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Act Now
Empower U: Learn to Access Your Disability Rights Training on Canadian Human Rights, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and its Optional Protocol (OP) training aims to increase awareness of how to address discrimination using more familiar Canadian human rights laws such as Human Rights Codes and the newer international Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). This is training for persons with disabilities by persons with disabilities. The training is part of a project funded by Employment and Social Development Canada and implemented by the Council of Canadians with Disabilities (CCD) in collaboration with Canadian Multicultural Disability Centre Inc. (CMDCI), Citizens With Disabilities – Ontario (CWDO), Manitoba League of Persons with Disabilities (MLPD) and National Educational Association of Disabled Students (NEADS). Read more.
Human Rights
CCD's work in the area of Human Rights and Equality Rights apprises judges, law-makers and other decision-makers about how disability must be taken into consideration in all areas of community life, thus ensuring Canadians with disabilities have full enjoyment of their human and equality rights. The Canadian Human Rights Act prohibits discrimination against persons with disabilities and the Equality Rights Section of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees people with disabilities equal benefit and protection before and under the law.
CCD's Human Rights Committee monitors court cases and law reform which could affect persons with disabilities, guides CCD's legal interventions, analyzes human rights/equality rights questions for the CCD National Council and provides recommendations on possible courses of action.
Recent Work
December 3, 2020
December 3, 2020: Do Better Now Says the Council of Canadians with Disabilities (CCD)!
The theme for 2020 is “Building Back Better: toward a disability-inclusive, accessible and sustainable post COVID-19 world. This is not some future task. The time is now. Read more.
November 13, 2020
CCD Concurs: Add Anti-Racism Pillar to Canada Health Act
The Council of Canadians with Disabilities (CCD), a national human rights organization of people with disabilities working for an accessible and inclusive Canada, adds its voice to the Brian Sinclair Working Group’s call for the amendment of the Canada Health Act to make anti-racism the Act’s sixth pillar. Read more.
November 7, 2020
Disability-Rights Organizations' Public Statement on the Urgent Need to Rethink Bill C-7, The Proposed Amendment to Canada's Medical Aid in Dying Legislation
The Canadian disability-rights community remains united in denouncing Bill C-7 as an assault on the Equality Rights of people with disabilities. The flaws—and, indeed, the overt pro-MAID bias— which characterized the “consultation” process leading up to the tabling of Bill C-7 are well documented. In short, everything from the online questionnaire to the in-person consultations were geared toward a pre-determined outcome, namely, the expansion of Medical Assistance in Dying as a legally- and socially-sanctioned substitute for assistance in living that we see in Bill C-7. Read more.
More on Human Rights
November 7, 2020
COUNCIL OF CANADIANS WITH DISABILITIES DENOUNCES TRUDEAU GOVERNMENT'S RE-INTRODUCTION OF UNAMMENDED BILL C-7 ON MEDICAL AID IN DYING AS "HEAD-IN-THE SAND MENTALITY" THAT ENDANGERS THE LIVES OF CANADIANS WITH DISABILITIES
November 7, 2020
CCD Calls for Co-Creation of Solution to Address Anti-Indigenous Oppression in Health Care and Beyond
November 7, 2020
The Council of Canadians with Disabilities Supports Quebecer, Jonathan Marchand, as he brings his cage in front of the National Assembly in Quebec to obtain his and his friends' release from long-term care facilities
November 7, 2020
CCD Announces New Executive Committee
November 6, 2020
New National Coordinator Joins Leading National Disability Rights Organization - CCD
April 25, 2019
Canadian Human Rights Commission 2018 Annual Report Shows Little Improvement for Disabled Canadians
Some members of the CCD team at the Supreme Court of Canada on April 25, 2018 to intervene in S.A. v. Metro Vancouver Housing Corporation. (L. to R. Bob Brown, CCD Human Rights Committee member, Dianne Wintermute, legal counsel (ARCH), Dahlia James, a second year JD candidate at U. of Ottawa and Prof. Ravi Malhotra’s Research Assistant and Luke Reid, legal counsel (ARCH) , and Prof. Ravi Malhotra, a member of the Human Rights Committee, Prof. Anne Levesque, Chair of the Human Rights Committee, and Erin Carr, a second year JD candidate.
January 26, 2004
Twenty Years of Litigating for Disability Equality Rights: Has it Made a Difference?
This paper traces the evolution of disability equality rights; from demanding recognition and inclusion in human rights law, to becoming experienced litigatiors for a substantive vision of equality in Canada. Read more.
The Latimer Case
The Latimer case directly concerned the rights of persons with disabilities. Mr. Latimer's view was that a parent has the right to kill a child with a disability if that parent decides the child's quality of life no longer warrants its continuation. CCD explained to the court and to the public how that view threatens the lives of people with disabilities and is deeply offensive to fundamental constitutional values. Learn more.