Featured Stories

BC Finance Minister, Colin Hansen, tabled BC's 2010 Budget a couple of days ago - March 2nd.  Federal Finance Minister, Jim Flaherty, tables Canada's 2010 Budget today - March 5th. 

Al, lays out the benefits the Federal budget holds for people with disabiliteis and their families, including:

"In today's Budget (March 4th) Minister Flaherty has fixed some of the growing pains and inevitable glitches of introducing something so new. For one, he is allowing RRSP's to be transferred into an RDSP, tax free.  For another, he is allowing families to carry forward their matching Disability Savings Grants and the $1000 a year Disability Savings Bond for 10 years. "

Read the rest of Al's post entitled, Flaherty's Budget Benefits people with disabilities and their families.

Jack Styan too commented on the Budgets with his post, What's in a Budget?

This 5-day immersion will be of interest to families, disability leaders and their supporters who want to:

• Explore a new conceptual understanding of disability for the 21st century
• Create a good life for their family member with a disability
• Learn the nuts and bolts of building an organization based on relationships
• Construct a vehicle for independent advocacy and strengthen your ability to negotiate and relate to service providers, bureaucrats, lawyers, financial and estate planners
• Revitalize the family/parent movement in your area
• Integrate values into action
• Learn how emerging insights into caring citizenship are relevant to the contributions of persons with disabilities

The decision to appoint former Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan as Canada's Ambassador to the Vancouver Paralympic Games is a good one.  His former political leadership is one reason. Another is his continuing role as an inspiration to people with disability.  It is hard for those of us who do not have a disability to imagine what it is like to live in a world where no one like you is ever in charge. There are 650 Million people with disabilities - the world's largest minority group.

Here's the rest of this first Paralympics Games post by Al Etmanski.

The Bilodeaus: A Gold Medal in the Family Olympiad, a post by Jack Styan

The Olympics creates icons and superstars: individuals and teams whose accomplishments will become part of our collective Canadian memory.
 
After reading Ian Brown’s G&M article on the family of gold medalist, Alexandre Bilodeau,
I think the Bilodeau family should be awarded a gold medal for nurturing and maintaining a family that clearly sets a standard for love, commitment, and support. They, too, should become Canadian icons.

Those concerned about targeting your donations to most vulnerable in Haiti may consider a donation to L'Arche who have 2 communities and a school in Haiti.  L'Arche is a close partner of PLAN and PLAN Institute - we have learned so much from their work and their leader Jean Vanier.  As an added bonus any donations made to L'Arche Haiti will be matched dollar for dollar by our federal government.

The Province of B.C. has negotiated a proposed settlement in a class action brought by former residents of Woodlands institution in New Westminster. While the settlement agreement approves compensation for approximately 1100 former residents, over 500 former residents will be excluded merely because they lived at Woodlands prior to 1974. Visit the BCACL website or the BCCPD website for more information.

The We Survived Woodlands Group has launched a campaign to urge the provincial government to include pre-1974 residents in the settlement. Read the letter here or see below.

Al Etmanski writes about his experience and perspective in this blog post.

Plan Institute, L'Arche Canada and L'Agora formally launched an inspirational body of thought and dialogue, in the form of a website, entitled Belonging - Living Ties. 

The homepage hosts this quote from Jean Vanier,

"The longer we journey on the road to inner healing and wholeness, the more the sense of belonging grows and deepens. The sense is not just one of belonging to others and to a community. It is a sense of belonging to the universe, to the earth, to the air, to the water, to everything that lives, to all humanity."

The opening of this new website is accompanied by timely blog posts by Jacques Dufresne, Al Etmanski and Nathan Ball each addressing the UN Summit on Climate Change taking place in Copenhagen.

From PLAN's latest e-newsletter:

Winter is coming quickly - we hope that Halloween was a fun and not too cold night wherever you are! The thumbnails above are links to two of our special offerings this month. A Good Life bulletin focuses on all five aspects of a good life through stories and tips from families to families. The other link is to Weaving the Ties that Bind online course offered through the PLAN Institute - for the first time (!!) Associates are eligible for a 25% discount on this course! This is a savings of $75! This offer is open to all Associates who have paid for their membership.  Give PLAN's front desk a call to sign up at 604-439-9566 or if you are not yet an associate click here to join now and receive your 25% discount.

Jack Styan, Executive Director, PLAN

Government of Canada tables the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities December 8, 2009, New Westminster, B.C.

The BC Association for Community Living is happy to celebrate the tabling of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in the House of Commons.

Minister Peter McKay tabled the CRPD on December 3, 2009, indicating his government’s intention to move toward formal ratification of the CRPD. Canada was one of the first countries to sign the convention two years ago and advocates across the country have been eagerly anticipating its ratification. BCACL commends the Government of Canada for confirming their commitment to the rights of persons with disabilities in this country.

“This is truly a historic moment for Canada and for Canadian citizens with disabilities in that the ratification of the CRPD is one more mechanism to entrench and actualize the rights of persons with disabilities”, said Bendina Miller, President of the Canadian Association for Community Living (CACL). “We applaud the leadership demonstrated by the Government of Canada in the development and signing of this convention, and now today in taking this final step toward its ratification.”

This is an inspiring initiative closely related to our work on belonging.

There is an urgent need for a new focus on compassion.

Bringing together voices from all cultures and religions, the Charter seeks to remind the world we already share the core principles of compassion.  Watch this video...