Innovation

The week of May 31st to June 7th was National Accessibility Week.

Just prior, I registered for Enable Ottawa, an accessibility and innovation event organized by Carelton University, with panels and discussion presented online via Zoom throughout the week.

The first afternoon, I streamed a talk about disability and accessibility legislation in the Canadian government, specifically the idea of a Canadians with Disabilities Act that is currently being proposed. I was surprised to learn that, unlike the United States, Canada does not have any nation-wide legislation for people with disabilities. Disabled individuals are protected against discrimination in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms like other groups, and several provinces have their own disability and accessibility acts, but there's nothing that's all-encompassing. The woman who was speaking used negative experiences she's had with washrooms, airlines, and Para Transpo, some of which I could relate too, as examples of why a Disabilities Act is needed.

On the last day of the event, I watched a presentation about accessibility issues in relation to COVID and the post-COVID future. Very interesting. The presenter spoke the changing workforce, trying to tie most things into disability and accessibility. He hit on points like companies transitioning to online/at-home operations (which he gave the really cool name "digital nomads"), office layouts, and the idea of reinventing the work week to accommodate more people working from home.

Very interesting ideas from everyone I listened to. A very pessimistic part of me can't see many of these ideas being implemented, for reasons too long to go into in this post, but I'm optimistic that change will come at some point. At the very least, the event was worth participating in!

Cheers