Executive Summary
According to Statistics Canada, 18.4% (or 612,120 persons) of the population aged 15 and over in British Columbia are limited in their daily activities due to a physical or psychological condition (BC Stats, 2009). Many of these persons also experience significant barriers in the exercise of their rights.
Canada is signatory of a number of international human rights treaties, including the most recent Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Canadians with disabilities, regardless where they live, should therefore be entitled the same human rights and freedoms that are granted to all other citizens. Monitoring studies are crucial to measure to what extent the commitments made by Canada in paper are translated on the ground.
DRPI-Canada is a collaborative project funded by Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), working to establish a sustainable monitoring system to address disability discrimination in Canada. The project employs a human rights approach to disability, which focuses on the way systemic discrimination and social exclusion increase vulnerability of persons with disabilities to abuse, poverty, unemployment, and other forms of discrimination and inequitable social conditions. Evidence-based knowledge regarding the extent to which people with disabilities face discrimination will inform effective societal, policy and program change to improve the lives of people with disabilities in Canada.
This report is based on 41 individual interviews conducted in the Great Vancouver Area with persons with various types of disabilities to document their lived experiences in exercising their rights. DRPI-Canada partnered with the BC Coalition of People with Disabilities (BCCPD) which took leadership on all stages of the monitoring activities. Monitoring data has been collected through face-to-face interviews conducted by previously trained monitors, persons with disabilities themselves. The interviews were taped, transcribed and coded using a coding scheme developed by the international DRPI project, and then analysed using NVivo 8 software.
In this study, five key human rights principles - autonomy; dignity; participation, inclusion &accessibility; non-discrimination & equality; and respect for difference - were explored in connection to key domains of life for people with disabilities. The domains considered in this study are: social participation; privacy and family life; education; work; information and communication; access to justice; income security and support services; and access to health, habilitation and rehabilitation.
Experiences of Human Rights across Domains of Life
Overall, the findings indicate that individuals with disabilities encounter both positive and negative experiences in exercising their rights. Although the instances of denial of human rights tend to outnumber positive experiences, the fact that the latter were also identified may signal that, despite ongoing disparities, positive change is also underway for persons with disabilities in Vancouver area.
Social participation, Income security & supports and Work are the areas where negative experiences predominate, whereas Family is the realm of life with more positive experiences of inclusion and human dignity.
Social participation emerged as the most significant domain for participants, involving the greatest number of reports. In particular, interviewees reported devalued human dignity on the grounds of disability in their interactions within the public space. They also denounced experiences of exclusion related to lack of accessibility in the built environment and transportation system. At the same time, a number of interviewees, however smaller, reported situations of inclusion in social, cultural, and sports activities and instances when they felt their dignity affirmed.
Income security & support services is another area where many barriers were reported. According to participants' reports, lack of adequate disability-related supports hinders their full and effective participation in the community.
In the domain of Work and access to the labour market, interestingly, varied results were found, with high proportion of both positive and negative experiences. While many participants mentioned barriers to get paid work, a similar proportion reported accommodated needs at their workplace.
Comparing to the other domains, Family life mostly consisted of positive experiences. Approximately one in two interviewees felt valued and supported in their family life and relationships.
Regarding Education, the results were ambiguous: while one third of the interviewees reported feeling included, a similarly high proportion reported barriers and exclusion at school and the larger education system. Most of the reports emphasized unmet accessibility needs and the lack of appropriate supports as main cause for exclusion.
Health, habilitation and rehabilitation domain abounded in reports of devalued dignity around experiences of denial of access to health services. In particular, psychiatric survivors and other participants using psychiatric services reported several instances of disrespect on the grounds of their disabilities in their attempts to access the health system.
Access to justice and access to Information and communication systems are two other realms of life where people with disabilities faced significant disadvantage and exclusion. Lack of adequate supports for people with various disabilities such as hearing, sensorial and psychosocial, leads to exclusion from a variety of communication venues, with negative impact on personal dignity and worth. Erosion of dignity was also emphasized by the interviewees in relation to access to justice, financial and legislative barriers emerging as the main causes of exclusion from the legal system.
Facing disadvantages, most participants cited economic factors as the primary cause of discrimination, perceiving the economic infrastructure as the major challenge to the fulfilment of their rights.
Despite their negative encounters with justice, participants tend to take a proactive attitude when facing discrimination. In fact, over three quarters of those interviewed chose to report or file an official complaint against an experienced violation. For those who did not take any formal action, the main reason was that they considered a formal action as not effective to change their situation.
Intersectional Analyses
The study also explored the exercise of rights by people with disabilities as affected by gender and age 1 in order to provide a better contextualization for their experiences.
- Note #1
- It was not possible to conduct the analysis by types of disability due to small size cells once disaggregating by various types of disability represented in the sample.
- Return
Gender was found to affect participants' experiences in the domains of privacy and family life, health, habilitation& rehabilitation, education and access to justice, although in different ways. Men tend to report significantly more instances of discrimination and ill-treatment than women in relation to access to justice, whereas women tend to report more on issues of discrimination in health, habilitation& rehabilitation and in education. Family life also emerged as a greater source of support among women than men.
Age seemed to impact participants' experiences particularly in the following domains: work, privacy and family life and access to justice. Younger people reported experiences mainly in relation to work and family life. Access to justice emerged as an issue only for older participants who also seem to be able to exercise their self-determination more than younger people.
Facing ableism in their daily life, participants made a number of recommendations to improve the situation and circumstance of people with disabilities. Educating the public about disability and increased social supports emerged as the key recommendations from participants. Specifically, participants recommended that the government create stronger mechanisms to support decent living conditions and income for people with disabilities.