Today’s self-advocacy. With a lot of self-advocacy groups today, I don’t see them tackling big issues. Back then, there was the Eve case—going right up to the Supreme Court of Canada to change the laws for people with disabilities. People don’t seem to work on these big issues today. It’s like self-advocacy is being controlled by agencies still. I don’t mind making waves. I think in many areas the associations are setting up what I call “social” advocacy committees that are taking away from People First. The advocates get treated to going to conferences. People First doesn’t have the money to send people to conferences. So self-advocates are being played. Their voices aren’t taken seriously.

People are still in the same crappy situation—but just not in institutions. ODSP^1(footnote) is still crappy. The Ministry says they are doing something about it. They say they raise the rates 10 cents a year. People living in the community don’t want to speak out about this crappy situation. They think if they speak out that they’ll get cut off. People are accepting of how bad things are. We need to keep challenging the system, not accepting it.^2(footnote) ~ Peter Park