We need more people with disabilities in politics — and represented in policy

This First Person article was written by Jen Powley, an author with MS who ran for municipal politics in 2020. For more information about CBC's First Person stories, please see the FAQ.

If someone were to ask me where I'll be in five years, I'm not certain how I'd answer: I'd likely tell them to ask some tough questions of the next government. 

Right now, I live in a condo in Halifax, which I bought with the help of my aging mother who lives five provinces west of here. She's sold much of her farmland to help me maintain my home, a level of support that not many people with disabilities can rely on and one my parents cannot keep up.

I am a quadriplegic and have been since I was about 30, due to progressive multiple sclerosis. I used to work at the Ecology Action Centre, but when my voice all but died — to the point where I could only speak in a whisper — I felt I had to give up a job I loved as I could no longer be heard at meetings.

If you step into my world now, you'll see that I need round-the-clock access to an onsite caregiver who helps position me, helps me get ready in the morning and in the evening for bed. I need help to get washed and to manoeuvre my power wheelchair. 

Somehow, I have to pay these caregivers a decent wage, even though a government program allows me only enough funds to pay someone about seven or eight hours a day, at $15 an hour. 

The world I'm describing — my world — has been largely absent from this election. There are few candidates with visible disabilities and few promises around improving accessibility and community housing for Nova Scotians with disabilities. 

Running for election myself

Running for election as a person with disabilities is difficult; I ran for Halifax regional council in 2020 and placed a decent second to the incumbent in District 7. 

I offered the public a different perspective; I don't have the luxury of doing things in the normal way, so I was quite comfortable looking at outside-the-box answers. There were few people, however, that seemed willing to approach me; I'm different and I think that scares a lot of people.

But we need to hear from people with disabilities and to see them represented in politics and in policy. 

Perhaps that lack of visibility is why disability-related issues have not made the headlines for announcements in the election. Maybe it is because the previous Liberal government approved the Accessibility Act in September 2017 — perhaps the parties think that all issues related to people with disabilities have already been solved. 

30 per cent of Nova Scotians have a disability

Unfortunately, this is nowhere near true.

About 30 per cent of Nova Scotians have a disability, the highest rate of disability out of any province in Canada, so disability issues should absolutely be part of the discussion in an election. 

Nova Scotia is also one of the only provinces with very limited access to small options homes for the physically disabled. 

If my family did not help me financially, I could have been one of 240 people under the age of 60 with a severe physical disability in a nursing home. This would mean living with people who are double my age; we have different interests and goals. It would mean living with people with dementia, people who could be violent or who might physically or sexually abuse me.

In 2017, Nova Scotia's Liberal government promised eight new small options homes, but that would house only about 32 people. That won't even put a dent in the wait-list, which had 1,698 people on it in January 2021. 

The UN convention on rights of people with disabilities, which Canada signed in 2010, says that people with disabilities have the right to live in the community, with choices equal to others — and that governments must take effective and appropriate measures to facilitate full enjoyment of this right.

We need to be housed, not warehoused. Former premier Stephen McNeil signed a roadmap in 2013 that was meant to transition people out of institutions and into community housing over a period of 10 years but, eight years later, little has been done.

The next government needs to implement that roadmap — and it needs to include people with disabilities when making decisions about how we move forward as a province.