HISTORY AND BACKGROUND
Today I will be talking about our city’s history with regards to our citizens with disabilities and explaining how it all became about and developed.
The City of Pointe-Claire has an established number of inhabitants - 33,488 as of the last census by Statistics Canada in 2021 Profile table, Census Profile, 2021 Census of Population - Pointe-Claire, Ville (V) [Census subdivision], Quebec (statcan.gc.ca)
In 2004, Québec’s National Assembly adopted Bill 56, An Act to amend the Act to secure the handicapped in the exercise of their rights and other legislative provisions 2004C31A.PDF (gouv.qc.ca)
This Bill/Act was a necessity with the intention to provide the various measures of and clarifying the mission and functions of the Office des personnes handicapées du Québec to help handicapped persons integrate into society, and to develop and organize resources and services for them. Government departments, public agencies with at least fifty (50) employees and municipalities with at least 15,000 inhabitants are required under the provisions of this Bill/Actl to produce and publish annually an action plan on behalf of handicapped persons.
The Act was elaborated and established so that “Every person with a deficiency causing a significant and persistent disability, who is liable to encounter barriers in performing everyday activities, is considered to be handicapped within the meaning of the Act to secure handicapped persons in the exercise of their rights with a view to achieving social, school and workplace integration that handicapped persons encounter in the sector of activity of the department or agency, and describing the measures taken over the past year and those to be taken in the coming year to reduce barriers to integration in that sector of activity. The action plan includes any other element determined by the Government upon recommendation of the Minister, and must be prepared and published annually...”
For municipalities such as Pointe-Claire, sections 61.1 and 61.3 of the Act makes it especially important, since our City develops action plans yearly towards successful implementation with the goal of surpassing annual objectives.
OUR CITY’S ACTION PLAN
Our City began the process of developing an Action Plan for Residents Living with a Disability in 2007, then in March 2008 the City adopted the Accessibility Action Plan - which today is known as the 2023 Municipal Action Plan for the Social and Professional Integration or Persons with a Disability pc_plan-action-accessibilite-2023-en-e08.pdf (pointe-claire.ca)
The very first Action plan first published publicly - came out in 2017 - Plan daction accessibilité 2017_EN (pointe-claire.ca) - then continuous Action Plans were published publicly every year thereafter. Previous action plans, if they exist - would have, for some reason, not been made public as research was limited.
It should be noted that, according to the 2017 Action Plan, 92% of Pointe-Claire’s municipal employees contributed to the process and decision with the support of the Accessibility Committee.
REPRESENTATION
Our City’s Accessibility Committee is currently made up of (2) two sections consisting of Committee Members and Committee Support. The first comprises individuals from each one of our city departments and the second from a local disability non-profit organization, an external provincial government body, and a city director.
With the province’s highest rate of persons with disabilities (standing at approximately 1,053,350 people aged 15 and over) with at least one disability as of CSD 2017 (representing 16.1% of the population 15 and over), our City’s increasing densification and population density makes it clear that the number of residents with disabilities would no doubt increase exponentially, which would mean a future with a greater need for increasing accommodations and accessibility services and costs.
In our next segment of the series we will explore opportunities for making our city as universally accommodating and accessible as possible, which will further explain, clarify and close the gap on our city’s information geared towards citizens with disabilities.