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Today we are in my favourite community in British Columbia, the beautiful Comox
Valley and
it is my favourite because it is where I'm from and it's the community I get to
represent.
So, today we are having the very first community consultation
and it's going really well. The government committed to creating a White Paper,
talking about how British Columbia
can become the most progressive jurisdiction for persons with disabilities
in all of Canada.
The event tonight, I think that it's been really beneficial.
I didn't hear about this
ever happening before and it feels good to be able to express
how I feel about how I participate as a citizen of British Columbia
and to let the government know
what we need. I think it's a wonderful thing, and I think the
government is
taking all the right steps and moving towards
bringing in agencies together, working cooperatively and
collaboratively together. Doing that in itself
is going to improve efficiencies. It brings costs down,
will improve services and it makes everybody happy. It's making
all of us sitting at the table aware just
not just the needs but the successes of
other organizations that work with people with disabilities, as well as the
individuals who have disabilities.
Unlike some White Papers, where government writes solutions in advance,
and then goes out to the population and says "did we get it right?"
we're doing it backward. We're actually going to the community, we want to talk to
individuals with disabilities, their family members,
community support groups, business owners -- the whole
broad section of the community
to ask them what we can do to become the most progressive jurisdiction. And
today, in this community,
I think we have a great turnout.