Just in listening to this last conversation, and in general in the committee, it's very clear that there's a fundamental lack of understanding of what disability is, first of all.
Also, you can't equate someone's personal opinion in any moment with disability analysis. Disability rights have evolved from a period of time when people were largely institutionalized, so the focus was on independence and the right to live independently. Then we entered the universities and we entered the community, and the analysis has evolved. It's an actual area of scholarship and study.
You're taking somebody like Nicole Gladu, saying, “Oh, I want this,” and you're equating that with actual analysis—given the history, looking at our situation, looking at our lives and understanding all of these things in context—and making a judgment on how this will impact a community. These are not the same discussions that we're having, so it absolutely is not adding to disability rights.
One of the things that needs to be understood is that disability justice.... A McGill law professor has written very well and eloquently about this evolution from disability rights to disability justice. One of the things he observed was that we went in thinking that if we just fought for inclusion and integration into the existing systems, that would lead somewhere. However, people consistently come back saying policy-makers are not getting it, and they're still not getting that they're not getting it.