Inclusion Matters: March 2020

March 2020

To ensure you stay up-to-date, please make sure to add inform@cacl.ca to your allowed emails list.

CACL & COVID-19

Please Note: As a national office with staff across the country, the CACL team already works largely in a virtual capacity. CACL is following the advice of Public Health Canada and has postponed in-person meetings and all travel, and staff with caregiver responsibilities are working flexible schedules to accommodate COVID-19 related closures. Our full operations continue, so please feel free to connect with us online or by phone .

CACL Launches Article 12 Solutions Lab

CACL, with financial support from Employment and Social Development Canada, has launched a new project to identify and create solutions to the barriers to legal capacity that people with an intellectual, cognitive, psychosocial or mental health disability face, and developing practical solutions that can be implemented now.

Empowering the Most Excluded: Practical Solutions for Exercising Legal Capacity and Supports for Decision Making focuses on decision-making in the areas of finance, health, and community supports and services.

Read the full blog post.

CACL Celebrates International Women's Day

On March 8, 2020, CACL celebrated International Women's Day, when we recognize the important role women play in our world and the need for gender equality throughout society.

An estimated 1 in 5 Canadians aged 15 years and over have a disability, and at least 53% of Canadians with a disability are women. We want to celebrate women with disabilities as regular women. Women who are often faced with barriers that are unfair. Women with strength, determination and passion.

More info here.

#COVIDdisability: Disability-Related Resources for Families

CACL knows the implications of COVID-19 for people with an intellectual disability and their families are significant and stressful.

We will be sharing disability-related resources related to the COVID-19 pandemic on our website as they become available, pulled together in one spot for families.

If you find reliable information you think will be of use to people with disabilities and their supporters, we invite you to share it on social media using the #COVIDdisability hashtag.

Access CACL's COVID-19 resource page here.

CACL in Action!

Highlights of our recent national and international work.

Ready, Willing and Able (RWA) National Director Don Gallant conducted a site visit to the Society for the Treatment of Autism in Calgary as part of the launch of RWA Phase II. During the visit, meetings with national employers PepsiCo and Purolator were also held.

Director of Policy & Program Operations Tara Levandier hosted online dialogues with technical experts in the fields of finance, housing, and disability to gain input on CACL's My Home My Community RDSP & Homeownership Solutions Lab, which is looking at proposed changes to the RDSP for homeownership.

Life Worth Living National Coordinator Natalia Hicks attended the Campaign 2000 National Strategy Conference in Toronto, ON on behalf of CACL. Campaign 2000 is a national public education movement to increase awareness and advocate for childhood poverty reduction strategies.

RWA, in cooperation with Deloitte Canada, delivered a series of Lunch and Learn webinar sessions to Deloitte staff across Anglophone Canada. A session for Quebec is currently being planned.

MAiD Bill Violates Rights of People with Disabilities

On Monday, February 24, Attorney General David Lammetti tabled amendments to the medical assistance in dying (MAiD) legislation. CACL and other members of the disability community are strongly opposed to these amendments, which severely undermine the rights of persons with disabilities and further stigmatize people with disabilities in Canada's health system.

Read CACL's full response.

Deinstitutionalization Joint Task Force Relaunched

CACL and People First of Canada (PFC)'s Joint Task Force on Deinstitutionalization is excited to announce that the Task Force has been relaunched and is once again active. The Joint Task Force works to ensure efforts continue toward full deinstitutionalization of persons with disabilities in Canada and promotes the importance of full inclusion in community through access to safe, affordable, and inclusive housing.