“Nothing about us without us” suffers death by a thousand cuts in BC

Programs for people with developmental disabilities in BC are cutting off direction from the people affected. Input from people with developmental disabilities is pushed aside.

Although the disabled don’t want programs without their input, governments find it convenient to exclude those living with disabilities.

The same process occurred on PEI when the new Liberal government set up the PEI Disabilities Review Committee in 2007. All but one of the committee members was not a person with a disability. The reports represented views of bureaucrats not the disabled.

In today’s Vancouver Sun, professor Tim Stainton reports that the BC Liberals have moved slowly but methodically to exclude input and control over Board of Community Living BC (CLBC).

Set up in 2005 after extensive consultation with the disability community, the CLBC administers services to BC’s people living with developmental disabilities. It centralized previous regional organizations that were largely volunteer driven with a high level of direction from those who live with the disability.

The government promised to keep the board controlled by people living with developmental disabilities. At the outset that happened but as time went on the government changed ministers, deputies, and reporting authorities.

The rigors of a quasi-government board mean rules, guidelines, policies and procedures are checked and audited. That civil service culture is obviously not suited to people living with developmental disabilities.

Instead of accepting the dichotomy between the difference, the government pressured those with developmental disabilities to act as if they had none.

“Last Wednesday, the innocuous sounding Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act (No. 2) was passed by the B.C. Legislature. Within this bill was provision for removing from the Community Living Authority Act requirements that the Board of Community Living BC (CLBC) have a majority of directors who are individuals who have a significant connection to community living such as family members and persons with developmental disabilities. CLBC is the Crown authority set up in 2005 to administer services and supports to people with developmental disabilities.”

“Gradually, particularly in the last year, the core vision of CLBC and the principles agreed upon between the government and the community have been eroded.”

“Earlier this year, a model of regional budgeting and management was implemented without community consultation; next, services for children returned to MCFD without consultation and in clear opposition to community wishes. Now, legislation has been passed to change the composition of the CLBC board, and again without consultation.”

“The rationale of moving in line with other Crown agencies or the need for “appropriate skills” is not credible. CLBC is not like other Crown agencies nor was it designed to be, given the direct and profound impact it has on the lives of individuals with developmental disabilities and families. It is also extremely insulting to suggest that members of the community living movement do not possess such skills. What this amounts to is a massive breach of faith on the part of the government, which was happy to use the community to achieve its ends but now is systematically breaking every commitment that was made to that community.” Vancouver Sun

PEI’s experience with disability reform

Largely due to the activism of the Autism Society of PEI and PEI Disability Alert, the Liberal opposition used “showing respect for those living with disabilities” as an election plank in the 2007.

Once into power, the bureaucracy and politicians moved to extinguish the hope of reform by setting up the cynically titled “PEI Disability Services Review Committee”. It was comprised of civil servants and heads of non-government agencies who rely on the government for core and program funding.

I was hired as a consultant to advise the committee. The first thing we noticed was no senior with a disability represented the 9,000 seniors with disabilities. The government appointed someone without a disability to represent that 40% of the disability community.

The interim report and final reports are come with fulsome and positive expressions of sincere interest in those living with disabilities. The only result of the process was an increase in funding for some NGO’s.