Canada’s responses to disability and global development

Abstract

Canada has taken some positive action in addressing disability in its foreign and development policies, including its long-standing commitments to disabled peoples’ organisations globally, and significant engagement in the drafting process of and subsequent ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). But, ultimately, the lack of a rights-based disability framework in Canada’s global development policies, and the implications of an approach primarily directed to disability prevention and rehabilitation, have combined to make Canada unable to effectively realise its commitments to the CRPD Article 32 on international cooperation.

Keywords:

• Canada
• disability rights
• development assistance
• foreign policy
• inclusion

Notes

1. Neufeldt and Egers, “Rise and Ebb.”

2. Lindqvist, “Monitoring: A Key Element.”

3. Neufeldt and Egers, “Rise and Ebb.”

4. Fricke et al., “Contributions to Disability.”

5. Brown, Struggling for Effectiveness.

6. Neufeldt and Egers, “Rise and Ebb.”

7. MacQueen, “From a Portable Park.”

8. Neufeldt and Egers, “Rise and Ebb”, 214.

9. Neufeldt and Egers, “Rise and Ebb.”

10. Neufeldt and Egers, “Rise and Ebb.”

11. United Nations, “Convention.”

12. "Canada to Receive.”

13. Lindqvist “Monitoring: A Key Element.”

14. Lindqvist “Monitoring: A Key Element.”

15. Stienstra et al., Baseline Assessment.

16. Canada. “Convention,” 8.

17. Brown, Struggling for Effectiveness, 4–5.

18. Baranyi and Tiessen, Actions, Omissions and Obligations.

19. Brown, Struggling for Effectiveness, 288.

20. Stienstra, “Lost Without Way-finders?”

21. Canada. Federal Disability Report.

22. We also reviewed the CIDA/GAC historical project data-set for 2013–2014, the most recent year available. This review reinforces our general conclusions and suggests our analysis here may underestimate the trends noted; but without further investigation of the projects it is unclear from the data-set exactly how disability was included or addressed in the projects. We reviewed projects that received funding that year and had disability identified as either a significant objective or principal objective and examined their project profiles. Of the 53 projects included, 41 were listed as having disability as a significant objective with an additional 12 as having disability as a principal objective. Of these, 32 of the first group were not included in our data analysis and had no mention of disability in their project profiles. Only five of the second group were not included in our data analysis. Two projects were specifically targeted to blind or visually impaired people and did not include the word disability (or its variations) and therefore had not been caught in our initial analysis. The other three were health care projects to address particular impairments including clubfoot and diabetes, and provide eye care.

23. All but three projects began their funding in 2006 or later.

24. Fricke et al., “Contributions to Disability,” 231–2.

25. Wehbi et al., “Neo-colonial Discourse.”

26. Handicap International, “Making It Work.”

27. Stienstra, “Lost Without Way-finders?”

28. Handicap International, “Making It Work,” 12.

29. Five projects had both prevention/recovery and inclusion as a focus; four had both human rights and inclusion; one had both prevention/recovery and capacity building; and four had both capacity building and human rights.

30. Estey, Personal Communications.