Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on Nov. 21st, 2023

[Diane Richler, Co-Chair, Catalyst for Inclusive Education, Inclusion International]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Members of the committee, thank you for undertaking a study of international disability-inclusive education, including that with respect to intellectual and developmental disabilities. I would especially like to thank the Honourable Mike Lake for introducing this critical issue into the parliamentary agenda. I would also like to thank Ms. Vandenbeld, who was one of the few people at the UN-organized presummit for the Transforming Education Summit in Paris last year to raise the issue of inclusion within education. I also want to express my thanks to my member of Parliament, the Honourable Carolyn Bennett, who was one of the first members of this House to advocate for the rights of persons with disabilities.

I'm pleased to be here today representing Inclusion International, the global federation of associations of persons with intellectual disabilities and their families, with over 200 national members in over 115 countries. I'm joined virtually by Mónica Cortés from Bogota, Colombia, who, with me, co-chairs Inclusion International's catalyst for inclusive education program, which assists our members in promoting inclusive education.

Mónica, will you say a few words?

[Mónica Cortés, Co-Chair, Catalyst for Inclusive Education, Inclusion International]

Thank you very much, Diane.

I appreciate the opportunity to talk with you today and to share our experience in Colombia. As members of Inclusion International, we have been promoting inclusive education for more than 15 years, providing tools to families, teachers and decision-makers so they can have a shared vision of what inclusive education means for people with intellectual disabilities.

We know the transformative power of inclusive education when our children can be recognized and valued by other students without disabilities and by the community in which they live and develop. Only then will they have real networks in the future to live in the community with sufficient social capital to make them part of it and to provide them with the necessary support.

The goal of inclusive education, as stated in SDG 4, led us to participate in an initiative funded by Education Cannot Wait to ensure education for students who live at risk of prolonged emergencies, such as migrant children, victims of armed conflict, and girls and women victims of gender-based violence, among whom are people with disabilities. We are learning that inclusive education is a gender issue. When children with disabilities are left out of education, their mothers cannot participate in the labour market. In conflict and crisis, education is often the only place where girls and women can be included.

Colombia is committed to having a unique, inclusive education system that recognizes the importance of giving a place to each student, valuing their individual differences and providing the necessary supports and adjustments.

Countries that have ratified the CRPD and committed to closing gaps in access to inclusive education for students with disabilities must invest resources in cultural transformation to break down barriers that still exist for under-represented groups such as students with intellectual disabilities and those with high support needs, a high proportion of whom remain out of school.

Finally, from my experience as a mother with a son who has an intellectual disability and knowing other persons who are adults today, I can say that we see the favourable impact that inclusive education has on the lives of persons with intellectual disabilities and their families. They can transition to training programs and employment and enjoy a full life in the community.

Thank you very much.

Diane, I'll turn it back to you.

[Diane Richler]

Thank you, Mónica.

Inclusion International has been pleased with the increased global support for inclusive education, such as in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which was ratified by Canada in 2012, the commitment to inclusive education in the sustainable development goals and the conclusion of the United Nations Transforming Education Summit.

However, despite these international commitments, Inclusion International has found that mainstream development projects fail to include people with intellectual disabilities and, in many cases, promote segregation and other human rights violations. Data available through the OECD demonstrates that people with intellectual disabilities are excluded from nearly all projects funded through official development assistance. I believe the clerk has shared with you a link to a study we did that shows the very low investment by OECD members in education that includes learners with disabilities. Within OECD country investments, 42% of the education programming is not compatible with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Similarly, a review of investments by the Global Partnership for Education found that most investments in the education of learners with disabilities were for learners with physical or sensory disabilities and most were for segregated programs. Many attempts to increase participation in education for learners with disabilities—or for girls, for refugees, for minorities, for LGBTQ+ children and youth—focus on barriers for specific groups. Inclusion International argues that what is needed is a—

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Ms. Richler, could you wrap it up, please?

[Diane Richler]

What is needed is a transformation of education systems to provide higher-quality education for all.

One of our specific recommendations is that Global Affairs Canada do a systemic review, such as we've seen done in other countries, of all activities related to inclusive education internationally, bilateral investments, activities by staff of Global Affairs Canada and in our various missions, as well as participation in multilateral institutions such as Education Cannot Wait, UNICEF and the World Bank.

I'd be happy to answer questions afterwards. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Thank you, Ms. Richler.

Now I would like to invite Mr. Timothy Shriver to take the floor for five minutes, please.

[Timothy Shriver, Chairman, Board of Directions, Special Olympics]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

It's an honour to address this committee together with my fellow witnesses. I represent the Special Olympics' international movement. I'm happy to be joined here by Gail Hamamoto, who represents our work in the great country of Canada. Like many of you on this call, I represent what I consider to be—and what I think, factually, can be supported to be—the most overlooked, excluded and even humiliated population in the world.

People with intellectual and developmental disabilities are in every country, every ethnicity, every geography and every community. However, today, despite their presence in our families and in our communities all over the world, they're still more likely to be institutionalized, more likely not to go to school at all, more likely to die young from neglect and injustice in health care systems, and less likely than virtually any other group to have a job, have friends, have a home or have a full and complete life.

Let me be very clear. The problem is not the disability. The problem is not intellectual and developmental disability. The problem is fear, neglect, indifference and oversight. The problem is us. The problem is urgent, and the problem is now.

Notwithstanding the very important comments that have been made, notwithstanding the passage of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, notwithstanding the passage and adoption of the millennium development goals and now the sustainable development goals, notwithstanding the proclamations and the funding mechanisms that exist, which are represented, in part, by many of us in this room and by people beyond this room, we have a crisis—an enduring, lasting, neglected crisis.

This has not been addressed well by any of the institutions, including my own, around the world. I don't point the finger at anyone in this room. I point the finger at all of us for the state of the situation we have now, where the estimates are that anywhere from 50% to 80% of children with intellectual development disabilities don't go to school at all.

How can we sit here and pretend that we're making progress? We are not making progress. We are not responding to the demands of these goals. We are not fulfilling the letter of the law that has been adopted by countries like Canada and over a hundred others around the world. We have fallen short on all these fronts. Fear remains in charge of the policy-making and funding mechanisms that could be addressed to the needs of people with intellectual disabilities.

I don't mean to be sounding a discordant note, but I want to sound an urgent one. Business as usual is not getting the job done. It's resulting in persistent injustice and neglect, shorter lives and the impoverishment of women and families and children with intellectual disabilities. Our movement, the Special Olympics movement, has been in this business, one way or another, for over 50 years. We have a fairly simple formula for addressing these challenges. We invite people to meet each other in a context of ability—not disability. We invite people to celebrate the gifts and the values of each and every person. We invite people to adopt an attitude of universal dignity. We call this formula an inclusive mindset. It has travelled very well in Canada.

I'll mention, going back over 50 years, Red Foster. More recently, there's Kim Samuel, a distinguished Canadian, and now you see Gail on the phone here. There are 41,000 athletes in the country of Canada who participate in these community-based activities, and every year there are 17,000 volunteers.

Here's my pitch: It is time for bold action. Young people are asking us for bold action all over the world. This is an area where we can respond. People who are more conservative ask us for a refreshing of our values, of our commitment to human decency and human personal responsibility. This is a chance for us to do just that. The SDGs want us to do it. The CRPD wants us to do it. Today, the Special Olympics movement is promoting social inclusion in over 28,000 schools around the world in 150 countries.

We need to do more. We want to reach 150,000 schools, but we can't do it alone. We can't do it with nickels and dimes. We need significant investment from foreign development agencies, from multilateral organizations, from foundations. We stand here poised to work with you, to work with all the members of the committee and, of course, the distinguished member of Parliament, Mike Lake, and others who are leading these discussions, to supercharge these efforts so that we don't have this same conversation a year from now or two years or five years from now and report such disappointing numbers as I reported today.

Our movement, Unified Champion Schools, can help bridge the gap and teach children how to play together. They will learn together and they will grow up and live together. Everybody wins. This is not just a program for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. This is a call to action for all children. No child who learns and grows excluding other children has an adequate education.

This is in the interest of all of our children.

I yield it back to you, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Thank you.

Now I would like to invite, from the United Nations Children's Fund, Mr. Robert Jenkins to take the floor for five minutes, please.

[Robert Jenkins, Global Director, Education and Adolescent Development, United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

My comments will build on those of my fellow witnesses.

I want to thank you, Chair, the committee members and my fellow witnesses, but I also want to thank Canadians. Being a Canadian myself and having served in the United Nations for 30 years.... I've lived outside of Canada for a long time. I've continually been in various postings all over the world. I've come across Canadians working on inclusive education who are very passionate about it. I think it's deep in our core of being Canadian. As evidenced also on the global stage through the Charlevoix work, there are many different examples of the government and senior decision-makers, all the way down to community-based workers, advancing this important agenda.

I fully agree with fellow witnesses that there's far more to be done. I think where I can add value, being from UNICEF—which is the largest education wing of the United Nations, now working in 140 countries today on this issue—is that we have learned what works. Let me build on the earlier comments by offering the committee some ideas.

First is that we recognize how important it is that inclusive education is part of the transformation of education systems. Education systems around the world currently need to be transformed. We all recognize the global learning crisis. Kids are not learning what they need to throughout the system, and children with disabilities are particularly marginalized. When reaching children with disabilities proactively, it needs to be embedded in that transformation process.

What does that look like? When you're at a national level in a given country and you're planning how to improve an education system with the government, all actors—including the Canadian government, Canadian NGOs and the UN system, with much support from Canada—undertake a prioritization exercise and embed the very important issue of promoting inclusive education, of bridging children with disabilities back into the school system, at the heart of that transformation.

As Tim Shriver mentioned, the indicators are clear and all committee members will be aware that children all around the world with disabilities are marginalized in education systems, so by bridging them back in and by undertaking system changes to enable that to happen, we can transform the system as a whole. All children benefit. There have been some amazing examples around the world with Canada's support and leadership, and the UN and others, through which that transformation has happened.

It also starts with data. This is understanding where those children are in a given country, what barriers they are facing and how those barriers can be overcome. We need to engage with children and youth across the board in the transformation process, but include children with disabilities at the heart of that consultation and process so that we understand what needs to be done and then move forward collectively.

Second, it's absolutely critical that capacity is built throughout an education system, starting from the ministry through to local authorities, principals, teachers, etc., in order to welcome all children back into schools, to enable children to meet children where they are in their learning and their needs and to enable them to be successful in an inclusive way.

It's also critical to address the social norms that Mr. Shriver and others were talking about. We need to recognize that children with disabilities face barriers within schools, but also within homes and within communities. We need to recognize the importance of proactively bridging and hold ourselves all accountable for bridging them back to enable them to realize their full potential.

The bottom line is that Canada is a global leader in education and has been for decades. I've witnessed it myself on the ground. I witness it now in this global role I play.

I encourage you to continue to lead in this area. Count on UNICEF's whole support to translate the goodwill of Canadians into action on the ground to realize the right of every child to an education, including children with disabilities.

It's much appreciated. It's back to you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Thank you.

I would like to thank all the witnesses for the good comments we have heard. Now we will move to a period of questions from the members of the committee.

I would like to have the attention of the members of the committee. Please remember to identify yourselves each time you begin speaking, and please clearly state to whom your question is directed.

I would like now, for the first round, to invite Mr. Mike Lake to take the floor for five minutes.

The floor is yours, Mr. Lake.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's Mike Lake speaking, as you mentioned, Chair. My question, with a statement first, is for Tim. I have a son who is a Special Olympics athlete. We are very thankful for the program.

I pulled up your uncle's speech from 1962, when he talked about going to the moon. He said:

We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we're willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win....

If you just remove the phrase “go to the moon” and put in “include every child”, it reads very well. We choose to include every child and do the other things not because they are easy but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone and one we intend to win.

You talked about the fact that when we include kids with intellectual developmental disabilities, everybody wins. Personally, I think we can get to the place where every single child is included in education before the end of the decade—every single child. To what extent, if we grasp this concept, if we grasp this idea of reaching the truly hardest to reach in the world through education, can we reach every child along the way and accomplish many of the other goals that we're trying to accomplish at a global level that desperately need to come together right now?

[Timothy Shriver]

This is Tim Shriver in response to Mr. Lake.

Thank you for a beautiful analogy. I suppose that's the right way to put it.

This is not easy. If it had been easy, it would have been done already. We wouldn't be here having this hearing. We wouldn't be talking about neglected children, abused children, lonely children, institutionalized children and forgotten children, but the reality is that we are, and it will take 20, 30, 40.... I don't know how many scientists, engineers and scholars were required to put a human being on the moon in the 1960s, but my suspicion is that just in NASA it was 50,000 or 60,000 people—don't quote me on that—and it's going to take the same thing here.

We have to wake up. I know you know this. We have to wake up to the enormity of the challenge and the responsibility that comes with proclaiming that we're going to try to meet it. I mean, it's an embarrassment. I frankly find myself embarrassed in meetings like this as a professional in this field. As I said before, I'm embarrassed by my own organization.

Yes, we're going to have to do it, and it's going to be hard. This is going to take a significant shift. I hope Canada leads it. I've knocked on doors. Maybe you can hear in my voice a certain frustration that has been built up over the years. I am frustrated. I'm tired of hearing parents tell me there's nowhere for their kids to go. I'm tired of hearing parents tell me they have no friends for their child. I'm tired of it. I thought when I was in my twenties and thirties that we would solve these problems. We haven't even come close to putting the necessary effort behind it.

Couldn't Canada, on the heels of this important hearing, make a commitment to investing some significant resources out of its global development and foreign assistance budgets for these children?

You help every child in the world when you help our children. We help every school system in the world when we implement universal design. We help every teacher in the world when we educate them to be able to be an “includer” in the classroom. Pedagogy is improved. Access to building is improved. Instructional outcomes improve. Climate improves. Behaviour problems go down. Mental health problems are reduced.

It's not just our kids that we're fighting for here. It's all children. We know this as educators. My background is in education. We know that when we include every child, every child wins. It's not just the child who is locked out, the child in a segregated classroom, in a segregated school or, for that matter, in a segregated institution. It's not just those children who benefit. Every child benefits. We're robbing not just children with intellectual developmental disabilities. We're robbing all children of the chance to actually have trust, faith and belief in themselves that they're going to grow up in a world where everybody has a chance, which is what they want.

It's going to be hard, Mr. Lake, but I would very much trust in your judgment, your zeal and your leadership to marshal the kind of coalition and the kind of resource commitment that we need now, not to continue to talk but to implement a much more aggressive plan of action.

Thank you.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB]

Diane, do you have any comments to add? I almost just want to tee you up to ask you if you want to....

I will do that. I'll tee you up. Go.

[Diane Richler]

Thank you.

This is Diane Richler. I fully support everything that Tim Shriver said. Speaking from my personal experience, my first exposure to inclusive education was when my kids were in elementary school. The first inclusive classes were starting in Toronto. When I went to see those classes, they were the kinds of classes that I wanted for my kids. They were active. Kids were working together. The teacher wasn't at the front of the room telling everybody to be quiet. The teacher paid attention to the individual needs of all of the kids.

Ten years later, my godson was diagnosed with autism. He went through inclusive education in British Columbia from preschool through to high school. There's no question that having him in the school, having the teachers learn the kinds of things that Tim Shriver mentioned, improved education not just for him but for all of the students in the school.

What concerns me is that we've made progress—and I'll turn to Canada now with some progress, such as including the word “disability” in the Charlevoix declaration and including it elsewhere—but it doesn't go down. There are platitudes. Excuse me, but it's easy to say the word “inclusion”.

What this means is really looking at investments and stopping to look at what the barriers are for this kind of kid and what the barriers are for another kind of kid, etc. What does the school have to look like? What are all the elements that have to be in an education system to make sure that nobody's left out? All too often, when there's a focus on one group of excluded kids, barriers are built up for others. We've seen that for kids with intellectual disabilities. That's a real concern with the way that some of Canada's feminist international assistance policy has been implemented.

Too often there's been a lack of focus on the fact that children have multiple identities. Girls aren't just girls. There are indigenous girls. There are girls with disabilities. There are LGBTQ girls. We need to be building systems for everybody. Unfortunately, I don't think that we're building enough into the international programming that Canada is involved in to make sure that those issues are raised everywhere that Canada has a voice to talk about education.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Thank you, Ms. Richler.

Now I would like to invite Madam Vandenbeld to take the floor for seven minutes.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Thank you very much.

I want to thank all of our witnesses for what I think is going to be a vitally important study on something that isn't always given the front of mind.

I'm reminded of 10 or 12 years ago when I was at the launch of the UN Women's approximately 650-page report on the state of the world's women. Somebody in the audience put up their hand and said, “Why, in 650 pages, is there no mention of disabilities?” The head of UN Women, who was there to answer, thought for a moment and then said that it was because nobody who was on the team that was researching and writing the report had disabilities.

This is the importance of being at the table, of having the voices there. As we all know, this is something that people are not opposed to. We've seen all of these conventions, but it is not front of mind if it doesn't have a presence.

I'd like to pick up on the last question, Ms. Richler. You talked about the idea of inclusion in terms of not having segregation. Often, when you look at rights, it is seen as a right to education but not necessarily in the same space, in the same room.

Ms. Sherif, you talked about refugee education. We know that, in many countries, it's very hard to have refugees integrated into national school systems. They're separate. Then, of course, with disabilities, there's a separation there again.

I'll remark on what Mr. Shriver said, on the word he chose: that this is a “humiliated” population. That is a very powerful word. I think it is linked to this idea of separation and segregation.

Then, of course, there was Mr. Jenkins on transforming the entire system. I think that's what this is all about: really transforming entire education systems and how we think about education.

My question is specifically this: Why is it important that children are included within one, single education system and not given separate systems? Why is that important, not just for education but for the development of the child?

I'll go in the order that you spoke originally. I'll give the rest of the time for each of you to answer. Please leave enough time so that everybody has a chance to respond to it in the same order that you did your introductory remarks.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

I believe Ms. Sherif would like to say something.

Ms. Sherif, the floor is yours.

[Yasmine Sherif]

Very quickly, I think it's great to be in this company, and I also would like to commend Mike Lake for bringing us all together, because I know how hard he works to put this as one of the top priorities.

I want to emphasize why it's so important.

First of all, 80% of children and adolescents who are struggling with other abilities, because they don't get the support they need through education, are in the global south. Because we are working with Canada as our major partner—one of our major partners—for children in those conflict and crisis countries in the global south, I'd really appeal to the committee to pay attention to the majority of the 80% who, besides being marginalized, are stigmatized because of their other abilities or disabilities or are, in addition, suffering from climate disaster issues or armed conflict. If we cannot cater to this 80%, who are in the most difficult circumstances on the globe, it will eventually impact all of us—not the least our consciences.

I also would like to thank Canada for commissioning a study to see how you can strengthen the system, but I again would appeal to you and ask that you bear in mind for all of us that many of my colleagues who are investing all the time in those children, all of the stigmatized, are left with absolutely nothing to cater to their disability needs. This would require more financing for us to be able to do that work together with you as Canada.

I just wanted to make that point, but it's great to be with all of you, because we all share the same passion and determination to bring them out there and not keep them behind, to actually bring them out to be the shining stars they are.

Let me conclude by saying that I prefer to call them “other abilities” and children with other abilities. I was in South America recently. In Colombia, I met a little girl who was born without limbs or arms. She had learned how to paint with her mouth. I had never seen such beautiful paintings and such skill to do this by holding the pencil in her mouth. I think we need to lift them up as stars who deserve to be put right at the forefront, but we need to invest in them financially.

Thank you.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

I just have a few minutes, so I'll ask each witness to take just 30 seconds.

Thank you.

[Jennifer Rigg]

Thank you so much. I'm Jennifer Rigg with GCE-US. I will attempt to say a lot in this quick 30 seconds.

It's a fantastic question. The call to action that I referenced quickly has three key points that help us get to how to actually make these recommendations.

First, we must make sure that we're setting medium- to long-term targets to ensure all learners with disabilities are reached in all education programs, not in a segregated way and not with just one special school, but in a way that really honours and reaches the full diversity of the types of disabilities and that really, as Diane was saying, gets to the specific needs of each learner.

Also, it's ensuring that, for all education programs and grants and funding—increased funding, as Tim Shriver and others have emphasized, is so vital—they mainstream disability-inclusive criteria and targets.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Can you wrap it up, please?

[Jennifer Rigg]

Thank you. The key is to move beyond pilots and get to full scale in making sure that we fully support all children and youth in a way that will then also help all of society.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Thank you.

Go ahead, please.

[Diane Richler]

This is Diane Richler. I'm going to make two quick points and turn it over to Mónica.

The first is that inclusion is in the law. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities general comment number four clearly spells it out: inclusion, inclusion, inclusion—not separate schools.

Second, Tim Shriver made the point of how many children with disabilities are out of school. There isn't enough money to build separate schools and train separate staff, so if we think that we're going to do this, we're going to have to do this together.

Mónica, do you want to add to that?

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Please add quickly. The time is up.