and probably your country for a couple of years.

RC: That’s it. So this group is actually looking at how they can make B.C. not only the most accessible but also the most welcoming place for people with disabilities to make their contributions – truly a vision of full citizenship. We would like to use the resources of the Canadian Abilities Foundation and Access Guide Canada to help to make that happen. The next question becomes, how do we spread that across the country? Sure, the
Olympics are coming to B.C. But they’re really coming to Canada.

KD: Stephen Owen, the B.C. Minister for Sport, is very sensitive to all of that. He would be responsible for the federal participation in the Olympic Games. He’s also somebody who is looking to hang as much as possible on these Games. And again, if you’ve bought the world’s attention, what are you buying the attention for? You’re buying the attention to show off. You’re buying the attention to show off your best; your most unique, your most admirable side. And how does disability fit into that? Disability fits into that really well!

RC: Minister Dryden, thank you very much for your time today.

KD: Thank you, sir. I’ll look forward to the next time.

For more information on Social Development Canada and programs and services for persons with disabilities, please visit www.sdc.gc.ca.


ABOUT KEN DRYDEN

The Honourable Ken Dryden was elected to the House of Commons and named Minister of Social Development in 2004.

Minister Dryden, who is well known for his career as a goaltender for the Montreal Canadiens from 1971 to 1979, during which the team won six Stanley cups, is a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame and the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame, among numerous
other accolades. He holds a degree in history from Cornell University and a degree in law from McGill University. He is also the best-selling author of four books, including The Game. Prior to his appointment as Minister, he was President of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Minister Dryden has been involved with numerous community and charitable groups, most particularly in the area of children, youth and education. In 1996, he started a post-secondary scholarship program for students from foster and group homes.