bfcanada Table of contents
- Summary of recent events
- How to become more involved in Minister Qualtrough’s public engagement hearings
- From around the country
- Question for consideration
- Next steps
- Contact info
Summary of Recent Events
For the month of October we attended tele conferences and one of our committee members David Lepofsky traveled to Halifax to lend support to groups who are working to help lobby for a Nova Scotia disability rights Act.
BFC-CSB also spent time expanding their committee in order to meet growing requests from various groups across the country to make presentations on such topics as how to become more active in lobbying for a Canadians with disabilities Act as well as how to become more pro active in advocating for provincial disabilities rights Acts.
In early November David Lepofsky will be speaking at a public forum on the need for strong provincial and federal accessibility in St. John’s Newfoundland. Here is the announcement of this forum.
Forum on Disability Accessibility in Our Community
Hosted by CNIB Atlantic INCA atlantique
Friday, November 4 at 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM in UTC-02:30
CNIB
70 the Blvd, St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador A1A 1K2
Would you like to help four million Canadians with disabilities tear down the many accessibility barriers that impede them from getting full access to jobs, public transit, education and all that our society has to offer its residents?
Join David Lepofsky, life-long disability rights advocate, blind lawyer, and chair of the non-partisan grassroots Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance, for a public discussion. Everyone is welcome!
In mid November Marc Workman will be representing us at a face to face Canadian Access and Inclusion Project Council meeting.
Towards the end of November Donna Jodhan will be giving a presentation in Ottawa, to persons who are blind and vision impaired and her presentation will focus on the essentials of advocacy and how to become more involved in lobbying for a Canadians with disabilities Act. This presentation is being sponsored by Accessible Media inc and Getting Together with Technology (GTT).
This presentation will be held at 20 James Street Ottawa and more info will be posted to the relevant Ottawa lists in the coming weeks.
How to become more involved in Minister Qualtrough’s public engagement hearings
For information on how to attend the in-person consultation sessions on accessibility legislation that Employment and Social Development Canada is conducting, please go to this webpage.
From around the country
From our Ontario affiliate:
The AODA Alliance will be conducting forums across Ontario as follows. Burlington (November 6), and Whitby (November 12). For more information please contact AODA at aodafeedback@gmail.com
From our group in Saskatchewan:
Principles from our September 8 meeting have been approved at our October meeting. Our next meeting is for next steps including our Web site which is being built and how to spread the word to all of and for service organizations and individuals, media, MLA’s etc. So November 7 meeting is a strategy meeting to discuss all of this and to pick kick Off dates for community events in Saskatoon, Regina, and other cities around the province. We are a very forward and positive thinking group.
We are persons of various disabilities and we not only own our disabilities but believe that it is a characteristic of who we are.
Our web site that is not online yet will be BarrierFreeSaskatchewan.org
For more info please contact barrierfreesk@gmail.com
From our Halifax group:
They are presently anxiously awaiting the passage of their disabilities rights legislation which is scheduled to take place at any time. If you would like to know more then please contact Pat Gates at patricia.gates@bellaliant.net
Question for consideration
Do you think that a federally legislated Canadians with disabilities Act could help to improve services for traveling Canadian passengers with disabilities? Would it help that under this Act airport authorities and domestic airlines, bus and train companies, and all companies in the travel industry that provide both federal and provincial services would now be mandated to provide adequate and appropriate services to travelers with disabilities?
Tell us what you think. Tweet your response. Put it on Facebook, and write to us at info@barrierfreecanada.org.
Next steps
We urge you to complete the Federal Government’s online survey at www.esdc.gc.ca/en/consultations/disability/legislation/index.page
And we encourage you to read two informative documents at the following link. These documents will help you to be more prepared for the Minister’s hearings. http://barrierfreecanada.org/two-resources-for-canadians-with-disabilities-act/
We also encourage you to listen to Minister Qualtrough in a recent speech at this link http://www.cbc.ca/listen/shows/the-current/segment/10520891
We will continue to make presentations, attend tele conferences, as well as face to face meetings and we will be working to bring groups and organizations together for think thanks.
Contact info
We would love to hear from you; via email, via twitter, via Facebook.
To contact us, please send an email to info@barrierfreecanada.org.
To keep abreast of our updates visithttp://www.barrierfreecanada.org/category/general
Visit us at www.barrierfreecanada.org and sign up to be a yes supporter or use the form provided to write to us with your organization’s letter of support.
Follow us on Twitter @barrierfreeca
And like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/barrierfreeca
Signed,
Donna Jodhan founder and chair
Our Barrier-Free Canada – Canada sans Barrières steering committee includes:
David Lepofsky, Jutta Treviranus, Steven Christianson, Marc Workman, Chris O’Brien, Robin East, Brad Saunders, and Diane Bergeron.
Our five initial founding organizations are CNIB, March of Dimes, the MS Society of Canada, the Canadian Hearing Society, and Accessible Media Inc.
A list of our supporting organizations is listed below.
- The Low Vision Self-Help Association
- West Island, Montreal Quebec
- The Coalition of Persons with Disabilities – NL
- Guide Dog Users of Canada (GDUC)
- Canadian Council of the Blind (CCB)
- Alliance for Equality of Blind Canadians (AEBC)
- SPH Planning & Consulting Limited
- The Rick Hansen Foundation
- Quebec Federation of the blind
- Communication Disabilities Access Canada (CDAC)
- Community Living Toronto
- Deaf Blind Ontario Services
- Unifor
- StopGap Foundation
- Citizens with Disabilities Ontario
- Spinal Cord Injury Alberta
- Easter seals canada
- Access for Sight-Impaired consumers
- Every Canadian Counts Coalition
- Québec Accessible
- Centre for Equitable Library Access / Centre d’accès équitable aux bibliothèques
- Deaf & Hear Alberta
- Autism Canada
- Mayor of Halifax Nova Scotia
- Braille Literacy Canada
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