Last month, I published Part I of my transcript of a speech that Justin Dart, Jr. delivered to a conference of the Canadian Council on Rehabilitation and Work in Toronto. While delivered to that particular audience, these remarks are representative of the message that Justin carried to audiences everywhere. While Justin Dart died nearly six years ago and this speech was delivered nearly ten years before that, his unique insights, inspiring vision, and call to action are as important today as they were when he originally penned his thoughts and spoke these words.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Justin’s work, may his words enlighten and stir you. For those of us who have had the privilege of encountering Justin's passionate message before, may these words re-inspire us and strengthen our resolve to be the change that we wish to see in the world.

May we all be attuned to the urgency of the greater struggle that we are part of - by virtue of our own action or inaction. Lead on Justin…

~ Rob McInnes

Now make no mistake about it. I am not talking about the same old empty bottles with new labels. I am talking about massive reallocations of the human and economic resources of society. I am talking about massive investments in this society-wide utilization of the very successful experiments in free enterprise empowerment that you and others have developed in Canadian rehabilitation, independent living, business, sports, space travel, technology, and other areas. 

I am talking about developing a comprehensive, long range policy for empowerment that will give purpose, direction and coherence to the strategies and initiatives of our movement, our government, and our citizens. Lifelong education for empowerment, Lifelong services and community support, including rehabilitation, independent living, transition, supported employment, transportation, communication, and personal assistance services for empowerment. Business and finance for empowerment. Families that empower. Full legal services for empowerment. Technology for empowerment. Incentives for productivity rather than disincentives.  Housing as a base for empowerment.  Aggressive prevention, quality, affordable insurance, and health care for all. 

Colleagues, our effort to protect to protect basic human rights, and to create an empowerment society will give rise to the familiar traditional objections. “Too expensive.”  “Politically impossible.” And people will say in other countries, “Our country can’t afford food, shelter and basic services.  How can we even talk about full equality and massive programs of empowerment?” They will say, “Our movement is not strong enough. We don’t want to risk losing what we already have.” And they’ll say, “Our culture is different.  Equality for people with disabilities is not appropriate.” We’ve heard all of that before, and to all of that, I say “Bull feathers!”

If we accept these tired excuses, people with disabilities will still be second class humans in the year 3000, and Canadian Rehabilitation will still be vastly under-funded.  Now other cultures where legal equality and empowerment are inappropriate, that barbarian argument was dispatched at Nuremburg, in South Africa, and by the U. N. on many occasions. Other nations where our movement is not strong enough to advocate equality, where we should not risk losing what we already have. 

"Colleagues, are we fearful to lose
the world’s worst poverty and death rate?"

Colleagues, are we fearful to lose the world’s worst poverty and death rate? Timid movements have never gained anything. The Christian and the Chinese Revolutions were both started by meetings of thirteen impoverished individuals in open fields.  Now, is equality and empowerment politically impossible? Impossible?  Isn’t that what they told us in America about democracy in 1776? Isn’t that what the Soviet bureaucrats told the Russian people about two years ago? I know that’s what they said about the ADA just three or four years ago in America. Are there nations too poor to afford equality and empowerment for people with disabilities? We who have disabilities are not asking for more than other people. We simply demand our unalienable rights as human beings to share equally in resources and in responsibilities. A government that refuses to recognize its responsibility to the quality of life and the survival of 15% of its population does not deserve to govern! 

Too expensive? On the contrary, President Bush in our country, has estimated the economic cost of excluding two-thirds of Americans with disabilities from the mainstream to be about 200 billion dollars cash, annually, in public and private payments - $300 billion when you include lost taxes and lost productivity. Our irresponsible status quo, the failure to invest in the empowerment of people to be productive is the cause of economic problems in rich nations and poor alike. Humanity is losing hundreds of billions of dollars by keeping human beings isolated from the productive mainstream of culture. 

" ...no paternalistic status quo ever voluntarily empowered its subjects. We of the disability community will empower ourselves
or we will not be empowered."

Money is not the basic problem. Advocacy, government and business as usual, is not the solution. What is required is courageous, unifying leadership for empowerment.  Government at all levels must be held absolutely responsible to provide leadership for the creation of an empowerment society. Equally important, the private sector, business, religion, non-profit service providers, labor, the public media, families, individuals, must take full responsibility to provide leadership, money and hard work for empowerment. Most important of all, is dynamic leadership by the disability community, by us, to empower ourselves and to communicate empowerment into the mind and the action of the world. Because no paternalistic status quo ever voluntarily empowered its subjects. We of the disability community will empower ourselves or we will not be empowered. 

How will we do it? Now I have spoken to hundreds of leaders in each of the fifty United States and from many nations and I will briefly give you my thoughts, and certainly I would like to know yours. 

First, last, and always, united advocacy is the key to empowerment. We must unite and greatly expand our Canadian and American disability rights movements. We must empower more rights advocates with disabilities as advisers, professionals, and leaders in rehabilitation. Of all professions, rehabilitation must be a model of empowerment in action! And we must reach out aggressively, beyond our movement, to create new coalitions for empowerment that include not only all people with disabilities, but non-disabled advocates, service providers, and traditional minorities, but business, labor, religion and the elderly, and all people sharing in the sincere desire to have a just and productive society. 

"Where we are thousands, we must become millions."

Where we are thousands, we must become millions. We of Canada and the United States must join together with other independence-oriented nations to strengthen and enlarge Disabled People’s International, Rehabilitation International, and all of the credible international organizations. We must be the catalysts to further unite our international movement and to expand it one hundred fold and more. We must support the creation and growth of authentic disability rights organizations and united cross-disability community coalitions in every nation, with thousands of new leaders, millions of activist members, and state of the art offices and technology. We must create, advocate, and implement comprehensive civil rights and empowerment policy. We must master the politics of equals at the local, national, and international levels. Millions of us! 

And we must become far more effective communicators. Because we will not become truly equal until we communicate the message of our equality into the consciousness of more than 5 billion humans who will never read any law or any U.N. declaration, but whose thoughts and actions will define our humanity every hour of every day. And we must learn to communicate through the awesome power of the public media. Through media we create, and especially, person to person. 

And colleagues, we must transcend the impotent clichés of officialdom and the popular media. We must speak directly to the heart and conscience of the world with the simple truth, the naked rationality, the principal action, and the overwhelming love for humanity that is the only effective force for lasting progress. Our movement does not yet have a Gandhi or a Martin Luther King. But each one of us can be a truly powerful advocate for human rights every day, in every place, in our homes, in our schools, in our offices, our churches, and our clubs. 

"Our inaction, simply pursuing advocacy and rehabilitation as usual, could condemn hundreds of millions of 21st century humans
to continued isolation, poverty, and early death...
We are responsible to generations of children yet unborn, in every nation, who have the right to live lives of quality. "

Now colleagues, the gravity of the challenges we face, the magnitude of our opportunity, and of our responsibility, is almost beyond comprehension. There is a public passion for profound cultural change that is unprecedented in all human history.  This historic window of opportunity will not remain open long. Our aggressive leadership can create a dynamic momentum for civil rights and empowerment in every nation. Our inaction, simply pursuing advocacy and rehabilitation as usual, could condemn hundreds of millions of 21st century humans to continued isolation, poverty, and early death. 

Now, many of us are tired after long years of struggle. I am tired. But I think of my daughter Betsy, with three children and no job, deserted by her husband three days after she was diagnosed as having Multiple Sclerosis. I think of my brother Peter, who three years ago chose death rather than dependency and discrimination when he was faced with the possibility, with the probability, of having to be in a wheelchair like mine. He looked at that chair and he said, “I would rather be dead than dependent.” And we didn’t take it seriously in our family. And four days later, my brother was dead.  

I think of people in prison, in the institutions and back rooms of Moscow and Beijing, and I think of the people sleeping, and begging, and dying on the streets of Washington D. C., of Bombay, and Rio de Janeiro. And, colleagues, I think of the 14. 5 million children in the world who die every year for lack of the most basic necessities of human life.  How many of those 14.5 million children are disabled? Three? Five? Eight?  Nobody bothers to count! How many of the millions who survive are newly-disabled by the ordeal, destined to live short lives of Hell on earth? Nobody bothers to count! Holocaust. Holocaust, 1992, beyond words, and beyond tears. We are responsible to generations of children yet unborn, in every nation, who have the right to live lives of quality. We must unite. We must struggle.  We must love.  

Canada, the public media shows great hockey players, politicians, stars of entertainment, and mountains of incredible beauty. But my colleagues, you, in your quiet dedication to enlarging the quality of human beings, you are the profound beauty of Canada! I respect you, I believe in you, and I love you. Together, we shall overcome! 
 

ONLINE VIDEO: Assistive Technologies

The Computer/Electronic Accommodations Program (CAP) provides assistive technology services to people with disabilities working within the U.S. federal government. They have recently added three short videos to their website that demonstrate how three popular forms of assistive technology work:

• Speech Recognition Software

• Screen Magnification Software

• Braille Display

  See (the bottom of this page): http://www.tricare.mil/cap/acc_sol/

WEBSITE: Webby Talents

Webby Talents is a new forum and free video hosting website for people with disabilities. By hosting a broad base of videos that highlight the many talents of people with disabilities, it seeks to “sweep away preconceived ideas about people with disabilities”.

  See: http://www.webbytalents.com

ONLINE GUIDE: Service Veterans with Disabilities

Each year, thousands of military personnel stationed around the world leave active duty and seek to return to jobs they held before entering the service or look to find their first, or new, civilian jobs. According to government statistics, between October 2001 and February, 2008, more than 30,000 veterans returned home with service-connected disabilities (e.g., amputations, burns, post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and traumatic brain injuries). This guide briefly explains how protections for veterans with service-connected disabilities differ under Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

  See http://www.eeoc.gov/facts/veterans-disabilities-employers.html

FACT SHEET: Quality Indicators for Supported Employment Programs

This new paper from Virginia Commonwealth University’s CRP-RCEP (Community Rehabilitation Program Regional Continuing Education Program) asserts that there are seven distinct indicators which can be used to assess the strengths and weaknesses of supported employment programs. These indicators are:

1.       Use of Benefits Planning

2.       Individualization of the Job Goal

3.       Quality of Competitive Job

4.       Consistency of Job Status with Co-Workers

5.       Employment in an Integrated Job Setting

6.       Quality of Job Site Supports and Fading

7.       Presence of Ongoing Support Services for Job Retention and Career
          Development

  See: http://www.crp-rcep.org/resources/viewContent.cfm/631 

EVENT:

“Learning Today, Leading Tomorrow”

Ottawa, ON ~ November 14 - 16, 2008

This year’s event will be an exciting opportunity for students, consumer advocates, service providers, employers and all others interested in exploring key issues of equal access to post-secondary education and employment for students and graduates with disabilities. We welcome delegates from across Canada and around the world.