Citizenship and Immigration committee  We shouldn't leave out the knowledge that a lot of original decisions that were made about immigration were made in the economic notion that we're going to bring in people who can work really hard, earn a lot of money, and make our country better. That was a form of very basic di

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It is absolutely two-tiered, but we also forget that it's not just two-tiered in terms of how much money you have or how much money you do not have. If you're a family with a child who has a disability, or an adult who has a disability, for the most part, if we look at statistics

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you for bringing up your child's experience. When I teach around fairness in terms of disability, we have this statement, “Fairness does not mean everyone gets the same. Fairness means everyone gets what they need.” If we use the first definition of fairness, which is giv

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Of course. Who would we be as Canadians if we didn't move ahead with that vision of the future we have that includes everybody?

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes. As a person who's spent all my career in education, I'm quantifying it in terms of school systems. When school systems talk about additional cost, talk about children by what we would think of as type of disability, we often hear autism, Down's syndrome, cerebral palsy, but

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I will.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Any society that seeks to differentiate those whom they deem as prohibitively expensive in terms of service provisions fail to equate the value added of what it means to be truly diverse. As noted at the beginning, the purpose of my testimony today is to highlight the importanc

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you for this opportunity to speak today. It is a real honour. As an aside, having grown up in 1960s Newfoundland with Joey Smallwood, when I tell you it's a real honour, I mean it's a real honour. The fact that we as a country can speak to each other and make decisions that