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Monitoring the Human Rights of People with Disabilities in Canada: Québec Monitoring Site Fact Sheet

June 2010

Disability Rights Promotion International Canada (DRPI Canada) is a community-university alliance that works to build capacity and systems for monitoring the human rights of people with disabilities in Canada. DRPI Canada’s Monitoring sites: Québec, Saint-John’s, Toronto and Vancouver.

DRPI Canada coordinates work among four monitoring themes: systems (laws and policy), individual experiences (personal experiences), media (coverage of disability), and survey datasets (information collected by population surveys). Persons with disabilities and their organizations are involved at all levels of the project.

Key Findings

  • Situations of denial and violation of human rights were more frequently reported than situations where people were able to access and exercise their rights. Except for the area of social participation, this was true for all other areas examined in this study - education, work, income security and supports, privacy and family life, information and communication, health, adaptation and rehabilitation, access to justice.
  • Issues related to social participation were raised most often by the 46 interviewees. They reported high incidences of lack of respect for difference (83%), lack of dignity (80%), exclusion (72%) and discrimination (61%) affecting their enjoyment of social participation rights. At the same time, participants also spoke of many situations of participation and inclusion (93%) and respect for difference (74%).
  • Women were more likely than men to report cases of discrimination and inequality (46% vs. 39%) and exclusion and inaccessibility (46% vs. 41%) while men were more likely than women to report lack of autonomy (46% vs 43%).
  • A large proportion of interviewees (70%) made a report or took legal action when faced disability-based discrimination.

Figures and voices: A snapshot of the human rights experiences of Québécois with disabilities

Exclusion (male)
41%
Exclusion (female)
46%
Lack of Dignity (male)
48%
Lack of Dignity (female)
48%
Lack of Autonomy (male)
46%
Lack of Autonomy (female)
43%
Disrespect for Diff. (male)
50%
Disrespect for Diff. (female)
50%
Discrimination (male)
39%
Discrimination (female)
46%

 

Well, sometimes I can’t even get into some places just because I'm not capable. Even to government offices which are supposed to be accessible, I am unable to get there because they are not accessible. (Male, 50 years)

The famous transportation …it is not always evident ... but in fact they do not provide the hours we want, they are cutting our time ... or there are delays that seem to last forever. (Female, 30 years)

When you get into ... like convenience stores or anywhere else because you do not have access everywhere, because I'm using a wheelchair ... worse comes when people say to the owner or even the cashier "you cannot be here, you have nothing to do here". It is worse also in restaurants... (Male, 55 years)

The plane was supposed to arrive at five. On the information board the flight was marked as cancelled. I looked at the board. What’s going on? I didn’t understand anything. I didn’t hear anything. Everyone heard the announcements but not me as I’m deaf. We were waiting. Why is everyone walking; is it because of the cancellation? What’s going on? It is obvious that I missed a lot of information. (Female, 47 years)

DRPI Canada (a SSHRC funded project)

CIRRIS (projet partner)