Prime Minister,
I am writing you a letter, which you may read, if you have the time… You who have just presented your priorities to the National Assembly for the next four years, you have not once uttered the word ” disability”.
I have always been proud to be a Quebecer. I grew up to the rhythm of the years of the emancipation of Quebec society, which, strong in its sense of belonging, set the table for a fairer and more equitable society. I am a child of the Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms and of the Act to recognize the exercise of the rights of persons with disabilities. Proud of these fundamental legislative texts, as a disabled person using a wheelchair, I dreamed of taking my place in this effervescent society.
Being affected by a progressive disease, I grew up with the idea that there would always be a place for me within this social project. However, 40 years after the addition of disability as a prohibited ground of discrimination in the Charter, it is clear that the momentum of those years has faded. Avant-garde ideas are no longer part of our political and legislative visions and speeches. Quebec, once so innovative, is now largely overtaken by laws, programs, measures and visions of equity, diversity and inclusion carried by our neighbors, such as Ontario, British Columbia, the United States. and France.
The implementation of our innovative policies has not yielded the expected results. Whether it is access to employment, housing, funding to counter the obstacles of a non-inclusive society, accessibility to public infrastructure, businesses, public transit, the support necessary for full social participation in services (health, education, social, recreation, etc.), public administration and its components are far, in their practices, from an inclusive vision and able to respond to all of the population, in particular, people with disabilities.
Good will is not enough
Both among our elected officials and within the public administration and society in general, the issue of disability is eternally neglected, forgotten, not to say evacuated. In an inclusive society, this question should be at the heart of the speaking out of our elected officials. Unfortunately, the pandemic has cruelly demonstrated the failure to take into account the diversity of Quebec society, particularly in terms of disability (access to instructions, adapted masks, priorities in emergencies and in vaccination, inclusion measures during vaccination, etc).
In Quebec, unfortunately, inclusion is largely based, again and again, on the goodwill of caring individuals. However, a modern, innovative and avant-garde society should be able, through its representatives, to convey a vision and a discourse guaranteeing the inclusion and equality of all.
The response to disability can only be based on goodwill. To deploy, leadership must be assumed and nothing, currently, in Quebec and its components, is evident in this direction. Quebec, rich in its social achievements, today seems to calculate first the costs of inclusion, but never those of exclusion.
Prime Minister, in terms of rights, no savings should be considered, because reducing the social participation of people with disabilities at a cost is reductive and dehumanizing. In your inaugural speech, you talk a lot about prosperity, creating wealth and labor shortages. Are people with disabilities included in your message, because currently we can say that they are still largely excluded from the various workplaces?
Ditto, for education, which you mention is the best vehicle for ensuring personal and collective development. However, 40% of students with disabilities leave school without a secondary school diploma. If the school does not play its role in ensuring the social participation of people with disabilities, what will happen next for these people?
start dreaming again
Prime Minister, if you reach out to people with disabilities, make sure there is more than a reserved parking space, a ramp, an automatic door, proper adapted toilets, and that a food court is accessible, both in terms of its menu and its physical access, and its cost. Ensure that remote transcription, sign language interpretation, rest and quiet areas are available and that everything is done to take into account the diversity that makes up the realities and challenges of people with disabilities.
Despite everything you have put in place, I must advise you that it is possible that in terms of transport, I will not be able to get there, because Quebec is doing poorly in terms of transport. accessible. As mentioned in the brief filed by the Commission des droits de la personne et de la jeunesse (2019) and by the community defense of the rights of persons with disabilities (2022) the perverse effects of Law 17, concerning changes in the industry taxi, it is impossible for me to have access to a suitable taxi.
Access to transport cannot be reduced to a reserved parking pictogram and rely entirely on cities. A global vision and funding based on our territory should guide your actions.
In closing, allow me, Mr. Prime Minister, to do something that Quebec seems to have forgotten a long time ago: dream of an inclusive society that brings people together and is proud of each of the people who make up its social fabric, a fabric that is as rich in its forms , its colors, than by the origins that define it. Quebec will then be like my grandmother’s quilts, full of meaning, because, as René Lévesque said, isn’t it in dreams that most worthwhile projects are born? The current impression is that Quebec does not give itself all the means to dream and that breaks my heart!