This insightful monograph by Dustin Galer draws attention to the much neglected topic of contemporary disability rights activism in Canada. To this day, disabled people experience high poverty rates, enormously elevated rates of unemployment, and a marked tendency to be in precarious employment when working. In light of this, Galer’s work makes a major contribution to the diverse fields of disability studies, history, and law. Painstakingly researched through archival sources, personal collections, and interviews with key participants, Galer’s remarkable study warrants close attention by scholars and disability rights advocates alike. In the end, like most creative scholarship, it leaves researchers with many more questions to explore in the future. Most notably, with a marked degree of success, Galer combines historical analysis with qualitative interviews from thirty participants from Toronto with various physical and sensory disabilities. Unlike many contributions in disability studies which exclusively focus on identity or sexuality, Galer refreshingly makes the case that combating employment discrimination was a central site of disability rights activism. Moreover, he stresses that the arguments, advocacy, and passion of disability rights advocates matter. In so doing, he recuperates a largely lost history of defunct organizations and forgotten individuals. And he does so with the central concept animating disability studies in mind: a focus on addressing the barriers which impair the lives of disabled people, otherwise known as the social model of disablement.
The book is divided into eight chapters plus a methodological appendix that provides more background information about his interview participants. The first chapter provides an account of the experiences of the participants, eloquently capturing their struggles with their sense of self as disabled people. Although he does not engage deeply in debates on theoretical frameworks in empirical research, it is evident that he is sensitive to giving a voice to the participants. Galer is able to effectively convey how his participants grappled with an ableist society that excluded disabled people from much employment and yet were able to find dignity in the work that was available. The second chapter traces the history of family advocacy in fighting for the deinstitutionalization of disabled people in the 1960s and 1970s. Galer examines the pioneering efforts of the Woodlands’ Parents Group in raising questions about institutional abuse in an era where deference to professionals was the norm. Yet, as Galer observes, there would be growing tensions between disability rights organizations founded by disabled people as they challenged the paternalistic attitudes of the parent-led organizations, some of which still exist today.
The third chapter of Galer’s monograph explores the history of rehabilitation and the role many service organizations played in launching awareness campaigns highlighting the significant potential of disabled people. Yet those disabled people who acquired a rights consciousness often found themselves stymied by the narrow conservative framework of these organizations. Although rights consciousness is not a major theme of this book, some stunning historical nuggets are uncovered including a 1979 strike by blind workers at a catering stand operated by the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB). This dramatic episode warrants further examination by legal historians and labour studies scholars. The fourth chapter details the efforts of disability rights organizations with respect to employment. The founding of the Coalition of Provincial Organizations of the Handicapped (COPOH), now the Council of Canadians with Disabilities (CCD) marked an important milestone. Although Galer’s focus is understandably restricted to Canada, tragically, unlike the more radical approach articulated by American disability advocates such as Marta Russell (explored in my 2016 book), many Canadian disability rights organizations found themselves constrained by the fact that they accepted government funding. This collaborative approach of working with governments in part explains why advancing disability rights has been so slow. Unlike the broad and wide-ranging Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, legislative reform for disabled people in Canada has been much more limited. As the more decentralized federalism in Canada requires provincial intervention, it is sobering to consider that, even in 2018, most provinces still have no comparable legislation to the ADA. Nonetheless, Galer’s comprehensive research shines in uncovering the voices of lost advocates such as Beryl Potter, little known today but a pioneering figure in the Independent Living movement that encouraged self-advocacy for disabled people to live and work in the community.
Chapter Five addresses the topic of sheltered workshops. These segregated facilities offered tediously repetitive work to tens of thousands of disabled Canadians with a variety of impairments at little or no pay, often strictly segregated according to outdated gender norms. Sheltered workshops were also the site of contestation between rehabilitation professionals, parents of disabled people, and disabled activists who took very different positions. As always, legal regulation in the background structured these relationships, authorizing the payment of sub-minimum wages to the disabled people employed in these workshops. Indeed, these laws remained on the books in many provinces until extremely recently. Galer’s account of how various organizations gradually shifted their discourse in response to disability rights advocacy is fascinating and insightful. Chapter Six usefully examines employer attitudes to employing disabled people, with Galer demonstrating how a 1975 government-commissioned study by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce played a significant role in shifting these attitudes towards greater acceptance of hiring disabled people. Similarly, the 1981 landmark Obstacles Report released by a Special Parliamentary Committee and Justice Abella’s work on employment equity are shown to have had a lasting impact. Chapter Seven considers how the changing nature of the state over the course of the 1970s and later influenced disability policy. Galer correctly identifies the influence of the 1981 International Year of Disabled Persons in prompting the expansion of disability policy. Yet as “common sense” neoliberal austerity set in, funding cuts greatly impacted services for disabled people.
The final chapter is an intellectual tour de force. The highlight of the book, it innovatively traces the tensions between trade unions and disability rights advocates, noting how injured workers and other disabled people have typically not worked together. This is a valuable contribution to the literature. While socio-legal scholars may lament the lack of in-depth discussion of the participants’ legal consciousness, this is a serious and valuable study that capably addresses disability history and employment. Future scholars may want to do more comparative work with the United States, where the ADA offers far more rights than Canadians enjoy with respect to physical access, to determine why the paths of the two countries sharply diverged. While Galer acknowledges the 1960s political radicalization in Canada, he never fully identifies why it did not lead to significant change for disabled people. I suspect the lack of disabled Vietnam veterans was a major factor. Future scholars can fruitfully build on Galer’s fine study to conduct the comparative international work that disabled people so desperately need.
