She would often report on snatches of discussion. By speaking with some of her family members and reading some of her writings, I learned about her experience in social work at McGill University. She really wanted to be close to people and give them emotional support. For her, this meant social work, and it was all she wanted.
The feminist movement was very big at the time. However, when she looked into feminist studies, she could never find any statistics about disabled women or immigrant women. The statistics she did find about persons with disabilities came from the United States, not Canada. She wondered where we were on that and came to the conclusion that disabled women were invisible everywhere in society. That motivated her deeply.
She told her university professor that she wanted to engage in a thorough discussion on the realities of disabled women and to shed light on this issue, because she couldn't understand why people knew so little about it. Her professor encouraged her to do just that.
She had problems however, because all of her work was based on facts and statistics from the United States rather than Canada. She was unable to base her research on her own realities. The process was very difficult.
Statistics on persons with disabilities in Canada were monolithic. There were no differentiated analyses by gender at the time. She had to get all her information from abroad, in the United States. She was in close contact with American support organizations and those fighting for the rights of disabled people.
This university work led to her decision about what the cornerstone of her work would be. Her main concern was the fact that disabled women were invisible in the women's groups. Even in the women's groups, women from the diversity were excluded, both immigrant and disabled women.
Her work was also the first of its kind at McGill University to investigate the segment of the population made up by disabled women. She was part of that and afterwards worked on this issue. She concluded that these women had many challenges to face, including poverty, exclusion, and violence, which was one of her major concerns.