In light of the lack of resources and support available to the disabled community during the Covid19 pandemic, and the increasing mental and physical health crisis — this campaign is aimed at both spreading awareness, and raising money for those within the community who need it. All of the money raised from this campaign will go to covering as much food, housing, medication, and medical care as possible for disabled people.

 

This design was inspired by a picture I took and subsequent twitter post I made, when I finally got to go for a stroll outside first time in months. I came across a dying shrub growing from cracks in the pavement, with a small bundle of flowers blooming on it, in the cold.

 

For those who don't know, medically assisted death has been legal in Canada since 2016. Though in theory, having this choice should be a good thing — in reality, these policies have functioned as an extension to the existing structural violence embedded within Canadian healthcare system.

 

Some main points on this issue:

 

• As it stands, the Canadian government is not currently meeting the standards of the United Nation's Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. (Link to the End of Mission Statement by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities, Ms. Catalina Devandas-Aguilar, on her visit to Canada https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=24481&LangID=E )

 

• Due to a negligent and structurally violence system wherein disability support programs mandate poverty—disabled people are suffering, often forced into situations where they must choose between food, shelter, and medication each month. Health services and treatments are often not at all or only minimally covered—limited to a handful (often 10 or less) visits per year, divided across multiple practitioners.

 

• These services often involve month-to-year-long waiting lists. In some provinces, the wait time just to get a shower from a public service worker is 6-months (that doesn't include the months-to-years it takes to even be approved for these programs). Medically assisted death, however, can be accessed within the month. In fact, the 10-day wait period for receiving medical assistance in death is often waived altogether. (source here)

 

• "Euthanasia deaths are now serving as a growing source of organ and tissue donations in Canada. Unlike in other countries, Canada is the first jurisdiction to allow non-patient-initiated discussion of organ donation for those approved for euthanasia." (source here)

 

• Rather than improving our material conditions, the Canadian government has put forth a bill to expand medically assisted death to almost everyone who is disabled and/or has a chronic illness—under Bill c-7, disabled people will be eligible for medical assistance in death (aka: medically assisted suicide) regardless as to whether or not they are terminally ill, or their "natural death" is "reasonably foreseeable". (Link to Bill C7 here)

​

• Additionally, when the COVID19 pandemic hit, provinces like Quebec and Ontario drafted new critical care triage protocols in order to allow for the discrimination against disabled people. These protocols allow hospitals to deny disabled people life saving resources in order to preserve them for non-disabled people. (source here)

 

• For disabled people who can afford private care, this isn't an issue. You pay, you get access to better living conditions and care. For disabled people who rely on public services, however, this system is deadly.

 

• Lastly, disabled people did not qualify for the $2000 a month Canadian Emergency Response Benefit offered in light of the Covid19 pandemic. Instead, the Canadian government offered a one time payment of $600 for disabled people, in response to the months of pressure on lack of support. This isn't even enough to cover a single month's rent, let alone medication, transport, food, and other basic necessities.

 

When critical care triage protocols are adjusted to allow hospitals to deny us access life saving services, but the medically assisted suicide protocols are extended & allow doctors to proactively offer suicide as an alternative to institutionally inflicted suffering – we are not being given a choice. We're being stripped of one.

 

When one group has efforts and resources allocated to PREVENTING their suicide when they struggle, while the other has them allocated to enabling it—a decision is being made about who’s life has value, and who’s life does not.

 

When you actively deny a group of people access to services, financial stability, adequate housing, food, treatment, and support—you aren’t giving them a “choice”. You’re asking them to say Uncle.

 

As Sandra Carpenter, Project Value co-founder and Executive Director of the Center for Independent Living Toronto puts it, the issue is that "the dialogue right now is about assisted dying, but it should really be focused on assisted living." (source here)

​

Keep blooming, resilient flowers.