Concerns about communication regarding Persons with Disabilities (PWD) — email to Min Khera

Greetings [redacted for privacy],

I wish I could start this by commending your office on how you've communicated with the PWD community since Min Khera was instituted as our representative in the Fed Government. Sadly, I'm not able to do so. To all intents and purposes, the recent change in Ministers has had no measurable impact on the actions that your office chooses.

I hoped your contacting me through Twitter was a sign of new and authentic engagement with those of us PWD that are not represented by the more well-known NGOs. I hoped that your initiation of discussion was a sign that individual voices were finally going to be heard. I hoped to develop a meaningful exchange of experiences, new lenses to view PWD issues through, and an authentic sharing of solutions to the problems that far too many PWD face in Canada. I hoped that you shared these goals.

I must admit that your—both yourself and your office—silence since your last communication on 25th August has eroded much of that hope. I find it difficult not to believe that there hasn't been any actual change in how PWD are perceived and represented. Silence is not a viable path to building trust; this is especially true when you are communicating with a community, the PWD, that have historically been silenced all too often. Where I had hope, I am now left with confusion, regret, and no small amount of distrust.

I am completely aware that the investment of a new Ministry—Diversity, Inclusion, and Persons with Disabilities—involves a certain level of "growing pains". I don't envy Min Khera's position of having to familiarize herself with a complex file (representing the voices of marginalized persons from all walks of life), surrounding herself with knowledgeable support staff (aware of the intricacies of this file), and then presenting a new way of "doing business" with that staff, her fellow Cabinet members, and the wider Canadian public. I am also well aware that Min Khera brings a unique voice to the table that was sadly lacking under the previous Minister. However, none of these real issues justify the absolute silence from your office over the past two weeks. I have to wonder if you are as aware of the very dire concerns of Canadian PWD as we are of the internal mechanisms of Government bureaucracy.

Our PWD community is, quite possibly, the most educated and "aware" demographic in Canada when it involves the inner workings of Government action(s). We have learned much over the past three years, going back to when the promise of a Canada Disability Benefit was first made by PM Trudeau. We PWD have involved ourselves in the various stages of C-22 becoming law, from introduction of the Bills, through both Houses, committee meetings, haphazard calls for "public" submissions (that tended to heavily favour NGOs), to finally hearing C-22 had received Royal Assent in June of this year. We PWD have involved ourselves because many of us found that NGOs do not speak for our specific concerns. Those of us unaffiliated with an NGO very often felt silenced by both the previous Minister and the very NGOs that purport to represent our needs. We have lived through three years of often feeling like an afterthought, never really knowing whether our needs were even being heard, much less addressed. Thankfully, our PWD community has also discovered the strengths that we embody in our community. Silence is no longer an option we will accept.

As I said, I truly wish that I could at least feel some small satisfaction in any prospective changes in how things are done. Sadly, that is not so. I can find no way to equate my perception of your intentions in contacting me with your lack of even the simplest email stating that you are still interested in a meaningful dialogue. I am at a loss to understand how both those things can be true.

I, respectfully, urge you to be honest with myself and any other PWD that you communicate with. I understand that timelines and schedules often interfere with ongoing work. I also understand that sometimes there are no easy ways to communicate that priorities have changed. Further, I am fully aware that Min Khera represents PWD in addition to racialized persons, newcomers to Canada, and all others that feel left out in an increasingly polarized Canada. I say this to reinforce that knowing all this means that should your offer of enhanced communication have been made in haste, I will understand and accept that. We PWD fully understand that sometimes we are required to "hurry up and wait".

In closing, I sincerely hope that you don't take my words as a personal attack on you or your character. I don't know you well enough to question either. I only know what you have shared with me: primarily, that you expressed a willingness to engage more directly with me and the greater PWD community. As you were the one to have opened this door, I will leave it to you to decide how to proceed from here. I continue to hope that you will step through the door that you've opened.

Very best,

C Daley