Disability Support Program focus of families’ complaint
By Ron Ryder, Charlottetown Guardian January 20, 2007
A group of Island families are headed for a human rights hearing, alleging discrimination by the province’s Disability Support Program (DSP)
The families have complained about the inequities in the awarding of support from the DSP, charging that the means test applied to the parents of disabled children can result in some getting unequal service.
The families have also raised issues about the provincial funding of applied behavioral analysis for children with autism and about support for cases where a person requires 24-hour supervision.
The hearings slated for Jan. 30-31 and Feb. 1-2 are based on complaints by Vic Douse, Carolyn Bateman, Brad and Dale Wonnacott and Margaret Murphy.
A three-person panel will hear the case in the IRAC hearing room on Kent Street in Charlottetown and make a decision whether discrimination has taken place. An order for damages if any, would be made after a subsequent hearing.
Charlottetown lawyer Karen Campbell will represent the families alleging discrimination, while Robert MacNevin represents the provincial government. Jacqueline O’Keefe will appear as counsel for the PEI Human Rights Commission.
‘The basis of the complaint here lies in the delivery of a service that they say is discriminatory on the grounds of disability,’ O’Keefe said.
She said the testing of family income will be a major issue to be resolved in the case.
‘The province is saying that it has a responsibility to decide what services it will fund and make decisions about the level of support,’ she said.
O’Keefe said some of the legal issues being brought forward in the case have recently been dealt with by the Supreme Court of Canada. In June 2004, the court found the government of British Columbia had not been discriminatory in its decision not to fund applied behavioral analysis therapy, saying that the law didn’t assure funding for all medically necessary treatment but allowed provinces discretion in the funding of services delivered by medical practitioners.
O’Keefe said the B.C. case doesn’t match squarely with the facts to be heard in the upcoming human rights hearing, but she expects the Supreme Court ruling will provide some guidance.
‘There are cases that were begun some time ago and they will be litigated,’ she said.
michael
I believe it would be good to receive a determination from the Human Rights Commission on the preceived discrimination on the basis of age contained in the DSP. This idea of not including people 65 and over in the DSP seems disciminatory to me.
jypsy
Here’s the Auton decision (the Supreme Court decision mentioned here):
The appeal from the judgment of the Court of Appeal for British Columbia
(Vancouver), Number CA027600, dated October 9, 2002, heard on June 9, 2004
is allowed. The cross-appeal is dismissed.
The constitutional questions are answered as follows:
1. Do the definitions of “benefits” and “health care practitioners” in
s. 1 of the Medicare Protection Act , R.S.B.C. 1996, c. 286, and ss. 17-29
of the Medical and Health Care Services Regulation, B.C. Reg. 426/97,
infringe s. 15(1) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms by failing
to include services for autistic children based on applied behavioural
analysis?
No.
2. If so, is the infringement a reasonable limit prescribed by law as
can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society under s. 1
of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms?
It is unnecessary to answer this question.
3. Do the definitions of “benefits” and “health care practitioners” in
s. 1 of the Medicare Protection Act , R.S.B.C. 1996, c. 286, and ss. 17-29
of the Medical and Health Care Services Regulation, B.C. Reg. 426/97,
infringe s. 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms by failing to
include services for autistic children based on applied behavioural analysis?
No.
4. If so, is the infringement a reasonable limit prescribed by law as
can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society under s. 1
of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms?
It is unnecessary to answer this question.
“While increasingly accepted, Applied Behavioural Analysis (ABA) or Intensive Behavioural Intervention (IBI) therapy is not uncontroversial. Objections range from its reliance in its early years on crude and arguably painful stimuli, to its goal of changing the child’s mind and personality. Indeed one of the interveners in this appeal, herself an autistic person, argues against the therapy.”
In my opinion (as a woman with autism and 2 autistic kids), this was a good decision for autistics in Canada. Good on the Supreme Court judges for listening to (and hearing) an autistic on the issue. We are mostly excluded from all discussions about us.
Michelle Dawson
For a fact-based discussion (science, ethics, etc, with primary sources that can be verified) re Auton, from an autistic who opposed both sides, see this article (notes, sources and references at the end). There is a section about Canada’s “disability community”. Linked to the top of this article are other pieces of writing re Auton (including my SCC written argument).
Mr Pate is arguing that dehumanizatation is good for autistic people, something I doubt he would argue re any other disabled people. And he is arguing that the basic standards of science and ethics that protect and benefit himself and all other non-autistics should not protect and benefit autistics.
If Auton is being applied successfully as a precedent to deny services that disabled people ask for (I see no evidence that it has; e.g., there has been a wonderful decision making sign language a de facto official language in Canada), then this is a tribute to how willfully ignorant of autism and autism issues Canada’s disability community is.
“Goliath Arisen” was written by a lawyer who, in the SCC hearing, was responsible for an oral argument which described autistics as being less than half living (see this article), and works for a group (FEAT Ontario) which describes autistic lives as a “horror” and as “wasted and destroyed”. Ms Venhola’s SCC argument was the most denigrating to autistics of all the SCC arguments which, given all the competition, is really saying something.
The adversarial system totally failed in Auton, where both sides expediently deployed pejorative, false (anti-scientific), unethical, and dehumanizing views of autistic people, and of course, both sides were in perfect agreement that autistics should not be allowed to participate.
It is astounding that the Court regardless produced a decision that is not harmful to autistics.
Services for autistics should be demanded accurately, ethically and respectfully. Ms Venhola clearly disagrees, but she does not daily have to live the consequences of being seen and treated as less than human, as an unwanted and catastrophic burden on society, and as just naturally belonging in institutions.
jypsy
We have cases on PEI right now where Auton is being used as a negative precedent.
Please explain.
Michelle Dawson
And thanks to the actions of autism advocates and Canada’s “disability community”, there is no one to oppose the ignorance of the Human Rights Commission officer.
So the willful ignorance of autism and the gross prejudices against autistics promoted by Canada’s disablity community may have adverse effects on those people this community cares about–non-autistics.
And the disability community (as well as Canada’s human rights lawyers) will sit there and complain about Auton, rather than taking the minimal time and effort to recognize autistics as human beings with human rights.