Our History

Inclusion Canada influences the development of the Canada Disability Benefit Act, and the federal government signs it into law. The purposes of the Act are to reduce poverty and support the financial security of working-age persons with disabilities.

Inclusion Canada , in partnership with the Autism Alliance of Canada, launches The Inclusive Workplace, a bilingual online resource to support job seekers and employees have an intellectual disability or autism, businesses, and employment agencies.

Bill C-7 Passes. it would introduce assisted suicide as an option exclusively for people with disabilities and disabling medical conditions who are not dying or near death.

Inclusion Canada appears before the Supreme Court of Canada as an intervener in R v. Slatter, in a critical case which raises the importance of access to justice for women and girls with disabilities in Canada. Inclusion Canada intervened because women with intellectual disabilities should not face additional hurdles in accessing justice based on assessments of suggestibility that would never be applied to another witness. Adding an additional barrier to the acceptance of the complainant’s testimony is discriminatory denies women and girls with intellectual disabilities in full protection of the law. “R v. Slatter is a precedent setting case that has the potential to change the relationship between the criminal justice system and witnesses with disabilities,” says Krista Carr, Executive Vice President of Inclusion Canada, “The Court has the opportunity to address stereotypes about women and girls with disabilities and make sure that perpetrators of these crimes are held accountable.”

The Disability Inclusion Action Plan is launched: The government’s plan will address three key areas of need:

• A new Canadian Disability Benefit modelled after the Guaranteed Income Supplement for seniors;

• A robust employment strategy for Canadians with disabilities;

• A better process to determine eligibility for government disability programs and benefits.

COVID-19 Disability Advisory Group to which Krista Carr, CACL Executive Vice-President was appointed. Mrs. Carr stated, "I will be seeking a nationally coordinated approach with the provinces and territories that is immediately responsive to individuals with disabilities, their families and those who support them to ensure they are no longer invisible, forgotten, or treated as if their lives do not matter." 

Inclusion Canada influences the development of the Accessible Canada Act, and the federal government signs it into law.

The Quebec Superior Court has struck down a fundamental protection for the equality rights and inclusion of the elderly, ill and persons with disabilities in Canada's medical assistance in dying legislation. At present, only persons whose natural death is reasonably foreseeable meet the legal requirements for a medically-assisted death. On September 11th, however, in a highly contentious decision, Justice Christine Baudouin struck down this requirement, declaring that it violates the constitutional rights of Jean Truchon and Nicole Gladu.

The government announced that with the support of all provinces and territories Canada has acceded to the Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). This means that Canadians can now make complaints to the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities of violations of their rights guaranteed under the CRPD. As well, it means that Canada will allow the UN body responsible for the CRPD to undertake systemic inquiries into rights violations in Canada. In doing so, Canada has equipped persons with disabilities, both as individuals and as groups, with new avenues to seek justice and defend their rights.

Inclusion Canada begins working with the federal government on its proposed Federal Accessibility Legislation to “promote equality of opportunity and increase the inclusion and participation of Canadians who have disabilities by increasing accessibility and removing barriers in areas of federal jurisdiction.”  Inclusion Canada encourages a disability and inclusion-based policy lens.

Inclusion Canada, along with other Canadian disability organizations, travels to Geneva to meet with the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to discuss priority areas for people with disabilities as part of Canada’s first report on progress to meet its obligations under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Inclusion Canada begins its work to ensure there are safeguards in any legal regimes for medical assistance in dying (MAID), following Parliament’s decision to authorize MAiD as an exemption to the Criminal Code prohibitions against homicide under certain legal conditions - including that a person must have a "grievous and irremediable medical condition". The legislation as passed defined such conditions as being: incurable; in an advanced state of irreversible decline; with intolerable physical or psychological suffering; and a reasonable foreseeability of natural death.

Inclusion Canada and the Autism Alliance of Canada launch Ready, Willing and Able (RWA), a national initiative designed to increase the labour market participation of people with an intellectual disability or autism through employer-driven demand. RWA goes on to win national awards for innovation and impact, and as of 2024 has engaged 10,000+ employers, partners with over 200 employment agencies, and has supported over 4,800 competitive hires for competitive wages.

MAID - 2013 British Columbia Court of Appeal: Carter v. Government of Canada

• Under section 241(b) of the Criminal Code, assisting someone to commit suicide is a criminal offence.

• Court of Appeal decided that 241(b) does not violate the Charter.

• Court followed reasoning in 1993 Supreme Court of Canada decision in R. v. Rodriguez

Inclusion Canada launches the No Excuses campaign, a national TV, radio, and newspaper campaign starring two young Canadians with intellectual disabilities. The campaign promotes quality inclusive education - that students with intellectual disabilities belong in regular classrooms in their neighbourhood schools.

After significant advocacy by Inclusion Canada and the national disability community, Canada ratifies the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. By doing so, Canada pledges to be governed by the CRPD, which articulates an international human rights framework for addressing the exclusion and lack of access people with disabilities have encountered in Canada and in all societies.

Inclusion Canada partners with the Council of Canadians with Disabilities to launch End Exclusion, a national annual gathering in Ottawa focused on poverty reduction. This results in the development of a National Action Plan on Disability and a proposed Basic Income Plan for Canadians with Severe Disabilities. This work provides the foundation for Inclusion Canada’s continued work on income security and the 2023 Canada Disability Benefit.

Inclusion Canada launches Inclusive Education Canada, a national initiative providing educators, researchers, parents, and advocates with vital resources for inclusive education strategies that remains active today.

Inclusion Canada influences the development of the Registered Disability Savings Plan (RDSP), introduced to help people with disabilities improve their long-term financial security by providing a tool to encourage them and their families to save for the future.

Inclusion Canada is at the United Nations on Opening Day for Canada’s signing of the UN Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

From 2002-2006, Inclusion Canada participates in drafting negotiations of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities at the United Nations. The Canadian delegation is an acknowledged leader during the development of the Convention, particularly around the tedious, detailed discussions around Article 12 on whether persons with disabilities have legal capacity and the capacity to exercise this right.

Inclusion Canada intervenes at the Supreme Court of Canada in the case of R. v. Latimer. Robert Latimer was originally convicted in a lower court of second degree murder after killing his daughter Tracy, who had cerebral palsy. The Supreme Court upholds the sentence of second degree murder and rules that Robert Latimer's crime of murdering his daughter could not be justified as necessary. Inclusion Canada also participated as intervenors in defence of Tracy’s right to life in Robert’s multiple appeals.

Inclusion Canada successfully advocates for changes to the Income Tax Act, including expanding the Disability Tax Credit to include people with an intellectual disability. These changes help families for five consecutive federal budgets and live on in the Canadian tax system today.

Inclusion Canada and its provincial/territorial members launch Community Inclusion, a national community development initiative to ‘assist communities to develop the capacities they require to successfully include people with intellectual disabilities in ways that promote their roles as full citizens’. The initiative focuses on promoting inclusive values, policies, and practice and influencing needed changes across community sectors at municipal, regional, and provincial/territorial levels. The project continues to 2014, enhancing the lives of thousands of individuals and families in communities large and small throughout the country.

Inclusion Canada receives support from the federal government for a province-wide demonstration of deinstitutionalization. The Right Future: A Future with Rights successfully supports over 200 people with intellectual disabilities in Newfoundland & Labrador to move from institutions into their own homes. The project demonstrates that even people who spend decades incarcerated can develop rich lives in community. It also helps develop community services that assist with supported living and provides valuable lessons for other jurisdictions.

People First of Canada is officially formed. People First of Canada and Inclusion Canada sign a Memorandum of Understanding to outline a commitment to work together, which lives on today.

Inclusion Canada launches a successful challenge to the Canada Elections Act and voting rights are extended to Canadians with “psychiatric and mental disabilities”.

Inclusion Canada launches Community Living 2000, outlining its firm commitment to change communities, systems, and laws that keep people with an intellectual disability confined to institutions and excluded from community. Goals include closing institutions and sheltered workshops, making funding for services more empowering of individual choice, creating communities where children and families are supported, and transforming the segregating services that our federation built when nothing else existed for people with an intellectual disability.

Inclusion Canada supports the organization’s Consumer Advisory Committee (made up of people with an intellectual disability) to intervene in the landmark case of E. (Mrs.) vs. Eve. History was made. Self-advocates go to the Supreme Court of Canada and win: No non-therapeutic sterilization without the consent of the person.

Inclusion Canada’s self-advocate advisors call on the organization to evolve their advisory role to an independent self-advocacy organization and movement. People First of Canada begins to take shape.

Inclusion Canada intervenes in the landmark case of Clark v. Clark, supporting a young man who communicates by pointing at printed symbols. Justin Clark has been institutionalized for 18 years and wants to leave, but his family challenges his capacity to make his own decisions. The court finds that he is fully capable of directing his own life. Inclusion Canada’s involvement in the case leads to substantial work on legal capacity and supported decision-making, and later influences what comes to be Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Justin moves into community and lives a full life.

Inclusion Canada mobilizes a national campaign to include disability in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, as original drafts do not mention disability. Success! The Charter is signed into law and declares physical or mental disability as a prohibited reason for discrimination - the first time such a right is guaranteed in the Constitution of a country.

During the UN International Year of Disabled Persons, governments are encouraged to bring people with disabilities into the ‘mainstream’ of society. The federal government releases the first ever report on disability issues in Canada, The Obstacles Report - a comprehensive review of federal legislation regarding people with disabilities. Significantly influenced by Inclusion Canada’s advocacy, the report puts forward “130 recommendations to work towards full integration of persons with disabilities in all aspects of public policy including human rights, income security, assistive devices, transportation, and communications.”

Inclusion Canada’s research institute launches Comprehensive Community Service Systems (ComServ), a series of regional projects across the country training workers in the field of disability and supporting the transformation of community services from segregation and institutionalization to ‘normalized environments’.

Inclusion Canada forms the Institute on Research and Development on Inclusion and Society (IRIS) to provide research, new ways of thinking, and education to advance the wellbeing of people with an intellectual disability and their families.

• In 1970, the national institute opens at York University.

• Over the next four decades, the Institute conducts extensive research into public policy issues affecting people with intellectual disabilities. The organization produces numerous investigative publications and delivers training to provide insight into the social policies, laws, and programs that act as barriers to the full participation of people with disabilities in community.

Former names of IRIS include: National Institute on Mental R** (1969 - 1986) and The Roeher Institute (1986 – 2005).

Inclusion Canada launches The National Crusade, a campaign to secure government and public support for services for people with an intellectual disability.

• Donors raise over $15M for projects across the country, including university research centers and demonstration projects to show that people can live successfully in community.

• Local associations develop over 1,000 local, residential, educational, and employment training services for people with an intellectual disability in communities across the country – offering for the first time an alternative to institutionalization.

• Provincial governments begin developing facilities and providing some services as a result of family and organizational advocacy.

Inclusion Canada is officially formed at a conference of provincial associations in Calgary, Alberta, to bring a national voice to concerns.

Former names of Inclusion Canada include: Canadian Association for R** Children (1958 -1969), Canadian Association for the Mentally R** (1969-1985), and Canadian Association for Community Living (1985-2020).

An op ed by Victoria Glover is published in the Toronto Star asking why there is no school for her grandson except in the institution. Within a few weeks, 70 parents come together and resolve to establish a school for children with intellectual disabilities. Across the country, groups of parents begin to take similar action. These parent groups evolve to what are now local associations and provincial/territorial member organizations of Inclusion Canada.

Parents of children with an intellectual disability form the first parent group in Montreal to discuss alternatives to institutionalization for their children.