Hello TDPM followers!
The Toronto Disability Pride March organizers are getting ready to march again in September.
We’re always looking for ways to make things better, and we’d like to hear your ideas.
Please leave your comments below.
The Federal Government will be hosting a public forum to get input from the public on what the promised Canadians with Disabilities Act should include.
When: Wednesday, February 8th, 2017
Time: 4:00 pm to 7:30 pm
Where: Chelsea Hotel Toronto – Churchill Ballroom, 33 Gerrard Street West, Toronto, ON
If you would like to attend this event, you will need to contact the Office for Disability Issues in advance so they can send you a short form with your contact information and accessibility needs.
Pro-Tip: Go with a group and plan the questions you want answered.
Here are a few starting points from the AODA Alliance.
Here are a few points that I’ve made regarding an Accessible Canada for All.
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Thank you to all of the marchers, speakers, and volunteers who supported us this year! We’re taking a break over the winter, but we’ll be right back to organizing for TDPM 2017 this spring.
You can still find us on Facebook and Twitter @DisabilityPM for updates on the Toronto disability community.
The latest: Silent No More: Ottawa consults on national disability act, demonstrations for disability justice remain strong from The Leveller.
Please stay in touch, we’re still here. Stay Loud! Stay Proud!
Click to listen to audio announcement.
The announcement reads:
On Wednesday, August 31, 2016 – Between 4pm – 8pm, on behalf of community and Public interests, an #AccessibilityNow! TTC campaign/protest will take place starting in the Yonge and Bloor area to raise issues concerning discrimination based on disability, barriers, and ableism in transit and its services.
The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act sets out the interpretation for “barriers.” Too many barriers exist within the TTC. It is not acceptable to take a “minimum/at least” approach in improving access for all. The standard should be a model that reflects an equal to or greater than the access that is currently available, model. The equal to or greater than the access that is currently available model is a model of equity and equality.
People have a right to access public systems; in this right, people should feel that they have the option to be free to choose whether they access those systems or not. We are all not free just to be.
Approximately 35 out of 65 subway stations are “partially accessible,” on good days. Functioning equipment = good days. “Partially accessible” means that all patrons don’t have the option to access the system for lack of elevators, Braille information and helps, proper signage (large print, clear, large-enough digital boards), functional escalators, inaccessible entrances/exits (now including Presto Card gates and readers) to subway stations, buses, streetcars, and extraordinary Wheel Trans wait/scheduling. Plus the TTC worsened accessibility when they began replacing the names of Toronto’s subway lines with confusing numbers.
TTC (and transit across Ontario and Canada) must be proactive in its operations and provide equality in its services and not discriminate against anyone, including people with disabilities and/or people requiring accessible access in order to use its systems. TTC was able to find money to implement Presto Card systems into its subway, bus, and streetcar services even though the gate systems being used at subway and bus stations are all not accessible; but TTC seems to be unable to be actively proactive in ensuring that all areas of TTC are fully accessible.
While this event will take place in downtown Toronto, the issues and concerns being raised affect all of Ontario and Canada. We want everyone to have the ability to travel independently, or in group, as we so choose.
We want a barrier-free Canada.
Will you help?
Will you join the protest and invite others to do so too? Will you gather with community in accessibility advocacy? #AccessibilityNow #GetItRight #AODA #AODAFail
Every time I fly I make a silent apology to my wheelchair. I leave the chair at the gate, fingers crossed, as I’m transported to the cushy seat on the plain with a small screen in front to distract me from what’s happening to my wheelchair in the cargo hold.
For my wheelchair this journey will be far more hazardous. Once it leaves my sight, this machine that provides me with daily independence, freedom, and mobility, gets thrown on the carts and on to the loading machines with the similar respect that passengers suitcases would expect.
Imagine watching you 600 pound chair get tossed on its side and just hoping your chair isn’t melted, broken, or taken apart by the time you reach your destination. Yes, these things actually happen to people.
I’ve looked up the standards and regulations, it turns out Transport Canada is really concerned about
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Reposted from https://reclaimingourbodiesandminds.wordpress.com/
Reclaiming Our Bodies & Minds: Navigating Our Spaces, Places, and Histories is the second annual inter-university/college disability conference in Toronto.
The Reclaiming Our Bodies & Minds Conference was initially hosted at Ryerson University in 2012. In 2014, student groups and campus/community activists from Ryerson University, York University, University of Toronto and George Brown College came together to imagine an inter-campus conference that brought together disability community activists, service providers, academics, and everybody in between. This is the second year of the Reclaiming Our Bodies & Minds Inter-University Conference.
The 2016 theme for the Reclaiming Our Bodies & Minds Conference is Navigating Our Spaces, Places, and Histories.
Disability is ever-present within our spaces, places, and histories…but is it evident?
This conference will explore the ways that disability exists within discourse, community-building, and lived experience, as well as the many ways disability erasure and resistance have occurred.
Join us for a weekend of empowerment, dialogue, and celebration.
The Reclaiming Our Bodies & Minds Conference will be hosted on two-half days and one full-day between Friday, March 11th, 2016 and Sunday, March 13th, 2016.
Friday, March 11th, 2016 – Ryerson Student Centre, Ryerson University
Saturday, March 12th, 2016 – Ryerson Student Centre, Ryerson University
Sunday, March 13th, 2016 – University of Toronto
The conference will be a safe, consumer/survivor/mad-positive, wheelchair-accessible space. ASL and live-captioning will be present at workshops and panels, ASL will be present for performances. Attendants, childcare and active listeners are available on request at registration. There will be a debriefing space and a quiet space available on Saturday for the entire day. Overhead room lighting will be used in all spaces, but can be dimmed/turned off in the quiet and debriefing spaces. There will be no loud abrupt sounds in panels or workshops, and trigger/content warnings will be announced prior to performances. Should it not interfere with access to the conference, we ask for all attendees’ participation in making the conference fragrance-free.
Thursday December 3rd is the International Day of Persons with Disabilities. It is also the day before Prime Minister Trudeau’s Throne Speech.
That is why on December 3rd we’re asking all of you to show our new Prime Minister and his Cabinet what an Accessible Canada for all looks like.
Using the hashtag #AccessibleCanada4All please take to social media and remind them that real change is not a continuation of the status quo, where only the most advantaged of us move forward.
This is our time. Let’s make it count.
Please share the #AccessibleCanada4All campaign with your networks.
For more information check out https://exposingableism.wordpress.com/2015/11/16/accessible-canada-for-all/
