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of assistive devices were compounded by the dislocations caused by
COVID-19.23 Other reports document how people with disabilities
who require attendant services for activities of daily living such as
meal preparation and personal care to live independently in the com-
munity have been forced to rely on family members, as personal sup-
port workers are redeployed to work in long-term homes.24
A human rights lens ensures that COVID-19 is not used as
a pretext to adopt repressive measures to expand the authority of
guardianship. Persons with disabilities, whose lives are already over-
regulated, may be subject to additional surveillance during COVID-
19.25 Historically, the privatization and deregulation of disability
services are driven by cost-cutting agendas.26 Austerity measures have
accompanied neoliberal politics, along with the reduction of govern-
ment inspections in congregate settings, understaffing, and reliance
on part-time, precarious labour.27
“Think prison is bad, try a nursing home!”:28 Disability Detention
in Canada
The segregation of persons with disabilities in large institutions was
based on violent stereotypes about their capacity to live independently
and being in need of coerced care.29 Residents were subject to horrific
23. Paula Duhatschek, “Man Stuck Hours Daily on Floor While Province Closes
Assistive Devices Office”, CBC News (22 April 2020), online: <www.cbc.ca/news/
canada/kitchener-waterloo/man-stuck-hours-daily-on-floor-while-province-
closes-assistive-devices-office-1.5540041>.
24. Omar Dabaghi-Pacheco, “People with Disabilities Forced to Rely on Family as
PSW Options Dwindle”, CBC News (5 May 2020), online: <www.cbc.ca/amp/1.
5554052>.
25. “HALCO Raises Serious Concern with Ontario Decision to Share COVID-19
Test Results with Police and Others” (24 April 2020), online: HIV and AIDS LegalÂ
Clinic Ontario <www.halco.org/2020/news/halco-raises-serious-concern-with-
ontario-decision-to-share-covid-19-test-results-with-police-and-others>.
26. Vera Chouinard & Valorie A Crooks, “Negotiating Neoliberal Environments
in British Columbia and Ontario, Canada: Restructuring of State–Voluntary
Sector Relations and Disability Organizations’ Struggles to Survive” (2008) 26:1
Environment & Planning C: Government & Policy 173.
27. Mary Jean Hande & Christine Kelly “Organizing Survival and Resistance in
Austere Times: Shifting Disability Activism and Care Politics in Ontario, Canada”
(2015) 3:7 Disability & Society 961.
28. Eli Clare, Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation, (Cambridge, MA:
SouthEnd Press, 1999) at xxii.
29. Canadian Association for Community Living (CACL), “Deinstitutionalization:
A Call to Action” (2019), online: Institution Watch <www.institutionwatch.ca/
VULNERABLE
The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19
- Title
- VULNERABLE
- Subtitle
- The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19
- Authors
- Vanessa MacDonnell
- Jane Philpott
- Sophie Thériault
- Sridhar Venkatapuram
- Publisher
- Ottawa Press
- Date
- 2020
- Language
- English
- License
- CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
- ISBN
- 9780776636429
- Size
- 15.2 x 22.8 cm
- Pages
- 648
- Categories
- Coronavirus
- International