Disability support
2010 09 30 | journal
There are 338 members of the House of Commons, 338 elected officials that are meant to look after the interests of all Canadians. And while I realise that you can't address all the issues all the time, there's been months, years, decades in which one issue could be addressed but isn't: the legislated poverty into which Canadians with disabilities and chronic ailments are forced to live.
I am not sure what of this bothers me the most:
- That the situation is never adequately addressed.
- When it is addressed it's done in so piecemeal a fashion it leads to no change at all.
- That when it is addressed what happens is erosion of what supports do exist.
- That there are people considering assisted suicide not because they can no longer cope with their disability but because they can no longer cope with being so poor.
- That in a rich nation like Canada, people are so readily dismissed, dismissed as not the responsibility of their fellow countrymen, dismissed to be someone else's ‘problem’.
- That disabled people are thought of as a problem. We have enough to deal with without that level of derision and devaluing.
- That there are people who wake up each morning and think it's okay to devalue, dismiss, and deride someone who cannot do for themselves.
- That there is so little sense of charity and kindness that people think the former is okay.
- That the only means by which so many seem to value a fellow being is by how or whether they can financially contribute via the vehicle of employment.
- That we don't value non-work contributions people do make.
- That we don't take enough responsibility for the fate of our fellows.
- That so many people on assistance programs targeted to the disabled are dismissed as lazy, shiftless, bums, stupid, ignorant, uneducated, greedy, excuse-makers, trash. I haven't got enough time in my day to enumerate the list of adjectives I've heard.
I want you to consider some things.
- There are many who would love to work but can't because their disabilities and illnesses won't allow it.
- Yes, discrimination against the disabled as a barrier to employment is illegal but it exists.
- Not all disabilities can be accommodated all the time. I, for example, can't be accommodated into having enough vision to drive a car or operate machinery, and it would be financially crippling to retool an entire factory just so one person could work at it.
- I don't know of any employer who will hire someone whose illness would cause them to be out of work unpredictably and for equally unpredictable amounts of time.
- Disabled people and the chronically ill are constantly under pressure to justify their lives, to explain how they live to others. This is incredibly frustrating and devaluing coupled with the inability to work a regular nine-to-five job.
- Disabled people do not want to have to borrow money to buy feminine hygiene products because they're too broke to buy them themselves.
- Disabled people do not want to have to go to a food bank to eat what others throw away. Food banks are a sign that a society has failed more than a sign that someone is kind. Canada, I love you, but you are a shameful nation today for more reasons than I should have admit exist, and the treatment of the disabled is on that list.
- There are people who profit off the labours of our citizens who squirrel that money away in offshored tax havens that hides it from the very economy that made them that money.
- This is never condemned in the same way the poor are condemned for the pittance the government does dole out to them. Anyone who finds this acceptable is twisted.
If you wake up and think that none of this has anything to do with you, then you're either suffering an empathy impairment or you're simply a heartless beast who's part of the problem. Or you're just trash. This is a land-rich, food-secure, financially capable country with no excuse for the continued dismissing of those who are most vulnerable. Anyone who tells you that we're broke is full of shit.