The recent decision by the York Region Catholic School Board to once again deny its schools the right to fly the pride flag during pride month should not come as a surprise to anyone. There has been an ongoing, consistent and disappointing level of poor behaviour from Catholic school boards across the country. 

We should also be reminded that those Catholic school boards that do fly the flag, initially did so due to pressure from the community at large as well as students who have had enough of Catholic administrators and faith leaders using their religion to justify hate. 

Catholic schools have enormous privilege. Their existence is enshrined in our Constitution. A necessary step in an era where Protestant’s, the majority in the 1800’s  bullied and mistreated the minority Catholics. As well, the decision by the Davis Government in the 70’s to expand Catholic school funding to match the public system was the right decision at that time. Those times are long behind us. 

Today there is no need for separate school boards in a country with a vast number of faiths, religions and spiritual thinking. In fact, the constitution, by enshrining one particular religion over others, is practicing religious discrimination.

This privilege however does not extend to the right to spread hate speech, to deny the rights of marginalized youth nor does it give the catholic school boards the right to decide which demographic they will or will not support. 

This disgraceful action  by YRCSB isn’t an outlier or a decision by a rogue board of directors. The vote, 6-4 against flying the flag is in fact a normal practice by many catholic school boards. Halton region only began flying the flag in 2022 and only after intense pressure from students, the media and the community. The fact that HRCSB now flys the flag should not be a cause for celebration, they do so with hesitation and because they were forced to do so. . If that is the case imagine how unsupported the schools students must feel when they know the very people they look to for support, school leaders, don’t in fact support them at all. 

In fact, mere days after the decision to deny schools in York region the opportunity to fly the Pride flag, The York region Catholic school board posted a “welcome to Pride month” on social media. The very definition of performative action.

This behaviour continues outside the walls of the school itself, is a common theme on a Sunday morning. Uganda, a country where homosexuality has always been illegal has now created the most draconian laws in the world with the death penalty being a potential outcome. An extreme example perhaps but closer to home we have similar thinking from the pulpit. A Catholic church in Ohio recently banished a member of the congregation when they complained about a priest spewing hatred in his sermon. Hatred towards the entire LGBT+ community.  

The pride flag is simply a symbol. A symbol of a vibrant and rich demographic and culture that has historically been targeted with the most vile hatred, violence and oppression. It is a symbol that every member of the LGBT+ community belongs and is valued. 

If the catholic school boards cannot truly support all students in an era of belonging, It is time to change the constitution and amalgamate the two school boards in Ontario. We can no longer justify a school board that refuses to exemplify the norms of our time, where people of all sexual and gender identities are supported and cared for, where love transcends age old hateful stereotypes and bigoted thinking.

So far our catholic school boards are incapable or unable to do 

Meanwhile,  happy pride month to all of you except the York region Catholic school board. 

“We are all in this together,” says Canada’s Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau. Sounds good if it were true, but it is not. Although Canadian’s within all demographics have received support during the pandemic, including a $300 stipend to seniors, there is one very large demographic who have been ignored, the disabled. 

After significant intervention by disability activists, the Federal Government finally agreed to pay the disabled a one-time benefit of $600. This received Royal assent in June, yet no disabled individual has received anything yet. The Government promises to send out the checks on October 31^st, however only about 25-30% of Canadians with disabilities will receive this money. 

We have always understood that the disabled live far more difficult lives than the rest of society; from accessibility issues, to ableism, to lack of jobs, lack of health care and education, lack of transportation and much lower incomes than the average. Yet the pandemic has torn a lid off the reality of the situation. The level of poverty that the disabled live in is far worse than what we understood and far more dire than the public might have known. In fact, after considerable reflection, some disabled Canadians have signed up with MAID (Medical Assistance in Dying), assisted suicide, as they believe that suicide is the best option for them. How tragic in a country as wealthy as ours. They will be rejected by MAID as they won’t qualify for assisted suicide, but that’s not the point. 

The policies around disability benefits pre-date all current Canadian governments. In fact, they pre-date the previous governments and the ones before that too. Some policies date back to the 1970’s, when the attitude towards the disabled were very different than today. For example, some policies in one Province were actually created with the caveat that the disabled had “better be grateful” for any financial help. It is for these reasons that I joined Federal Finance critic Pierre Poilievre in 2018 to launch Bill C-395, the opportunities act, to change some of the more draconian provincial policies that punished the employed disabled. The Bill failed for partisan reasons and those policies remain today. 

Although the current governments didn’t write the policies or create the current negative cultures throughout the benefit environments, they do however have a responsibility to fix it. Here in Ontario we have the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) that handles the majority of cases. There are others such as Ontario Works. For this blog post I want to focus on where we need to be in the future. 

ODSP is not working. It is not serving the interest of disabled Ontarian’s who cannot work or who are not working because employers won’t hire them. It is operated by the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services. ODSP has a massive budget of over $4B and grows at a rate of 7-8% per year, outstripping the combined increase in the year over year cost of living index as well as inflation. 

Recipients of ODSP receive, at most, $1169 per month if they even qualify for that much. The bottom line is it isn’t enough to live on, and keeps a disabled person in abject poverty with all of its ramifications, such as unsafe housing, health deterioration, dependency on food banks and in almost all cases suffer from mental health, especially depression caused by their lot in life. None of this is their own fault. They were either born disabled or joined the demographic due to an accident or illness. In fact, disability is the only demographic any of us can join at any time. 

At the beginning of the Pandemic the Federal Government created the Canadian Emergency Relief Benefit (CERB) and set the amount at $2,000 per month. This was not an arbitrary amount. There was no whimsy in the formula, it was carefully chosen by Government economists who knew that $2,000 was the Guaranteed Basic Income (GBI) required to actually live in Canada. Everyone who needed it got it…except the disabled. Instead they had to remain on a maximum of $1169 per month. 

The writings on the wall as to what is required going forward. We are a country of considerable means; we are a country that does not look out for disabled Canadians. But as a country with considerable means it is well past time to get this right. Therefore, the following needs to happen. 

First, I propose a small working committee to study reform within ODSP. When working with Economic Development Minister Brad Duguid in 2016, we asked a director of ODSP about the best way to leave the program believing she would say “Paid work”, instead she said, “to die”. She wasn’t wrong as we discovered only 0.4% of 1% of ODSP recipients ever find meaningful work. That has to change and I believe reform is the way to go. Clearly, with that comment By the ODSP director, the culture within ODSP is not conducive to better outcomes.

But it doesn’t stop there. The following needs to happen: 

• We need a Guaranteed Livable Basic Income (GLBI) for those on ODSP of $2,000 per month as per the decision of our Federal Governments Economic advisors. 

• There must be a much greater effort to ensure those on benefits who can work and want to work are provided the services they need to find real work for real pay. There are excellent agencies already doing this work but we need greater success. If 5,000 individuals on ODSP find a combination of full time, part time and seasonal work we save the taxpayer $78,000,000. This ensures no further taxpayer money would be required to raise the benefit amount to $2,000 for those who, through no fault of their own, cannot work. Having said that, in all cases where possible, work must be the expectation.

• Unlike other GBI’s, a new GLBI for ODSP recipients cannot replace current supports. Those extra benefits such as health and prescription must remain in place otherwise the recipient could actually be worse off. 

• Clawbacks, which currently punish an ODSP recipient, must be fair. There should be a reasonable threshold in which benefits end and employment income becomes the de facto sole income of the individual. 

• All current benefit policies that punish those who live together or marry when both individuals are on ODSP have to be ended right away. This is a human rights violation. 

• In cases where a job or career does not work out, benefits need to be automatically reinstated. There cannot be any wait times as this too is seen as further punishment for finding a job. 

• Provinces must reform income tax laws for disabled benefit recipients who find work but stay on Government health benefits. Since these become taxable income, the amount of income tax paid by a worker who has a disability can be significantly higher than a non-disabled worker doing the same job for the same wage. This was the main reason for launching Bill C-395. 

Simplified, we must look after societies most vulnerable far better than we are today. Work for those who can, proper benefits for those who can’t, and an end to systemic poverty. 

Once that’s achieved we will truly be all in this together 

How diverse is your company? I mean, really?

It’s 2019. There is unlikely to be any Canadian Corporation in the top 100 where Diversity isn’t clearly on the radar. Millions are spent on diversity initiatives, companies employ D&I experts, corporations regularly market their diversity. In fact most corporations believe they have solved the issue of diversity. Most companies believe they are following the cutting edge of diversity and inclusion best practices, perhaps even creating these best practices themselves

If you truly believe your company is diverse I would like you to consider this: Only 4% of corporations around the world are diverse. The rest are diversish. A new term for companies who play the game well but fail miserably. For example, check your companies website. Does it indicate that your company is an equal opportunity employer? If so, your company is unlikely to be diverse as Canadians with disabilities typically won’t apply.

As an activist with a significant reach into Corporate Canada I see too often the glossy brochures, the fawning over “world class” diversity initiatives, the complete lack of understanding that diversity, when ingrained in a Corporations culture, pays massive dividends, creates competitive advantages while at the same time placing such companies as leaders in their sector.

96% of companies fall into the Diversish category unless they are one of the few companies who have done nothing at all and yes, it’s difficult to believe but there are a handful of Canadian Multi-nationals who have done nothing beyond the basics of legislative compliance. They know only too well who they are. They will be irrelevant soon enough.

The easy piece of the diversity platform is to ensure women are employed in senior management roles. Most corporations have done so but wage parity is still an issue, women as governors on private sector corporate boards are still a minority with about 15-18% of board seats held by women. As we move along the spectrum of diversity the numbers shrink. People of different cultures, religion and LGBT in recent years have being Included more often but still lack reasonable numbers. For many companies, inclusion of these workers is about box ticking, tokenism perhaps.

Moving further along the spectrum of diversity and the numbers fall off the chart. People with disabilities and workers from First Nations communities. StatsCan recently published updated data showing that 22-24% of Canadians have a a disability. This is astonishing.  Only a few years ago we were discussing a figure of 15-16%. We knew well that the number was growing but to go from one on seven to one in four in only ten years is indeed astonishing. The disability community is clearly Canada’s largest minority group, more than double the size of the next largest minority group.

Sadly but expectedly the Labour market participation of Canadians with disabilities remains stubbornly low. Statistics indicate 50-54% of Canadians with disabilities are not working however those stats don’t include anyone with no marketplace attachment. Therefore the more accurate figure is 70%. The exact same number I used when I first spoke publicly about inclusion in 2007.

We can no longer rely only on the benefits of inclusion to companies. The benefits are obvious to any CEO who takes the time to look at this vast untapped Labour force but they usually ignore this as a result of fear, fear of something they know little about. As well, awareness campaigns are losing favor, it’s not working. As well as continuing to discuss how Canadian corporations can and will benefit in so many ways by including skilled, educated, ready and willing workers with disabilities in real jobs for competitive salaries we have to ensure companies understand what a culture of inclusion looks like. We must continue to explain why corporate culture without inclusion is an automatic acceptance into the club known as being Divershish

Don’t be Divershish.

Please click on this short video. This is an amusing take on the Diversish world. Keep in mind though that the responses from those acting as senior business leaders are the exact responses I receive from the majority of real business leaders. Enjoy.