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David Baker: While I was talking to organizations within the disabled community about becoming
involved in leadership roles at what came to be known as ARCH, the issue of human rights
arose because Bob Elgie who was the Minister of Labour at the time decided he wanted to
follow an American lead and introduce into Ontario's human rights legislation protection
or category status for persons with disabilities, which was great except he proposed a separate
bill for people with disabilities and he proposed a much diluted standard of protection for
persons with disabilities.
So while ARCH was just getting started, human rights became a focal point. The disabled
community was united and of the view that second class status, which is how they referred
to it as proposed by Bob Elgie and the Premier of the day, Bill Davis, was not acceptable.
The groups came together .There was a meeting with the Premier and Bob Elgie. It was testy,
difficult but eventually I think they got the message that the disabled community was
united, of the view that strong human rights protection was required.
And out of that came the inclusion of disability, albeit with somewhat watered down protections
which were later changed by a liberal government, but inclusion for the first time expressly
in a -- in the Ontario Human Rights Code.
Other provinces preceded Ontario I should say. Ontario I think was the last or next
to last to include provision for persons with disabilities.
But it was great that it happened and it was great for the community because for a long
time, disability groups had competed with each other for public support and particularly
charitable support. And so there was a long history of competition and not a great deal
of history of cooperation. But human rights seemed to bring the disabled community together.
And out of that came a long history of disability protections in this province.