Earlier this year, a groundswell of public pressure persuaded Ottawa to reverse an order that would have deported a Montreal family because their 8-year-old daughter has cerebral palsy. Immigration officials had ruled Rachel Barlagne would be a burden on Canada’s health-care system even though her family volunteered to cover the extra $5,259 a year her care was estimated to cost.
The feel-good moment of reprieve allowed us to collectively pat ourselves on the back for our trademark Canadian compassion. But it also subliminally reinforced the belief that our gatekeeping is secure.
“The general impression is that Canada doesn’t let in families that include anyone with a disability;” says Ayshia Musleh of the Ethno Racial People with Disabilities Coalition of Ontario (erdco.ca). “But the reality is different.” That’s why ERDCO is joining forces with the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants (ocasi.org) to improve services for newcomers who move or communicate or process information differently from what society has decreed to be the norm.
Some may have undiagnosed conditions, such as learning disabilities, that aren’t immediately apparent even to themselves. Some are refugees who have sustained physical disabilities before fleeing for their lives. All meet the requirements of the point system used to determine who qualifies to come to Canada.
More than 106,000 immigrants arrived in Ontario in 2009, some 50,000 of them ending up in the Toronto area. There are no hard numbers on disabilities but Musleh and project co-ordinator Martha Viveros of OCASI, which encompasses more than 200 community-based organizations in Ontario, already know from a series of focus groups that more help is needed.
How does a young man whose hearing may have been damaged learn English as a second language? Where does someone with low vision go? What services are available? Where are they offered? Where do front-line workers find out how to recognize needs and offer solutions?
It’s hard enough for anyone to get one of the so-called “survivor jobs” — washing cars or dishes or driving a cab — while they study to requalify because their credentials aren’t recognized in this country. But those with disabilities have even fewer opportunities because employers aren’t always willing to make accommodations.
The idea of the accessibility project is to give everyone the chance to contribute to and participate in their new communities. “It’s about inclusion and building bridges and looking at the whole person — something the Accessibility for Ontarians With Disabilities Act (AODA) has brought into focus,” says Viveros.
Currently, the two-year project is finishing up focus groups. From there, it plans to develop training sessions designed to pull together ways of accessing information and bringing it all together.
These are tough times for all service agencies coping with chronic underfunding. But Viveros and Musleh believe the accessibility project will pay off in helping newcomers with disabilities contribute to their communities.
Meanwhile disability advocacy groups continue to lobby for changes in immigration policy to build a more inclusive and accessible country. “Canada’s immigration policy is based upon a negative and outdated understanding of disability that fails to recognize the contribution that people with disabilities can, and do, make,” the Council of Canadians with Disabilities argued in a brief to the federal government supporting the Barlagne family. (ccdonline.ca)
The actions of Immigration Canada violate the spirit of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which Canada ratified last year, CCD said.
“Canadians with disabilities are left wondering why a country that celebrates the contribution of people like Rick Hansen, Ontario Lt. Gov. David Onley and others with a disability would deport a family seeking to build a life here in Canada simply because their child has a disability,” it added.
Why indeed?