Archive for the ‘Disability Supports’ Category
The phony carnival war
Attention from the battle of improving the lives of Islanders with disabilities is being diverted by a phony war over carnivals and disability
Carnival freak shows displayed persons we see today as disabled
Updated from August 24, 2009
The Liberal government is licking its lips at the thought of in-fighting between the PEI Canadian Paraplegic Association and PEI Disability Alert. Double agent Myrtle Jenkins Smith, who works for both the PEI CPA and Minister Currie, has her hand in stirring this up.
Despite two letters to the Guardian protesting how much fun it is to have people with disabilities on display at a carnival, the truth is the event was against the best authorities on disability support and reasonable sense of propriety.
The PEI Council of the Disabled turned down this fund raiser since it was inappropriate. They said it was offensive at the event location. They were putting able body people in wheelchairs and having them wear oven mittens. Read the rest of this entry »
CRA poll says Liberals steady on PEI
Conservative Bagnall sees gains for Tories and weakness in Ghiz as leader
Liberals have double lead over Tories in decided voters (chart NJN Network)
The September 2, 2010 CRA poll says the Liberals are steady in voter support on Prince Edward Island.
CRA disguise this with mumbo jumbo about “over six in ten (62%, compared with 64% in May 2010) Islanders offer a positive assessment of the performance of the Liberal government.”
Jim Bagnall, interim leader of the PEI Progressive Conservatives, doesn’t agree.
“This government has put out over 60 press releases in the past month,” said Bagnall. “They’ve spent thousands of dollars hiring additional communications people; they are constantly revamping and developing fancy web sites to promote themselves; they’ve put out glossy document, after glossy document, yet their support is going down. The Progressive Conservative party hasn’t had a permanent leader since 2007, we have only three MLAs and yet our support has been increasing.” Read the rest of this entry »
PEI’s Premier Ghiz chips away at Senior drug costs but fails to deliver wheelchairs
Effective September 1 – Seniors’ Drug Co-pay Reduced by 25 per cent
Genuflecting for small crumbs - Minister of Health Carolyn Bertram, President of the PEI Seniors’ Federation John Kenny, Executive Director of the PEI Pharmacists Association Erin MacKenzie, and Premier Robert Ghiz (government photo)
Premier Robert Ghiz announced he is cutting the co-pay for the PEI Senior’s Drug Plan by 25% on the 1st of September.
The co-pay is being reduced from $11 to $8.25. The government estimates the savings to PEI’s seniors at $900,000.
Seniors with disabilities would still like their wheelchairs, walkers and hearing aids when the Premier has time away from his golf game and checking his bank accounts in Switzerland and Lichtenstein.
What Ghiz didn’t announce is the promised coverage of 8,900 Island seniors with disabilities in the PEI Disability Support Program. That was his promise in the last election.
Everyone with a disability on Prince Edward Island, other than seniors, qualifies for assistance under the PEI Disability Support Program. Robert Ghiz promised to fix that inequality before he became Premier. Read the rest of this entry »
Do we need $200,000 cocktail parties?
The $200,000 cocktail party was especially galling considering the budget for the Disability Support Program was cut $35,000 while Myrtle Jenkins Smith got another $90,000 contract
Updated – Two years after this story, the Disability Services Review has come and gone without any material improvements in the PEI Disability Support Program.
May 2008 was a firestorm for the Ghiz government. It weathered crisis after crisis generating reams of bad publicity.
The $200,000 cocktail party was especially galling considering the budget for the Disability Support Program was cut $35,000. Yes they had one of those luxury cocktail parties under the Tories and it was just as odious.
If then-Minister Valerie Docherty was in a party mood, maybe she could have one of those cocktail parties in every town in PEI and invite the poor and disabled instead of rich high-class friends.
It appears people get elected on a platform of “change” but once in power become mesmerized by the money. Economists say that most people can’t handle sudden a increase in personal income. It’s like winning the lottery.
For most of our newly elected officials, their incomes have doubled and tripled after the election. Obviously for some ministers the sudden wealth has gone to their head. They want to hobnob with the rich and famous. Read the rest of this entry »
We are not freaks
The Rick Hansen Wheels in Motion at Old Home Week was PEI’s return to disabled as freak show.
Updated - The Old Home Week event venue is inappropriate and insensitive.
For one hundred years from 1840 to 1940 the freak show was a popular form of entertainment. Freak shows displayed people who were for the most part disabled and who looked different from the mainstream of society.
“Today the same shows would be considered unacceptable and cruel, or as one disability rights activist put it, “the pornography of disability.” DisabilityHistory.org
Disability Community Needs PALS in 2011
Scrapped mandatory census cuts even deeper for disability advocacy group
Laurie Beachell, national co-ordinator of the Council of Canadians with Disabilities
Council of Canadians with Disabilities – Statistics Canada’s Participation and Activity Limitation Survey (PALS) is the most important and comprehensive source of disability statistics in Canada and is seen as a best practice model internationally. CCD is concerned that Human Resources Skills Development Canada (HRSDC) has not yet committed funding for a PALS for the 2011 census.
It is crucial that PALS continue so that governments and community have the information and research needed to develop good policy and programs. It should be noted that upon ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Canada will be obligated to collect data on the socioeconomic status of persons with disabilities.
PALS and its predecessor HALS have been, and remain, extremely valuable survey tools. No other survey provides the range and depth of statistically reliable information about:
Waterloo Record: Hidden disability leads to false accusation
Judgmental note, left on car parked in spot for disabled, insults driver
By Nicole O’Reilly, Waterloo Record
Updated, first published Jul 4, 2007
Sue Foxton doesn’t wear her disability on her sleeve. She doesn’t want special treatment, or to be judged. But a few weeks ago while shopping in the region she returned to her car — legally parked in a spot for the disabled, with a visible permit — and was horrified to find a nasty note. “I came out to my car and it had a note on the windshield that was really, really insulting,” said the North Dumfries councillor. Read the rest of this entry »
You are one paycheck away from poverty
Being on social assistance is often the result of mid-life disability over which people have no control
A recent Guardian Commentary resurrected some of the negative stereotypes of the past, quoting,
“Social Services, on the other hand, deals with the failures and fall-outs from all other social systems, beginning with dysfunctional families and going on to where health, education, attorney general (corrections), and community services have failed.”
In one sentence, the writer characterized those on social services as “failures”. “fall-outs”, “dysfunctional”, and rejects from prison. What is he thinking?
This is so far from the truth it is an affront to people who need social assistance to survive. For PEI’s disability community, social assistance is often the only way they survive from month to month. The problem exists across Canada and only varies in severity by Province.
Ontario tries to hide welfare reform report
Fix welfare rules, panel urges province
Christine Watts, a 51-year-old single mom on disability welfare, was caught in a welfare rules nightmare and penalized when she attempted to collect enough money to pay an unexpected hydro bill. VINCE TALOTTA/TORONTO STAR
Laurie Monsebraaten, Social Justice Reporter, Toronto Star
Christine Watts was shocked in June when a truck pulled into her yard and threatened to disconnect her hydro. The 51-year-old Cobourg-area woman had no idea she owed $1,100 from an equal-billing underpayment for the past year.
And as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse who lives on provincial disability support and a part-time job at her local library, she had no way to pay.
Community agencies and family helped Watts cover all but $240 of the outstanding bill. But she was still short. So her employer agreed to loan her the money and deduct $80 from her monthly earnings of just under $300 for the next three months.
But under Ontario’s mind-numbingly complicated welfare rules, Watts’ loan is considered income. And under the rules, every dollar earned by someone on welfare triggers a 50-cent cut in provincial support. Read the rest of this entry »
Welfare income for disabled on PEI falls
Disabled on PEI living on welfare at 57% of the poverty line
After tax LICO for person with disability on PEI
The National Council of Welfare has published statistics that show people with disabilities on PEI are living 43% below the LICO poverty line (or low-income cut-off).
People with disabilities were receiving almost 90% of the assistance they needed in 1992. Reforms to the welfare system on PEI hit the disabled hard and their situation deteriorated significantly since then.
Since 2003 the disabled have been living at 57% of the after-tax LICO.
The majority of Islanders on welfare are in that situation because they can’t find employment due to their disabilities. Read the rest of this entry »
Mother sues Eastern School board over injuries
Valerie Gillespie is suing school board for negligence when her son suffered permanent brain damage
Valerie Gillespie, mother of the boy with disability
CBC – A mother is suing P.E.I.’s Eastern School District over injuries she says her disabled son suffered at a Charlottetown school that left him permanently incapacitated.
Valerie Gillespie is seeking an unspecified amount of money for damages, including the cost of full-time caregivers.
Gillespie’s son, Brenton Organ, was a 15-year-old student at Birchwood Intermediate School. He suffers from Dravet Syndrome, a severe form of epilepsy, which causes both physical and mental challenges.
Court documents filed this week say on Jan. 12 Brenton fell while being moved from one floor to another. He was being assisted by a caregiver, who was also helping another student with disabilities. Read the rest of this entry »
Disabled woman ‘may have starved to death after her carer mother died suddenly’
A disabled woman may have been left to starve to death after her mother, who cared for her full time, died suddenly in her bed.
Tragedy: The bodies of Stephania Wolf and her disabled daughter Sam were found inside their home in Hertfordshire (image: Daily Mail)
Daily Mail – The bodies of Stephanie Wolf, 56,and her daughter, 29, were discovered in their home after going unnoticed for several weeks.
The pair, who were known to adult care services, had refused the help of social workers, it was revealed today.
Police are investigating whether Mrs Wolf, who was found in her bed, died suddenly, leaving her paralysed daughter unable to care for herself or raise the alarm.
It is thought the bodies had been in the three-bedroom property for a number of weeks and had partially decomposed before they were found on Saturday.
The alarm was raised by a man delivering leaflets who noticed flies swarming around the letterbox.
Mrs Wolf devoted herself to caring for her daughter, who was found just yards from her mother’s body. Read the rest of this entry »
UK cutting disability benefits in workfare destined to fail
We want to work – but government would rather cut costs than help us
UK's Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, putting the disabled back to work or else
By Rhydian Fôn James, Guardian.co.uk - According to the national statistics, there is a benefit worth £8.2bn a year where fraud runs at 1%, twice the rate of both disability living allowance and incapacity benefit. These benefits are the pension credit and the state pension, and a pilot review in 2005-06 estimated the cost to the taxpayer up to £51m a year in fraud.
The vast majority of pension credit claimants make genuine claims for money to support them in old age. Only a few very strange people would suggest that pensions should be cut for everyone, just because a handful of pensioners play fast and loose with the system. And yet, that is the argument made for the sick and disabled. Why? It is all about the tabloid-stoked perception of anyone claiming disability-related benefits as potential scroungers who are able to work. This line of thought suggests that most disabled people are capable of some kind of work – however minimal – and that benefits disincentivise work. Such thinking allows the government to take a hacksaw to the welfare state in the guise of benevolence aimed at reducing fraud. Read the rest of this entry »
