Monthly Archives: March 2007

Disability Savings Plan doesn’t strike the right chord, officials say

Posted on by
Reply

By Megan Walsh
JOURNAL PIONEER

For most people, the Disabilities Savings Plan will have no real value, according to the director of P.E.I. Disability Alert.
Stephen Pate says he wouldn’t trust the plan.

“At first it looked good, but it’s really not that good.”

The only people the new plan will help is upper middle class families with disposable incomes who have money to save, says Pate. Most parents supporting an adult with a disability would find saving money almost impossible, he added.

The 2007 federal budget is offering the plan to help families with severely disabled children.

To apply for the plan, families with disabled children must qualify through a form that, according to Pate, is very restrictive. Both those with mental and physical disabilities can apply. Revenue Canada will be the gatekeepers to decide who qualifies for the plan.

The plan will allow parents to save on behalf of their children for when they are not around to support them, with out the fund being taxed, similar to the RESP. The government will also match up to 40 per cent of contributions, similar to The Canada Education Savings Grant. The money can be us for necessities when needed.

When the money begins to be used by the child, it starts to be taxed. That’s the catch, said Pate.

Fifty per cent of disabled people live below the poverty line, says Pate, and the federal government needs to start a guaranteed annual income but they think it will just create a welfare problem.

“I don’t think that’s true.” The Disability Savings Plan is a good idea because parents want to make sure their child is going to be taken care of, but it still isn’t enough said Barry Schmidl, executive director, PEI Council of the Disabled.

“The federal government can do a lot more to help people with disabilities.”

The plan takes into account one aspect of helping, but it’s just a start, Schmidl said.

“It’s one piece of the puzzle,” said Schmidl, “there’s a lot of the puzzle still missing.”

Advocate urges disability help

Posted on by
Reply

By Steve Sharratt
THE GUARDIAN

MONTAGUE — A disability advocate and capital city Rotarian has urged his colleagues to press the provincial government to reform the Disability Support Program that was cut by $1 million last year.

“Harsh new rules were introduced to contain costs and we need reforming of the program to end human rights abuses and help all Islanders with disabilities” said Stephen Pate, a charter member of the Montague club and retired businessman.

Pate was guest speaker at Montague Rotary club this week and cited the need to recognize and help those with a disability, which includes almost 19,000 Islanders.

“According to Statistics Canada, one in seven Islanders has a disability or 14.4 per cent and that makes them one of the largest minorities the population,” he said.

Pate said people with disabilities are members of clubs like Rotary go to church, work have families and participate in life. But he said the quality of their life is often ignored and eroded through social policies.

“Loss of hearing requiring a hearing aid is a disability.” he said. “A limp isn’t a walking disability, but a mobility problem requiring a cane, crutches or wheelchair certainly is. Disabilities are implicitly long term.”

Pate is a Paul Harris Fellow, who has worked on the Polio Plus and Easter Seals committees. He is a retired businessman who went from accountant to forming Island Computer and Aquilium Software.

Since his disability in 1999, he has worked for various organizations of advocacy.

In 2001 P.E.I. inaugurated the Disability Support Program and Pate said that agreement included assistive devices and technical aids, community access, transportation access, employment and education supports, Home care, respite care.

“It was comprehensive in scope but severely under-funded and the money was stretched too thin.”

To an existing budget of $5 million and 150 recipients, the government added $1.6 million in new money, he said, but faced 800 more applicants and excluded seniors.

“Problems started appearing right away with a flurry of Human Bights Commission and privacy cases. In fact, 50 per cent of all complaints to these two bodies are related to the DSP.

They baked a cake, but he didn’t bite

Posted on by
Reply

RON RYDER
The Guardian

Disability Alert offered cake to the health minister Friday as it pressed him to commit to added funds in the controversial Disability Support Program.

But Chester Gillan wasn’t biting.

Gillan was joined by government staff and flanked by Liberal MLA Richard Brown and NDP Leader Dean Constable when he attended Disability Alert’s press conference, aimed at “celebrating” the first anniversary of what group founder Stephen Pate calls major cuts to support for Islanders with physical and intellectual challenges.

Government says there was no policy change behind the drop of DSP spending to $8.1 million last year from $8.6 million the year before. But Pate says there has to have been a conscious effort to control costs by refusing requests for assistance.

“If there is less money it’s a cutback. If there’s more money it’s an increase. I’m not going to play the semantics game. . . If the Disability Support Program had increased at around the level of every other program we would have received something like $9.1 million instead of the number that was in the budget,” he told the small crowd gathered at The Guild in Charlottetown.

He offered Gillan a bright blue cake decorated to mark the cut’s birthday, but the minister recommended they take the cake to the food bank instead.

Pate said he’d like to see restrictions removed from the Disability Support Program so that it can more flexibly meet Islanders’ needs. While seniors are currently served by programs outside the DSP, Pate said they should have recourse to disability support when those programs say no.

“By the time they reach the age of 65, one in three people will have a disability. By the time they reach 75, the number is one in two,” he said.

Gillan said disability supports are constantly being reviewed for fairness and effectiveness, but he wasn’t making any promises of new funding in the budget expected April 10.

“P.E.I. has been very responsive,” he said.

Gillan said the whole point of setting up the DSP in 2001 was to separate disability supports from government’s social assistance system. He said they have been working under the mission since and the dip in spending last year reflected changes in demand.

“I don’t think there has been any request that hasn’t been taken seriously or that has been callously disregarded,” he said.

The minister said services for the disabled don’t stop with the DSP. He said government supports some 29 non-governmental groups that work with disabled persons, while teaching assistance in the education system and various housing programs offer other services to people with physical and mental challenges.

Brown said Pate may get his wish for more promises of support, at least during the election season. He said the long-term stability might change if the Tories are elected again.

“I was very disappointed, during the human rights hearings on support for people with autism, to see parents testifying about the need for help and have government lawyers cross-examining them,” he said.

Constable said he doesn’t think that government should be counting pennies when it comes to disability programs.

“We need to increase funding because we believe that disabled people have the same right as anybody else to be out in the community and live an active life,” he said.

1st Anniversary DSP Cutback $1 Million

Posted on by
Reply

Ed: CBC TV coverage is in the video box to the upper right. Radio, newspaper and other video will be posted shortly.

Today we are marking the One Year Anniversary of the $1 Million cut back to the PEI Disability Support Program. This has resulted in the reduction of services and support for some Islanders with Disabilities and the complete exclusion from support for others.

In the budget of April 1, 2006, the Province of PEI decided to reduce spending on Islanders with Disabilities instead of increasing the spending as it did all other departments within Social Services and Seniors.

Where did the money go? We have asked the Minister where that $1 Million went and have not been able to get an answer. There is a Freedom of Information application underway.

The impact of the cut backs has been severe on Islanders with disabilities. Monthly allowances have been cut. Wheelchairs, scooters and other technical aids not supplied. Parents requiring special assistance for their children put on hold.

The DSP was under funded at the beginning. The PEI Disability Support Program was started in October 2001, replacing the Family Support and Employability Assistance for People with Disabilities (EAPD) programs which served less than 200 people with a budget of $5 million. DSP received an additional $1.6 million in funding and 800 new clients. This widened scope of clients and benefits put enormous strain on the DSP budget from the outset.

Parents of children with developmental disabilities are no longer receiving the support they used to under the Family supports. People who need wheelchairs, scooters and all kinds of technical aids and assistive devices are left out in the cold.

The 2004 joint Federal Provincial survey of unmet needs discloses there is a vast array of devices still in need. The accompanying table details the unmet needs on PEI from that report.

Seniors comprise 45% of Islanders with Disabilities; however, they cannot receive anything from this program. Nor can those who have a learning disability or mental disability.

We call on the Government to put the money back into the budget, fund this program properly to meet its stated goals. We ask them to stop taking money from people in wheelchairs.

Winning hearts through statistics

Posted on by
1

Presentation to Montague Rotary March 28, 2007
I want to win your hearts today through statistics. It’s not enough to see and read anecdotal information on disabilities. The information I am presenting is based on the latest reports by Statistics Canada, the Federal and Provincial governments.

According to Statistics Canada, one in 7 Islanders has a disability or 14.4%. That means 19,000 Islanders, making them one of the largest minorities in the population.

Who are they? The are people in this room, members of your family if your family is moderate sized, friends, people in Rotary, Lions, Kinsmen, your church, political party, people you work with.

Disability is not a childhood problem despite the emphasis on childhood disabilities. For children under 15, the rate of disability is only 5%. Most disabilities occur from middle life onward.

Disability is defined by Statistics Canada

any restriction or lack resulting from an impairment of ability to perform an activity in the manner or within the range considered normal for a human being.

This is the World Heath Organization definition.

Let me give you some examples. Small hearing loss isn’t a disability: loss of hearing requiring a hearing aid is a disability. A limp isn’t a walking disability: a mobility problem requiring a cane, crutches or wheelchair is.

Disabilities are implicitly long term. If one breaks a leg, there is no disablement in the sense of a permanent disability. If one loses the ability to walk securely over a long period of time that is a mobility disability.

Disability among children is rare. The occurrence of disability increases with age. By age 65, some 35% of the population has developed a disability. By age 75, that is now 50% of the population.

Some of the most common disabilities are mobility (walking) at 50% of the disability population, hearing at 30%, seeing at 30%, agility at 15%, and learning/Speech other – 6 %.

While Canadians with disabilities are protected from discrimination by the constitution, the practical realities are difficult. If you give some one an assistive device – wheelchair, hearing aid – will they still have access to normal society? Will they be able to use the wheelchair without building a ramp on their home, widening doorways, using a wheelchair bus service?

Governments have come to understand the complexity of the problem of inclusion includes both hard supports (assistive devices) and soft supports (community, employment, education and home care supports)

A joint Federal Provincial 2004 study found needs for assistive devices was prevalent with 1/3 of disabled – i.e. 2/3 had no need for assistive device or technical aid while the remainder had an unmet need.

That study showed a continuing need for devices on PEI including 300 grasping tools / hand brace, 550 hearing aids and devices, 375 learning aids, 550 bathroom grab bars, 550 wheelchairs and scooters, and 300 pairs of glasses.

Governments have been studying the problem of how to provide these disability supports since the Kirby report in mid 90’s proposing various structures at the Federal and Provincial level. By 2000 they had issued 2 studies: In Unison A Canadian Approach to Disabilities and In Unison 2000

Some provinces already had disability support programs like Ontario. In 2001 PEI inaugurated the Disability Support Program. PEI agreed to provide assistive devices and technical aids, community access, transportation access, employment and education supports, homecare, respite care.

The PEI DSP program was comprehensive in scope but severely under-funded. To an existing budget of $5 million and 150 recipients the Province added only $1.6 in new money but 800 more applicants. The money was stretched too thin.

Problems started appearing right away with a flurry of Human Rights Commission and Privacy cases. In fact, 50% of all complaints to these two bodies are related to the DSP.
Seniors were excluded despite being 45% of Islanders with disabilities and their obvious higher rates of disability. This can only be defended as a cost saving measure.

Last year the DSP was dealt a severe blow when $1 million was cut back. Harsh new rules were introduced to contain costs.

We call on Government to reform the DSP to meet the needs of Islanders with Disabilities by including all Islanders with disabilities, reforming the program to end human rights abuses, and fund the program at a level to meet the unmet needs of Islanders with disabilities.

Disabled have rights to privacy too

Posted on by
Reply

March 28th, 2007
THE EDITOR

The Province of PEI wants to track the sex lives of Islanders with disabilities. Every year they ask at least 1,100 people with a disability ‘Are you sexually inappropriate?’

There is no legitimate reason for this prurient question. The people asking the question are not doctors, nurses, psychologists or psychiatrists. They are even asking pre-pubescent children this question or at least their parents.

If you apply to the PEI government for your driver’s license, they don’t ask about sex. If you go to any PEI hospital for treatment, they don’t ask you about your sex life. You don’t get asked this question anywhere like financial assistance, or highways, or property tax, or agriculture.

All the government departments have no interest whatsoever in your sex life, other than the Disability Support Program. They want to know so bad they will refuse to give you a wheelchair or a walker unless you tell them the answer.

Three groups of parents filed a complaint with the Human Rights Commission on this question. We filled a Privacy Commissioner complaint too. CBC TV covered the story with other media and you’d think that would be the end of it.

Oh no, when the Province has a prurient interest in your sex life, they don’t give up easy. In the Social Service and Seniors filing with the Privacy Commissioner, the DSP says “each question has some unique purpose, to determine the severity of the disability’. They go onto to state the sex question ‘indicate a clients understanding of what is socially acceptable…’ That’s just baloney for ‘we want to know’.

When did Islanders with disabilities become sex criminals or incompetent wards of the state? We are free people whose privacy and independence is being invaded by the Province.

I racked my brain trying to figure out the reason they want the sex information. Why do government officials want to know about the sex lives of Islanders with disabilities? Is it to satisfy secret sexual fantasies? Is that why they pick on the weak, the disabled to ask these questions?

There is a fetish called Abasiophilia ‘a psychosexual attraction to disabled people. Is the reason the Province wants to ask these questions, someone has a fetish?

What other reasons are there for this gross invasion of Privacy and Human Rights? We should petition to move DSP to Highways. They seem like nicer people.

Ed: this was published earlier in a longer version as
Sex lives of the disabled

PC Party stops at nothing to silence disabled

Posted on by
Reply

Since we started exposing the Disability Support Scandal, there has been a concerted effort on the part of the Government and the Progressive Conservative Party of PEI to discredit any negative publicity. It took a new low today when Nelson Hagerman called me mid-afternoon to postpone my presentation to the Charlottetown Rotary until late in the Spring. I knew then the election was going to be called soon.

When I first offered to give an innocuous presentation on Disability on PEI in January 2007, the President of Charlottetown Rotary agreed it would be informative to hear it. He said the presentation committee would call me.

Then I get the phone call from Nelson Hagerman an old-time PC operative and party fund raiser. His wife had been appointed Lieutenant Governor and Nelson would have to be politically neutral from then on. Nelson sent out press releases that he was no longer political.

Nelson was pretty incensed about the whole idea. He questioned my right to speak on a disability topic despite having given at least 8 presentations to Rotary on a similar topic. ‘Shouldn’t someone else give the presentation?’ he suggested. In a bold attempt to limit free speech, he asked me to go over the contents of of my speech. I don’t think any presenter at a Rotary has been subjected to such blatant censorship.

Nelson literally threatened to hit me if I said anything embarrassing about the Government, the ruling PC Party. Guess you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. I started to laugh somewhat nervously at the image of 6 and a half foot Nelson Hagerman standing over 4 and a half foot me in my wheelchair and his hand is out stretched to hit me. He persisted so I kept trying to jolly him up.

Somehow I talked him out of hitting me and letting me speak. It was all set to go until I had a death in the family and had to postpone.

Nelson’s next date was in early May. He was still breathing fire and brimstone on my head should the government be embarrassed by my presentation. He was so incensed he was almost incoherent. I knew the game: put me off outside the expected election zone.

When Nelson called me today I knew it meant an election was expected during the time I would speak. Nelson wouldn’t want the public to think about Islanders with disabilities during an election. Why his good buddies in the Government might have to pay attention to the disabled, help them out. Even worse they might lose a vote.

I told Nelson I knew his game. He laughed nervously. I got a new date in June for my speech. On the CBC supper news they announced an expected mid-May vote. The PC Party will be safe: Disability Alert will be silenced during the election.

So here we have the husband of the Lieutenant Governor called up a disability advocate trying to limit free speech, physically threatening him, using vulgar and profane language, intimidation, and obstruction of the free dissemination of ideas. What has PEI become, a backwater dictatorship in the Third World?

In the work I’ve done for Islanders with disabilities, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend in how this government wants to treat information. They want to restrict information and public criticism. It smacks of a police state. I thought we had all been warned enough by Nineteen Eighty-Four and other literature.

Beware of a government that seeks to control public discourse, free speech, and dissent. This one is a text book case of people doing anything to hold onto power. Scary.

VIA Rail must make cars wheelchair accessible: Supreme Court of Canada

Posted on by
Reply

Pat Danfroth of the Council of Canadians in the Supreme Court of Canada lobby after victory over Via Rail
The Supreme Court of Canada has upheld a decision by federal regulators that will force VIA Rail to make their passenger rail cars more wheelchair accessible. CTV News

“Basically the judges have upheld the right of the Canadian Transportation Agency to order VIA Rail to make changes to accommodate disabled people, specifically those in wheelchairs, on their fleet of (French-built) Renaissance cars,” CTV’s Roger Smith said from the SCC.

“That means VIA rail will have to make changes on 40 of the 139 cars to ensure that there’s at least one car that can accommodate disabled people on each train.”

The judges ruled 5-4 in favour of the changes.

The Crown rail corporation said the ruling will cost them between $48 million to $92 million.

In 2003, the transportation agency called for upgrades on the cars including better bedroom and washroom access and expanded tie-down areas for wheelchairs.

In 2005, a Federal Court ruled that VIA Rail did not have to make the upgrades to the cars.

But the decision was appealed by the Council of Canadians with Disabilities, who have been fighting for the changes since 2000.

The cars are used in the busy Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal corridor and on routes between Montreal and the Maritimes.

“I’ve been on those cars and the difficulty with them is that they’re very narrow trains,” council member Pat Danforth told Canada AM. “The door widths are not wide enough to accommodate a standard wheelchair.

“As well there’s not enough room to allow for a standard wheelchair to be tied down on the rail cars.”

Danforth said the washrooms are also too small to accommodate a standard wheelchair.

Lawyer David Baker said Canadian standards are far behind U.S. regulations.

“There’s not a single wheelchair accessible rail car in the country at the present time,” said Baker. “In the United States there is not a single rail car that is not wheelchair accessible.”

Advocates say the ruling could be key in establishing a legal precedent in other areas like airline and bus services.

VIA has argued that incidents where a disabled person has encountered an obstacle on their passenger cars is rare.

Seniors excluded from DSP

Posted on by
Reply

PEI Disability Alert started a campaign in December 2006 to encourage the government to reform the DSP including the inclusion of seniors into program. The reasons seemed obvious – why should seniors be excluded from this important part of the disability supports network?

The CBC TV story in December tells the story from a seniors point of view. Doris Worth sums up the need succinctly.
The Disability Support Plan was set up in 2001 to provide for the additional needs of Islanders with disabilities “to help them to be as independent as possible and attain a satisfactory quality of life.”

Specific supports available for adults include: Assistive devices and technical aids, respite care for family caregivers, community living (home care), community access, and home and vehicle modifications.

The Regulations at 4.1.1 exclude all Islanders who are older than 64 years of age from applying, hence seniors. This is simply not fair and can only be justified as a cost saving measure.

There are 19,000 Islanders with disabilities of whom 5,100 of them are seniors (65 years and up) who require an assistive device or technical aid. 40% of all seniors have a disability, the most common one being mobility followed by hearing and vision. A 2004 government study shows that 1,300 of those disabled seniors still need some sort of assistive device.

Some of the most pressing needs are wheelchairs, scooters, grasping tools, and bathroom grab bars. Seniors also need more home care, community access support and home modifications.

It seems unconscionable for the government to not provide these supports merely because a person is 65 or older.

Until the rules change, we urge everyone who is 55 plus and has a disability to apply now to retain their qualification. The rules only say you cannot apply after 64. You should protect your rights. If you wait until you are 65, it will be too late.