By: Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA
“Did someone forget we’re still here?”
When Prime Minister Mark Carney strolled out with his shiny new cabinet lineup on May 13, I reached for my Braille display and scrolled twice—then a third time—just to be sure. Tell me, did you spot a Minister for Disabilities? No? Neither did I! After a decade of having our own champion at the cabinet table, the post has vanished like yesterday’s press release, and that omission speaks volumes about where Canadians with disabilities now stand on the government’s priority list.
Let’s be clear: erasing this portfolio isn’t a harmless game of musical chairs. It’s a red flag waving over unfinished promises—the Accessible Canada Act still needs teeth, the long-awaited Canada Disability Benefit remains a question mark for too many families, and our “Nothing About Us Without Us” mantra suddenly rings hollow. Over the next few pages, I’ll trace the winding path that led to this empty seat, unpack what that silence means for more than eight million of us living with disabilities, and lay out a plan of action—starting with why an advocate who’s fought (and won) in courtrooms, boardrooms, and committee rooms is ready to step into the gap. Stay with me; this story affects us all.
Forgotten or Left Out? – The Vanishing Act of a Once-Historic Post
Back in 2015, when Carla Qualtrough took the oath as Canada’s first-ever Minister of Sport & Persons with Disabilities, I remember cheering aloud. At last, someone with lived experience of disability—an elite Paralympian, no less—had a seat where the real decisions are made. Three short years later she shepherded Bill C-81, the Accessible Canada Act, through Parliament while my Barrier-Free Canada coalition rattled every mailbox, phone line, and MP’s doorstep to keep the momentum roaring. It felt like a watershed: government, advocates, and community rowing in the same direction toward a barrier-free nation.
Then came the slow fade. With each cabinet shuffle the title grew longer and the authority thinner—folded first into Public Services, then Employment, then lost in the catch-all of Diversity, Inclusion and Persons with Disabilities. By the time Prime Minister Carney’s lean-and-mean roster appeared this May, the word “Disabilities” had vanished altogether, its duties quietly absorbed by a mega-ministry called Jobs and Families. No mandate letter, no dedicated budget line, no public plan. It’s as if our decade-old progress got tucked into the attic, boxed up with the winter coats. We haven’t been defeated—just sidelined—and that, my friends, is how hard-won rights begin to slip through the floorboards.
Not Important Enough or Simply Missing? – Reading Between the Budget Lines
Look past the fanfare of fiscal charts and you’ll spot a stubborn truth: one in every four Canadians—27 percent—lives with a disability, and 1.6 million of us are still trapped below the poverty line. Those figures are not rounding errors; they are people, families, kitchen tables. When cabinet posts disappear, budgets follow suit, and suddenly our issues slip from line-item to footnote. Tell me, how do you reconcile that reality with a new Canada Disability Benefit pegged at just two hundred dollars a month—barely bus fare in many cities—set to roll out this July?
The unfinished paperwork is piling up, too. Key regulations under the Accessible Canada Act are months behind, yet we’re told all is well because the file now lives under a super-ministry of Jobs and Families. But accessibility isn’t just an employment checkbox. It cuts across transport, digital services, emergency planning, the arts—every corner where policy meets everyday life. Without a dedicated minister shepherding each regulation, deadlines slide and loopholes grow.
And the community sees the drift. Advocates like Rabia Khedr warn the move “shrinks big and bold disability inclusion down to a bullet point.” Legal eagle David Lepofsky calls it “a ticket back to the days we were forgotten,” while scholar Heidi Janz points out that folding the file into Employment narrows our whole existence to labour metrics. Government insists consolidation breeds efficiency, but the lived evidence reads otherwise: when everyone is in charge, no one is accountable.
How Should Canadians with Disabilities Interpret This? – Trust, Timing, and Troubling Signals
When the Accessible Canada Act was inked, the preamble promised “Nothing About Us Without Us”—a direct pledge that our voices would sit at every table where decisions are made. Scrubbing a named minister from cabinet tears a hole right through that promise. It whispers that inclusion is negotiable, contingent, expendable in the shuffle of political priorities. For communities already battling systemic exclusion, that breach strikes deeper than any budget cut; it hits the bedrock of trust.
The fallout is swift and practical. By parking the disability file under Employment, government narrows our lives to workforce statistics, sidestepping critical fronts like accessible transit, barrier-free digital services, inclusive culture, or emergency planning that could literally be life-saving. One week we’re partners in co-design, the next we’re an asterisk in a mega-ministry mandate. That policy whiplash widens the credibility gap: if the government can mute a portfolio overnight, what assurances do we have that pending regulations or benefits won’t be trimmed tomorrow? Canadians with disabilities are left wondering whether our hard-won seat at the table was ever more than borrowed furniture—and that uncertainty alone demands an urgent course correction.
Ready-Made Solution: Leadership Hiding in Plain Sight
Let’s talk solutions, because grumbling without a game plan has never been my style. I’ve spent the past twenty-plus years turning barriers into stepping-stones—starting with the 2012 Charter case that forced Ottawa to fix its inaccessible websites and set a nationwide precedent for digital equality. I then pulled together more than two dozen organizations to form Barrier-Free Canada, hammered on Parliament’s doors, and saw the Accessible Canada Act cross the finish line. Today I sit on Elections Canada’s disability advisory group and Air Canada’s accessibility council, proof that I know how to translate rights into real-world systems—whether it’s voting booths or boarding gates.
That track record is backed by lived experience and hard-won credentials: an MBA for the balance sheets, an ACSP for the tech trenches, and an LLB to keep policy honest. I run a consultancy, host advocacy podcasts, mentor young entrepreneurs, and even design tactile pottery—because inclusive innovation isn’t theory for me; it’s Tuesday afternoon in the studio. I know how to weave business, law, and technology into outcomes people can taste, touch, and trust.
So here’s the obvious fix: restore the Minister for Disabilities Issues and place someone with both policy muscle and lived insight in the chair. When a blind, immigrant woman can help write the very legislation that guides the nation, you can bet she’s ready to shepherd its unfinished chapters. A cabinet seat led by someone who signs every email “Nothing About Us Without Us” isn’t symbolic—it’s a guarantee that design with us, not for us, becomes the government’s default setting.
Call to Canadians: From Kitchen Tables to Cabinet Tables – What We Must Do Next
This empty ministerial chair won’t fill itself, so let’s roll up our sleeves. Start by lifting the phone or firing off an email to your MP, Senator, and the nearest editorial desk: demand the immediate reinstatement of a dedicated Minister for Disabilities Issues. When enough voters speak with one clear voice, even the wooden benches of Parliament start to vibrate. Next, keep a watchful eye on the fine print—track every Accessible Canada Act regulation and the Canada Disability Benefit rollout like you’d follow your child’s report card. Ask for quarterly public scorecards that name who’s on schedule and who’s drifting; accountability loves sunlight.
Finally, step into the movement. Barrier-Free Canada, Disability Without Poverty, local coalitions, and advocacy podcasts are hungry for new energy—storytellers, researchers, parents, young professionals, retirees, everyone. Whether you share a lived experience online, volunteer at a town-hall, or help draft a policy brief, your contribution pushes us closer to a Canada where inclusion isn’t optional. Together, we can turn kitchen-table conversations into cabinet-table commitments—and ensure that next time a prime minister unveils a cabinet, every Canadian can scroll once and see a Minister for Disabilities Issues right where they belong.
“Empty Chair, Loud Echo”
An empty chair may seem like a small thing in the grand theatre of politics, yet its absence reverberates through every regulation still unwritten, every benefit still underfunded, and every Canadian still waiting to feel like an equal citizen. The Minister for Disabilities Issues was never a ceremonial seat; it was the institutional spine that carried the Accessible Canada Act, the Canada Disability Benefit, and the promise that no policy would proceed without our perspective stitched into its seams.
So let’s fill that chair—quickly, and with intent. Demand its return, and insist it be entrusted to someone who has already walked the hard road from lived experience to legislative victory. I’m ready to keep leading, but this decision belongs to all of us. Speak up, stay watchful, and refuse to let silence be the last word. An empty chair can echo; a filled one can act.
Image = A black office chair sits prominently at a wooden conference table in a formal room, flanked by a wheelchair on the left and a row of chairs in the background. A large Canadian flag is partially visible on the right side, and through the window behind the scene, blurred towers of Parliament Hill in Ottawa are visible under a cloudy sky, suggesting a governmental or political setting focused on accessibility or disability rights.