Overcoming Digital Divides: People with Disabilities and Accessibility
More than 6.2 million people over the age of 15 are living with a disability in Canada. The federal and provincial governments have taken steps to improve internet accessibility and adoption among people living in Canada with disabilities but there still remain substantial gaps in internet use. People in Canada with disabilities are at risk of facing barriers in accessing information and communications technology.
What further steps are needed to ensure digital inclusion for people with disabilities? How can governments better enforce and advance digital accessibility?
We heard from experts, policy-makers and those with lived experiences as we tried to unpack these questions and generate solutions for more accessible online spaces. The discussion was followed by breakout rooms focused on workshopping innovative policy solutions to bridge divides in internet accessibility.
Online event
About the Overcoming Digital Divides workshop series
The digital divide is about more than the lack of internet infrastructure in rural parts of Canada. It includes gaps in every corner of Canada in internet and device affordability, quality and digital literacy. These divides are tied to socioeconomic factors leaving some communities in Canada more disconnected than others.
How can federal, provincial, territorial, municipal and Indigenous governments advance policy solutions for full digital inclusion? What community and industry programs and policies can help to close these divides?
We explored these challenges and looked to advance concrete solutions in the Overcoming Digital Divides workshop series with the Ryerson Leadership Lab, Brookfield Institute for Innovation + Entrepreneurship, and the First Nations Technology Council.
Read a short framing paper put together by our partners that lays out the context, evidence and importance of these discussions.
Part of Towards Equity
The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified inequities and exposed the deficiencies of our institutions. It has confirmed we must enact change and signaled that transformation is possible. What must we understand—and do—to recover equitably and reimagine our systems to confront the intersecting crises of inequality, systemic racism and climate change?
Towards Equity, SFU Public Square’s 2021 Community Summit Series, takes place online throughout the year and brings the university into conversation with local and global communities. Join us to learn and take action together towards a more just, equitable and sustainable future.
Joyce Murray
Minister of Digital Government
The Honourable Joyce Murray was first elected as the Member of Parliament for Vancouver Quadra in 2008.
Minister Murray is a dedicated community leader with a deep commitment to environmental sustainability and democratic engagement. Her federal political career follows a 25-year career building an international reforestation company and four years serving in the Cabinet of the Government of British Columbia.
Heather McCain
Executive Director, Creating Accessible Neighbourhoods (CAN)
Heather McCain is Executive Director of Creating Accessible Neighbourhoods (CAN), a non-profit they founded in 2005. Heather built CAN from a small grassroots organization in two communities to an organization delivering workshops and adding their voice to projects and events across Turtle Island.
Heather’s own experiences with multiple types of disabilities, neurodivergence, inaccessibility and ableism led them to become a well-known and respected advocate, speaker, educator and activist. Heather works to create equity, celebrate diversity, and educate about and implement accessibility.
Heather recognizes that those within the disability community have intersecting identities and works hard to ensure a multitude of voices and experiences inform their work and the work of CAN. Heather is committed to centring decolonialization, using an intersectional lens, and doing cross-movement organizing. They operate with a disability justice framework, working to challenge our way of thinking while fundamentally shifting the way we organize and fight for social change.
Heather is a Crip Doula. This is a Disability Justice term for someone who helps disabled people navigate our complex systems, providing resources and support and building community. Members of Chronically Queer (CQ) gave this title to Heather. CQ is a support group Heather facilitates for LGBTQ2SIA+ folk with chronic health conditions.
David Lepofsky
Visiting Professor of Disability Rights and Legal Education, Osgoode Hall Law School
David Lepofsky is a visiting professor of Disability Rights and Legal Education (part-time) at the Osgoode Hall Law School and a past adjunct member of the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. He holds volunteer leadership roles in the disability community. He is chair of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance. He is a member and past chair of the Toronto District School Board’s Special Education Advisory Committee. He is also a member of the Kindergarten-Grade 12 Education Standards Development Committee appointed by the Ontario Government to recommend reforms to tear down barriers impeding students with disabilities.
He is the author of one law book, and the author or co-author of 30 law journal articles or book chapters on topics including constitutional law, criminal law, administrative law, human rights, and the rights of persons with disabilities. His publications have been cited with approval in several decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada, as well as by trial and appeal courts across Canada. He has been invited to lecture on topics including these across Canada, and in the US, Israel, the Republic of Ireland, Denmark, Belgium and New Zealand. He has created and is expanding an extensive online series of videos on disability rights and advocacy. It has secured thousands of views. Excerpts have been used in some university courses.
Making the internet accessible for people with disabilities is critical to post-pandemic recovery
By Nour Abdelaal and Sam Andrey, Ryerson Leadership Lab
The pandemic has made it clear that access to digital services is an essential need for all Canadians. However, too many people with disabilities have been isolated during lockdowns without sufficient digital connection. With more than 6.2 million people in Canada over the age of 15 living with a disability, it is critical that digital services fully accommodate the diverse needs of individuals with impairments in sight, hearing or speech, or neurological conditions. The fourth part of the Overcoming Digital Divides workshop series explored how we can close gaps in internet access and use for people with disabilities during and after the pandemic.
Overcoming Digital Divides: What We Heard and Recommendations
This final report on the Overcoming Digital Divides workshop series summarizes the main themes shared at the workshops and offers five main policy recommendations to address Canada's digital divides moving forward.
Sponsor
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Overcoming Digital Divides: Youth and Digital Skills
Join us to discuss how Canada can better support our public internet infrastructure for the marginalized communities who rely on them and for everyone.
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Overcoming Digital Divides: Public Internet Access
Join us to discuss how Canada can better support our public internet infrastructure for the marginalized communities who rely on them and for everyone.
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Overcoming Digital Divides: People with Disabilities and Accessibility
The federal and provincial governments have taken some steps to improve internet accessibility and adoption among Canadians with disabilities, but there still remain substantial gaps with many facing barriers in accessing digital services.
Read More →
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Overcoming Digital Divides: Older Adults and Digital Literacy
Older adults are less likely to use the internet than younger people in Canada, and many report that information technologies do not improve their quality of life or save time. The issue is more pertinent than ever under the pandemic.
Read More →
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Overcoming Digital Divides: Low-Income Communities
Low-income communities continue to experience lower internet access, affordability, and quality. Canadians are at an all-time need for increased access to internet, computer, and tablet devices for e-learning and remote work.
Read More →
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Overcoming Digital Divides: Indigenous, Rural and Remote Communities
Are recent public investments and policies sufficient to achieve digital inclusion of Indigenous, rural and remote communities? What Indigenous-specific needs must be addressed to secure digital inclusion?
Read More →
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Property, Home and Precarity: From Street Sweeps to Housing Justice
As part of our Classroom Partnership Program, senior SFU geography students will present their work on housing vulnerability in Vancouver, focusing on rental evictions, street sweeps, rental financialization, and housing justice movements.
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Hope in Resistance: Stories of Climate Justice
SFU Public Square and Vancity are proud to present Hope in Resistance, featuring Melina Laboucan-Massimo, co-founder of Indigenous Climate Action; Anjali Appadurai, climate justice lead at Sierra Club BC; and Naisha Khan, co-founder of Banking on a Better Future, in a conversation moderated by Nahlah Ayed (host of Ideas on CBC Radio One).
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Mapping Equity: Using GIS and Maps to Make Invisible Realities Visible
Maps are great tools to bring together a massive amount of data and share it in a format everyone is familiar with. They are also a unique tool to bring unnoticeable realities—including realities of inequality—to visible patterns. This 90-minute workshop will introduce you to how to make a thematic map that highlights an equity indicator.
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Equity in Practice: More Stories of Community Capacity Building
SFU’s Community Capacity Building Certificate supports learners as they engage community by sharing lived experiences and adopting new tools for building projects and movements. Learners deepen their relationships with themselves, their communities and the land to create a project and move forward a change they’d like to see in the world.
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Should a Just Recovery Include a Basic Income for B.C.?
At this event we will look at the recommendations and analysis of the Final Report of the British Columbia Expert Panel on Basic Income to ask: should a just recovery for all include a basic income?
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Overcoming Digital Divides: Youth and Digital Skills
Join us to discuss how Canada can better support our public internet infrastructure for the marginalized communities who rely on them and for everyone.
Read More →
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Equity in Practice: Community Capacity Building
Join us to hear inspiring stories from the most recent cohort of SFU’s Community Capacity Building Certificate learners and their growth as emerging leaders working towards equity in their communities.
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Overcoming Digital Divides: Public Internet Access
Join us to discuss how Canada can better support our public internet infrastructure for the marginalized communities who rely on them and for everyone.
Read More →
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Researching for Climate Justice
Activists, researchers, policy-makers and solution-seekers come together to surface the challenges and opportunities of taking equity-informed approaches to climate research, solutions and policy development.
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Overcoming Digital Divides: People with Disabilities and Accessibility
The federal and provincial governments have taken some steps to improve internet accessibility and adoption among Canadians with disabilities, but there still remain substantial gaps with many facing barriers in accessing digital services.
Read More →
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Rosemary Brown Memorial Symposium
Every year, to honour the important legacy of the late Rosemary Brown, SFU's Department of Gender, Sexuality & Women’s Studies (GSWS) brings together distinguished scholars, students, service providers, and the broader community together to speak on current issues of diversity, ongoing inequalities, and ways to create positive change.
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Overcoming Digital Divides: Older Adults and Digital Literacy
Older adults are less likely to use the internet than younger people in Canada, and many report that information technologies do not improve their quality of life or save time. The issue is more pertinent than ever under the pandemic.
Read More →
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The 2021 Spry Memorial Lecture
Desmond Cole and Tanya Talaga, along with moderator Candis Callison, will consider recent attention over the escalation of commentary on the representation of Indigenous, Black, and people of colour; the structural challenges that currently impede calls for greater diversity; and how institutions and platforms can foster a more constructive dialogue.
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Dean's Lecture on Information + Society
We are pleased to partner with SFU Library to invite you to the Dean's Lecture on Information + Society: an evening of conversation with Robyn Maynard and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson.
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Decolonizing Scottish Studies
This is the first in a series of events being organized by the Centre for Scottish Studies at Simon Fraser University
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Innovations in Research
Join us in a unique virtual environment using Gather to engage directly with SFU faculty, students, staff, alumni and community partners who are moving us Towards Equity with innovative research from a variety of fields and perspectives.
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Overcoming Digital Divides: Low-Income Communities
Low-income communities continue to experience lower internet access, affordability, and quality. Canadians are at an all-time need for increased access to internet, computer, and tablet devices for e-learning and remote work.
Read More →
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Zooming In: Education in 2021
Join the SFU Public Square Peer Ambassadors for a student-focused event on how to improve the online education experience under COVID-19.
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Overcoming Digital Divides: Indigenous, Rural and Remote Communities
Are recent public investments and policies sufficient to achieve digital inclusion of Indigenous, rural and remote communities? What Indigenous-specific needs must be addressed to secure digital inclusion?
Read More →