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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.
Litigation
CCD intervenes in test cases so that the judge/judges hearing cases will have the opportunity to benefit from the collective experiences of the disability rights community and the analysis of human rights by legal experts fully informed by disability experience. (A test case is one which is likely to lead to a legal precedent and alter a law or practice.) CCD has been involved in many of the landmark cases that helped to bring down barriers that were preventing the full and equal participation of Canadians with disabilities. For example, CCD has used the Canadian legal system to advance jurisprudence on the following issues:
- the accommodation of people with disabilities in employment (Bhinder, O'Malley, and Grismer cases)
- access to long term disability benefits (Gibbs case)
- how equality is defined under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Andrews case, Lovelace case)
- inclusive education (Eaton case)
- the right of deaf people to have interpreters in medical settings (Eldridge case)
- the application of the proscribed legal penalties when the victim of a killing is a person with a disability (Genereux and Latimer), and
- the equal protection of the law (Latimer case)
Recent Work
November 2, 2022
THE COUNCIL OF CANADIANS WITH DISABILITIES SEEKS A HUMAN RIGHTS LAWYER
The Council of Canadians with Disabilities (CCD) is looking for a part-time lawyer to undertake legal research and provide guidance and advice on test case litigation. CCD is a national, cross-disability organization that uses a variety of advocacy activities to remove barriers and promote justice and equality for people with disabilities.
This position starts immediately and runs until March 31, 2023 with the potential for extension. It is a part-time independent contract position. The work is virtual and the selected candidate must provide their own office and computer equipment. Read more.
June 23, 2022
Supreme Court of Canada Rules Charter Challenge to Forced Psychiatric Treatment Laws Can Continue
June 23, 2022, (Vancouver, BC) Today the Supreme Court of Canada rejected the BC government’s five-year legal campaign aimed at stopping the Council of Canadians with Disabilities (CCD) – a nationally respected disability rights organization – from challenging BC’s outdated and unconstitutional forced psychiatric treatment laws. The court not only rejected the government’s appeal, but also confirmed that CCD has the legal right to bring the case forward. In an extraordinary move, the Court also ordered that the government pay for all legal costs associated with this unnecessary delay.“The Supreme Court unanimously and decisively resolved the standing question in CCD’s favour,” says Michael Feder, a lawyer with the law firm McCarthy Tétrault who argued the case on behalf of CCD. “This ruling has broad importance for access to justice and for ensuring discriminatory and other unconstitutional laws can be challenged in court.” Read more.
November 24, 2021
Immediate and Meaningful Action Required to Address Systemic Discrimination of Adults Who Have a Disability in Nova Scotia
The Beth MacLean decision has sent a powerful message across Canada about Nova Scotia’s systemic discrimination against people with disabilities. Following this landmark decision, the National Organizations are writing this letter in support of the Disability Rights Coalition’s call for immediate action to end the human rights emergency in Nova Scotia. Read more.
More on Litigation
October 6, 2021
SIGNIFICANT VICTORY FOR NOVA SCOTIANS WITH INTELLECTUAL DISABILITIES
January 25, 2019
COUNCIL OF CANADIANS WITH DISABILITIES APPLAUDS DECISION OF THE SUPREME COURT OF CANADA
November 29, 2018
Update on the Charter Challenge to BC's Mental Health Act
April 24, 2018
S.A. v. Metro Vancouver Housing Corporation
February 27, 2018
MEDIA ADVISORY
September 22, 2016
Charter challenge of forced psychiatric treatment filed in BC Supreme Court
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.
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.