Webinaires Webinar : COVID-19 and the Perils of “Warehousing” People with Disabilities

Institute for Health and Social Policy - McGill University

This talk will discuss three key perils of the continuing (care) institutionalization of people with disabilities in Canada. Speakers will discuss the impact of the “warehousing" of disabled people on COVID spread and deaths in Québec and Ontario, and its disproportionate affects on women, immigrants and people of colour. They will also share their perspectives on the perils of prevalent discriminatory triage policies, and the impact of facilities prohibiting personal support workers and family members on the provision of needed personal care, nutrition, communication, information and mental health supports.

Speakers:

AMY E. HASBROUCK has been a disability rights activist for more nearly 40 years. Ms. Hasbrouck’s activism combines her personal experience with congenital and acquired disability with a cross-oppression analysis gained through involvement in the women’s rights, anti-war, LGBT, and other social justice movements. She worked in architectural access and the independent living movement before graduating from Northeastern University School of Law in 1997. Her subsequent legal work concentrated on health and mental health law and implementation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Ms. Hasbrouck has focused her writing and research skills on abuse of children and adults with disabilities, producing a groundbreaking report on prosecution and sentencing of parents who kill their disabled children in 1997. This study led to her involvement with the disability rights-based opposition to assisted suicide, euthanasia, and other end-of-life practices that discriminate against people with disabilities. Ms. Hasbrouck has served on the board of Not Dead Yet in the U.S. since 2000, and she is the founder (in 2013) and Executive Director of Toujours Vivant-Not Dead Yet a project of the Council of Canadians with Disabilities to expand the reach of CCD’s ending of life ethics committee. She also serves as the chair of the Board of Directors of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, and has had several articles and op-eds published in newspapers in Canada and elsewhere. She lives in southwestern Québec.

HEIDI JANZ, PhD, specializes in the field of Disability Ethics, and has been affiliated with the John Dossetor Health Ethics Centre since 2006. Heidi is currently an Assistant Adjunct Professor with the John Dossetor Health Ethics Centre. She was employed as the Curriculum Coordinator for an emerging Certificate Program in Disability Ethics in the Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine at the University of Alberta. In her “other life,” Heidi is a writer and playwright. In 2004, she self-published Sparrows on Wheels, a novel for young adults. Her list of produced plays includes: Crips Against the Law of Gravity, produced in the 1994 Edmonton Fringe Theatre Festival, Returned to Sender, produced by Concrete Theatre in 1997 and by Lone Sparrow Productions for the Edmonton Fringe in the summer of 2001, and Voices at Dying, Dying to be Heard, produced in 2006 for the 16th International Congress on the Care of the Terminally Ill, Montreal, Quebec. Her latest play,The Book of Jobes, was produced by Lone Sparrow Productions and Kompany Family Theatre for the 2011 Edmonton Fringe Theatre Festival. An expanded, two-act version of The Book of Jobes is scheduled for production in Edmonton and Calgary in February of 2013.

JONATHAN MARCHAND est Président de Coop ASSIST. Il est un stratège confiant, un planificateur renseigné et déterminé qui a travaillé longtemps dans les technologies de l’information au Québec et en Australie en tant qu’ingénieur réseau sénior. Il est l’instigateur du projet pour un nouveau programme d’Assistance Personnelle Autodirigé. Il croit profondément que toutes les personnes en situation de handicap du Québec doivent avoir le soutien nécessaire pour vivre en société, incluant celles qui ont besoin d’un soutien important, sans compromettre leurs droits humains. Son expérience de vie m’a appris qu’il existe des obstacles énormes à l’inclusion sociale et culturelle des personnes handicapées au Québec et il s’est engagé à éliminer ces barrières pour permettre à celle-ci de participer et contribuer à la société sur un pied d’égalité.