VOICEAMERICA
"DISABILITY
MATTERS"
HOST:
JOYCE BENDER
GUESTS: DIANA BURKE
AND DAVID LEPOFSKY
Captioning provided By:
Caption First, Inc.
********
Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART)
is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a
totally verbatim record of the proceedings.
********
>> Welcome to
"Disability Matters" with your host
>> JOYCE
BENDER: And what an exciting show we
have, because this is the first show where we are live in
And we are very
excited to be in
>> DIANA
BURKE: Great to be here, Joyce.
>> JOYCE
BENDER: Well, we are very excited to
have you on this show. And to all
listeners anywhere in the world, because of course this show is rebroadcast in
12 hours, international show, here is one woman who has changed the face of
employment in
>> DIANA
BURKE: Okay, Joyce, well. I'm head of our information security
enterprise program, worldwide program.
And part of my responsibilities is insuring that we have the right
strategies, policies, products and practices across RBC Financial Group.
>> JOYCE
BENDER: Sorry. Go ahead.
>> DIANA
BURKE: In addition to that, part of our
diversity leadership council, which is chaired by our CEO, Gord
Nixon, and there is an executive on that council from every division across
RBC.
>> JOYCE
BENDER: By the way, I think that is
excellent, for anyone listening, when you have a multibillion dollar
corporation where the CEO is chairing diversity, that's what it's all
about.
Diana, I don't know
if all our listeners in the
>> DIANA
BURKE: Okay. Well, RBC is Royal Bank of
>> JOYCE
BENDER: RBC is a truly global
company. I'm the founder of Bender
Consulting Services and Bender Consulting Services of Canada, and as our
listeners know, I, too, have a disability.
I have epilepsy and a hearing loss.
As my company focuses specifically on employing people with severe
disabilities, 90 percent of our employees have severe disabilities. And may I say on the air, Diana, it is
because of you that BCS of Canada was founded here. There is no doubt about it. If it had not been for you, we wouldn't be
here today and the people we have employed and many the people who now work for
RBC would not have employment, which just goes to show you that it is true that
one person really can make a difference.
Could you share
with our listeners a bit about why, why were you first so interested in wanting
to help people with disabilities gain employment?
>> DIANA
BURKE: Well, I started back in the early
'90s. You know, I had been head of
diversity for a division and around that time, you'll remember that there was a
huge shortage of information technology staff.
So I started to figure out what was going on, where is staff, and was
really surprised to see that people with disabilities was a huge untapped
source of staff. I mean, I think it's
about 80 percent unemployment rate in
>> JOYCE
BENDER: And that is truly remarkable
that it just was your own interest in including that labor pool of people that
caused you to do this.
>> DIANA
BURKE: Uh-huh. Yes.
And you know certainly I looked around and, you know, certainly there
were no physical barriers for us to hiring them. And I guess Joyce that's when I met up with
you and wanted to know well, what does -- what do we need to do to attract
people with disabilities to work at RBC, and I realized we needed some help in
that area. Because certainly in the
community, if you have the reputation of being a place or a person with a
disability or any kind of diverse group to work with, then you attract the best
candidates. So we certainly were really
pleased to have you help us in that process.
>> JOYCE
BENDER: Well, we are pleased. People with disabilities are pleased that you
have been such a great leader for people with disabilities.
Now, Diana, I speak
all across the
>> DIANA
BURKE: Well, there is no question you
need an executive champion and in the business area, somebody who actually, you
know, is in the hiring side of things.
And there is no question, Joyce, that someone with a passion and the
focus in this area, it's very important. Coupled with that, you need to get
hiring managers who are supportive and promote a diverse workforce to
participate in exercises. There is no
question that, you know, you need a few sort of champions to get the word out. And the third thing I'd say is education. To break down the barriers around the myths
and perceptions around people with disabilities that are
out there. There are certainly -- it's
certainly necessary to do that to insure people understand what it is to hire a
person with a disability.
And you know we certainly hear all the myths and we
certainly don't hear the facts. And I
was just looking at the kinds of people we hired here at RBC, and we are
talking candidates with University degrees and ten years of work experience, and
all the latest technologies are used here in RBC and certainly we need to make
sure that everyone is aware, you're going to get a person with abilities that
can do the job like anyone else.
>> JOYCE
BENDER: And I must agree with Diana that
of course in this case, we had Diana, the great leader at an executive
level. But I agree with her that when
you have the commitment of the CEO, such as Gordon Nixon, someone who
specifically is interested in including Canadians with disabilities, that makes
such a difference. It makes such a
difference and I really have to say my hats off to RBC for that reason.
Now, Diana, you
mentioned about these myths. Is that why
you think the unemployment rate is so high for Canadians with severe
disabilities? Do you think a lot of
these myths are due to lack of training, what do you think?
>> DIANA
BURKE: Well, I think there's a couple of
things that we -- and I talked to some of the people we hired, and there
certainly is the myth and perceptions, and I think that's one of the major
barriers, because you don't get through the door. Some of the interviewees we talked to, once
you mention that you have a disability, you don't get an interview. Why would the people be like that unless
there are certain perceptions that they form right away.
The second thing I
think here is accessibility to education, to transportation to get to school or
to get to work. And you know I know some
areas are doing a lot in that area. And
we are trying to push for more here in
And the Internet
has made a great difference for that, I think, because you can do online
education now. So that has
happened. But you still, if you want to get
a job, you have to be able to get around and get around at the times you need
to. So I think some of that is changing,
but you know we definitely need more focus on it. And I know, Joyce, you did your best to write
to some of the MPs here around putting a focus on that. So we all need to keep the pressure up on
those things.
>> JOYCE
BENDER: Yes, and our guest later this
afternoon is, in fact, David Lepofsky.
>> DIANA
BURKE: Wow. He is an expert on trying to get the
environment accessible and get some focus, so he will be able to fill you in on
the latest strategy. We had a change in government at all three levels here in
>> JOYCE
BENDER: Diana, at RBC, you also do disability
awareness training, is that correct?
>> DIANA
BURKE: Yes, we do.
>> JOYCE
BENDER: And have you done that for the
past few years? Did this just
begin? When did you start doing that?
>> DIANA
BURKE: Oh, we have been doing that now
for I would say over five or six years, Joyce.
You know, we have -- the first thing we recognized after our building
was accessible was to train our staff and bring some awareness around of People
with Disabilities way before we hired anyone or had this outreach program to
work with you on hiring. So, training is
certainly something you have to do up front.
But then again,
also, once you hire a certain types of disabilities, I think you need to focus
on certain groups that have hired someone and are not sure what to do. So we have done some focus training for sort
of teams that are working with certain disabilities that they are not too
familiar what to do there. And we do
need the employees themselves to be open about their disability, because if
it's something that we don't know about, and something happens at work, you
know, I think we definitely need to have awareness on both sides that it's
really important that employees with disabilities talk about their
disabilities, to insure that we understand, you know, what to do in certain
situations.
So there is, I
would say, continuous education on both sides.
>> JOYCE
BENDER: All right. With that, we are going to take a break and
we will be right back to talk to the Tony Coelho award winner and Senior Vice President
from RBC Financial Group, Diana Burke.
Be back after the break.
>> Welcome
back to "Disability Matters" with
>> JOYCE
BENDER: Here we are on the show with
Diana Burke, the Senior Vice President of Information Security Systems and
Technology from RBC Financial Group and this year's Tony Coelho award winner. What does that mean to you? What did you think about that, being named
the Tony Coelho award winner?
>> DIANA
BURKE: Well, Joyce, I was certainly very
very surprised.
And it's a real honor. Tony
Coelho is the biggest champion for people with disabilities I've ever met. And really I admire him greatly. You know, his accomplishments in this area I
guess mine Pale compared to Tony's passion in this area and contribution to
moving things forward in the
However, I would
like to say that it wouldn't have been possible without help from certainly
Bender Consulting and taking up the challenge to be here in
>> JOYCE
BENDER: Yes. And I'll tell you what, you deserve that
award. Thank you for the complement. But you deserve that award and I certainly
appreciate all of the support of Marty Lippert and
Gordon Nixon and everyone at the RBC Financial Group. But you are the leader,
you are the one that made it happen. And
the fact is Tony Coelho is such a great person to all people with
disabilities. Several weeks ago, Tony
spoke in
>> DIANA
BURKE: Wow! And you know, when you meet Tony, it
certainly is part of who he is. I mean,
it's just wonderful. And certainly it
spurs me to great heights. And I'm
really, as I said, honored to be recognized that way.
>> JOYCE
BENDER: Well, as I said, you deserve
that award. You are one person that has
made this all happen. And for all of our
listeners, sometimes you wonder about different corporations, you wonder gee
what are the people really like? Isn't it great to know that RBC Financial
Group so much cares about Canadians with disabilities and Americans with
disabilities in the
>> DIANA
BURKE: Well, certainly, Joyce, you know, that
And
so far, Joyce, there are over a thousand kids have been taking the bus and
learning all about computers.
Because we brought it down in February this year, 2003, and they are
very pleased with it. It's a really big
hit in
>> JOYCE
BENDER: We will have to be involved with
you with Tech de Bus.
>> DIANA
BURKE: But it's just one way for us to
insure Jamaican kids are being exposed to the new global technology revolution
at an early age. And they really are benefiting
from it.
>> JOYCE
BENDER: Well, we will have to be
involved with Tech de Bus 2. We have to
now search out the students with disabilities.
>> DIANA
BURKE: Well, Joyce, when we did launch
the bus in February we were interviewed on several Jamaican radio stations and one
of the stations asked me if it was accessible.
And I had to sort of, you know, assure him that the next one would
be. But this is sort of a pilot just to
make sure it's sort of a feasibility study.
Because I think it's kind of one of the first in the
>> JOYCE
BENDER: And again, Diana, I think that
is so wonderful that you do that, so, this is how it is in life, you can either sit back and do nothing or you can take action. And this, Diana Burke, is an example to all
of you, who is a person that took action.
She had this idea about this bus.
She had this idea and no matter what anyone said to her, she was
determined to make that happen, just as she was determined to see Canadians
with disabilities gain employment at RBC.
And that's what we need more of in this world Diana, people like you,
people that are leaders and that step forward.
I know you also have done work
with PACE, which we now have been involved with you. Tell our listeners about PACE, in case they
want to get involved.
>> DIANA
BURKE: Pace is the project for
advancement of childhood education. As I
said earlier, I'm current president for PACE.
And this is a charity formed -- a charitable organization formed 16
years ago, to focus on helping children between zero
to six-year-olds in situations of racial, cultural or economic
disadvantage. And one of the -- I call
it our flagship program we have on PACE is called our adopt
a school program, where for a dollar a day, you can adopt one of the small
schools in the rural hills of
So, we are very proud for you to support the program.
Actually, this
Friday, we have a toy drive where we are getting educational toys and we have
also requested educational toys that would appeal to kids with disabilities,
Joyce.
>> JOYCE
BENDER: Wonderful!
>> DIANA
BURKE: I'm trying to do my part in
keeping my thing around -- insuring that we are very inclusive in what we
do. And we are going to send those to
kids here in
>> JOYCE
BENDER: Diana, now a couple questions
for you from our listeners.
>> DIANA
BURKE: Before I can answer that, the
PACE, we have a website.
>> JOYCE
BENDER: That's the question.
>> DIANA
BURKE: PACEcanada.org. PACECanada.org.
>> JOYCE
BENDER: And if a listener wants to make
a contribution or get involved with adopting a school, they just need to go to
the web site.
>> DIANA
BURKE: The forms are all there. They will fill them out and you know there is
information where to send them. So we
look forward to hearing from you.
Yes. We will pick a school for you,
if our listeners are not familiar with any schools in
>> JOYCE
BENDER: This holiday season as you are
thinking about what can I do, I want to give, I want
to help. What a great thing to educate
young children, disadvantaged, who as Diana is indicating really are in a very
poverty stricken state, and be able to provide them with education which we all
know is the key to everything, including the employment of People with
Disabilities. Diana, we have a question
for you, because what I do is we -- you can either call in or you can e-mail us
at disabilitymatters.com. What do I do
if I cannot get the support of people at my level to employ people with
disabilities?
>> DIANA
BURKE: Well, I'm not sure what level
that is, but in our company we have the ability to write to the CEO directly
and so if you talked to your manager or his manager, and it doesn't work, I
think we are very open to individuals writing directly to the head of their
division or CEO, and I'm sure if you write enough letters, you know, you'll
start to get listened to. The other thing to do is to maybe organize a little
awareness session within your area. You
know, there's certainly a lot of groups out in the
community who would come in to talk about it.
We actually had a whole day for different groups and they brought seeing eye dogs in, they brought different kinds of things
in, just to build an awareness around the disability scenario. But I think those are the two things I try to
do.
>> JOYCE
BENDER: And of course, now, this is
where it pays to work for a company like RBC, because if you do not work for a
company like RBC, it's harder to write that letter to the CEO. You know, you have to be at a company where
the people in leadership are also open and committed. That's why I always tell people,
when you make a career move, find out what the leadership is like. It's harder to do it if you don't have
support from the top.
As
we said before. Well, I know that
we are going to be moving on to our break and I know that Diana has to move on
to a meeting. But I want to say, Diana
Burke, Tony Coelho award winner, our hat is off to you for all you have done to
help people with disabilities gain employment and we will steal you back on
another show. But Diana, thank you for
everything. We will talk to you again
soon.
>> DIANA
BURKE: Joyce. Thanks for having me.
>> JOYCE
BENDER: Our pleasure.
>> DIANA
BURKE: Take care.
>> If you
have a question or comment, please call toll free at 1-888-335-5204. Now please welcome back the host of "Disability
Matters," here's
>> JOYCE
BENDER: And this is a great day to talk
about people that I refer to as attitude barrier busters. I stole a word here from our next guest. I stole it from him, who is truly the civil
rights person in Ontario, who has been working tirelessly to help people with
disabilities. And he is the chair of the
ODA committee, David Lepofsky. David, we are very
excited and honored to have you on our show with us and just so you know,
David, this show will be replayed in 12 hours internationally, so all of our
listeners throughout the world will be able to listen to this show. So why don't you first tell our listeners
about your background and how you first became involved with the ODA
committee.
>> DAVID
LEPOFSKY: Just hang on one second. My phone is a little weird. I'll be right back.
>> JOYCE
BENDER: All right.
>> JOYCE
BENDER: This is all a part of being a
radio show host. While I'm waiting for
David to be back on, I met David several years ago. How I first heard about him was from the
President's Committee on the employment of People with Disabilities. I was on the board of the President's
Committee on the employment of People with Disabilities for about nine
years. And I met Tony Coelho of course
through the President's Committee. But
after serving on the President's Committee, we would get calls from civil
rights leaders throughout the world asking us our opinion about having an act
similar to theirs. In other words,
certain countries such as Australia have an act similar to the ADA. That's been successful. Even in Vietnam they have been working on
getting an act similar to the ADA. And,
in fact, John Lancaster, the chairman of the President's Committee, went to
Vietnam, left the United States and went there in order to help them get all of
this moving. And while I was working
with the president, I first heard about David.
>> DAVID
LEPOFSKY: I'm back on. Sorry about that.
>> JOYCE
BENDER: That's all right. I'm just giving them a little introduction to
you. I was telling them how I first
heard about you, which was through Tony Coelho and the President's
Committee. But I'm going to allow you to
tell all of our listeners first a bit about your background and how you became
involved with the ODA committee.
>> DAVID
LEPOFSKY: Thank you for having me on and
I apologize for the misshap here. I'm David Lepofsky. I'm a lawyer in Toronto. I happen to be blind. I've been practicing law for 20 years. I don't practice in the disabilities rights
area. Disability
rights is my passion and my volunteer hobby, if you will. I've been involved in advocating as a lay
person, as a volunteer person, for over 20 years in the disability area. And
starting around 10 years ago, a number of us started to believe that we needed
new legislation in the province of Ontario to tackle the barriers that block
people with physical or mental or sensory disabilities from being able to fully
participate in all that life has to offer.
We, unlike the United
States, had for over 20 years had legislation on the books that prohibited
disability discrimination in the workplace and in access to goods and services
that defined disability very broadly.
And that provided for remedies.
We even had a constitutional provision, like your 14th amendment, that
banned disability discrimination. So we
were ahead of the
And we stole the name of the law from you folks. You called your law the Americans with
Disabilities Act. We called the one that
we wanted the Ontarians Disability Act. ODA. We formed a
coalition, called the ODA committee, and I've been serving as its chair. And we brought together disability
organizations and individuals with disabilities from all over Ontario, which is
Canada's largest Providence, which is larger physically than most places in the
US and has over 11 million residents to fight for this legislation.
>> JOYCE
BENDER: And how was the prior law that
you had? What did it not have?
>> DAVID
LEPOFSKY: Well, what the law --
okay. Here is what happened. The existing legislation that we had,
constitutional and regular laws, forbade employers and those who provide goods
and services from discriminating against people with disabilities and gave us
the right to sue. The problem that we
faced was that this required you to fight barriers one at a time. We had to sue for every single barrier you
faced, spend years in litigation, have to get lawyers. And it was a long process and it didn't
really solve the problem. It helped
individuals face individual -- tackle individual barriers, but many -- most
people just don't have the time to fight all the barriers they face one at a
time. We wanted a more systematic
solution. And so we decided to go for a new law and we wanted to look at laws
around the world, the ADA and the Australia disability discrimination act and
laws all over the place, to see what did they include
that ours didn't. And based on that we
designed a blueprint for a new law and spent the past several years fighting
and lobbying and advocating to get legislation passed
in Ontario to meet our needs.
>> JOYCE
BENDER: And, David, tell our listeners
in the United States and throughout the world and of course Canada, where we
are broadcasting from Canada, the main areas covered under the ODA for
Canadians with disabilities.
>> DAVID
LEPOFSKY: Well, let me tell you what we
wanted and let me tell you what we got.
What we wanted was a law that had a few key ingredients. We wanted it to have as its goal the
achievement, over a reasonable time, of a barrier free province. And by barrier we don't just mean physical
barriers being removed. We meant also
any other kind of barrier, whether it's technological or attitudinal or
whatever. We wanted it to apply to the
public and private sector. We wanted it
to -- we wanted organizations that had barriers to have to identify and develop
plans to remove barriers, and also to prevent new barriers from being
created. No other disability, civil
rights organizations around the world that we knew of had made such a priority
about not only removing barriers, but preventing new ones.
Who would be in favor of creating new barriers, if you
think about it.
And we wanted detailed accessibility standards to be set. That's one of the things that we learned from
the US, and have a real valuable impact.
And we put together
a blueprint for this. Now, about 8 years
ago, a provincial government was elected in Ontario from our conservative
party, which actually promised to pass an ODA in its first term. But when they took office, they ran and hid
from this commitment and tried to do as little as they could on it. So we had to spend years organizing people
and doing that good old fashioned grass-roots lobbying. Two years ago, in 2001, over six years after
they took office, they finally passed a law called the Ontarians with
Disabilities Act, but it was weak. It
didn't apply to the private sector at all.
It only applied to the government and public sector. It didn't have mandatory enforcement. It allowed the government to set standards
for accessibility, but the government never did.
And it required some public sector organizations to make
accessibility plans, but it didn't require the plans to be any good.
We then, over the
past couple years, tried to get the government to implement it, though they
dragged their feet. It was a weak law
and they were weak in implementing it.
The exciting news is that in October of this year, just a couple months
ago, we had another provincial election.
So, we are nonpartisan. We don't
belong to any party or endorse any party.
We try to work with any political party.
But in any event, a new party was elected, the Ontario Liberal Party
with a strong majority government. And
in their platform they promised that within one year of taking office, they
would pass a new strengthened Ontarians with Disabilities Act that would apply
to the private sector, not just the public sector, that would include mandatory
enforcement, and that would include a requirement of
accessibility standards.
So, we are now at the Cusp of a new and very exciting
period where we can sort of develop and build upon all of the hard work we have
done up to now, where we can sit down with a new government that has taken
office and try to develop the details of the legislation that we seek.
Up until now, we
had to try to drag a reluctant government to do something, and what they passed
was pretty weak. Now we are at the
exciting stage of work, with the new government that is more committed. Now, of course, there's always the risk that
a new government, when they take office, might get nervous knees and all that
stuff. So we have to be vigilant. But on the other hand we saw a number of
showings of good faith from the new government early on, which gives us some
sense of optimism.
>> JOYCE
BENDER: That is tremendous. That is wonderful. Now, with this new government, new premier,
what do you think -- what will happen with employment in reference to the
ODA?
>> DAVID
LEPOFSKY: Well, we want the Ontarians
with Disabilities Act to address barriers to jobs as well as barriers to goods
and services and facilities. One of the
things that we decided is that you can't really treat all these
separately. They all interrelate. For example, if there are barriers in the
public transit system, then it doesn't matter how accommodating the workplace
is, if people with disabilities can't get to the job, then the best employers
in the world who are the most receptive won't be able to have people to
hire. So we need to tackle the public
transit system.
Similarly, we need
to have a barrier free education system, both the high schools and elementary
schools and universities and colleges, because again even if the public transit
system is accessible and even if the employers are receptive, if you don't have
people with disabilities who are job ready in terms of their skills and their
training, then there is going to be a problem.
So we want a comprehensive solution.
But among those challenges, we want employers to have to address
barriers and remove them in the workplace, where they have them.
Now, if you think
about it, for example, a hospital, if a hospital has physical barriers, I'll
use this as an illustration, but we are not limited to physical barriers, there
would be a barrier to prospective employees with disabilities and patients with
disabilities who come for services and to family members with disabilities who
come to see their ailing family member.
You can't just separate out employment.
If you can remove the barriers, that will make
the hospital more accommodating both to those who need the hospital as a place
to work and for those who need the hospital as a place to get healthcare
services. And we want to remove barriers
on all those fronts.
So, we are hoping
to address all of that at once. Now, I
have to remind you --
>> JOYCE
BENDER: Hold on one minute. We will be right back after the break with
David Lepofsky.
You don't want to miss him. We
will be right back.
>> Welcome
back to "Disability Matters," with
>> JOYCE
BENDER: And I am today here in Toronto,
Canada. Our first show
in Canada, with David Lepofsky, the chair of the ODA
committee and a true civil rights legend for Canadians with disabilities in
Ontario. David, before we move on
and go back to our question about employment, we have a question for you from a
person here in Ontario. What do I do if
I am deaf, and when I'm trying to gain employment cannot be hired due to discrimination. What
are my rights?
>> DAVID
LEPOFSKY: Well, there's
two things that people in that situation or with other disabilities can look
to. I can't give specific advice here,
but people can contact the Ontario Human Rights Commission, OHRC.on.ca, and can
review. They have got a whole policy on
discrimination and disability. And they
have legislation that forbids discrimination because of disability. So, if somebody thinks that they have been
discriminated against, they already have the right to file a complaint, try to
get it investigated and so on.
But we are looking
for an Ontarians with Disabilities Act that would make it unnecessary for
people to have to go through all of those steps. We want to prevent discrimination before it
happens. And that's why we want
legislation that requires barriers in the workplace to be removed before and
prevented before they are even created.
Let me just offer
our listeners some contact information.
If you want to learn more about us, I can suggest three quick
things. One is we have a website, with
the ODA committee's activities and what we're all about and how to get
involved. It's ODAcommittee.net. The
second thing is you can e-mail us if you want to get on our e-mail list,
because we send out updates. People all
and the world follow our activities.
Just write at our e-mail address.
I'll give it in a minute. For the people who are
excited to learn our history, I just wrote a 180 page article which will be published
soon on the whole history of the movement.
It's very detailed. And the same
e-mail address, just ask for the ODA history.
I'll send it. I can only send it
by e-mail. ODA@odacommittee.net.
So if you want to
check out our website or get on the e-mail list, or get a copy of the history
of the ODA movement, detailed, 180 page document, just
contact us and we are happy. People and
the world were following our activities, and sharing their own strategies. And we are eager to hear about what people
have tried elsewhere around Canada, around North America and around the world.
>> JOYCE
BENDER: And I think that is absolutely
fantastic. Listeners, you can call at
1-888-335-5204. Or if
you prefer, disabilitymatters@benderconsult.com. I'll try to go over them on this show or
other shows.
David,
back to the -- well, what you're having published. We would really like to get a copy of that,
because that is truly great. That is a
great history. That is great for anyone
interested in the civil rights movement for people with disabilities here in
Ontario.
>> DAVID
LEPOFSKY: I wrote it with a view to it
being read by people who are not lawyers, by people
who are not from Ontario. So it's
self-explanatory for people who are newcomers or for people who are
activists. I talked about how we got
people together, how you organize people at the grass-roots. I described the policy platform we put
together and how we thought it through.
Because we tried to borrow ideas from the best legislation in various
parts of the world and also to learn what doesn't work. We heard in the United States that your
Supreme Court has done a pretty unfortunate job of narrowing the ADA. So we wanted to come up with terminology in
our legislation that would not allow courts to do that sort of thing. So we want to learn from other's successes
and from their failures.
>> JOYCE
BENDER: David, you will e-mail that to
me, because we will put that -- listeners, we will put that on our website at
our www.benderofcanada.com and I'll also send that to the federal Department of
Labor and the Office of Disability Employment Policy, because that is really
great information. Thank you for taking
the time to do that. Thank you for
taking time to document all of that.
>> DAVID
LEPOFSKY: I'm delighted to and I'm eager
to get people's feedback on what they learned from it, what they think, and
what ideas they have for us. Because we are eager to learn. You know, one of the things that was exciting
about a year and a half ago, we were invited to go to Denmark, to a conference
of the European Union. They were
studying what kind of disability rights legislation they would pass in the
European Union, and it was delightful to be able to share some of our ideas and
to learn from people all around the world what they have tried, what succeeded
and what has failed. The common message
from people all over the place is it's not good enough to have a good law, you've got to have good implementation. We are trying to design a law that doesn't require
people with disabilities to bring a civil rights claim for every barrier they
face. You know, that -- we need to have
the right to sue and it needs to be a strong right to sue, but we need more.
>> JOYCE
BENDER: Yes.
>> DAVID
LEPOFSKY: We would like to make the
right to sue, make it such that people don't have to resort to it if they can
avoid it.
>> JOYCE
BENDER: You know,
any listener, this ODA committee, this e-mail that David is talking about is
absolutely fantastic. I'm one of the people
that receives that e-mail from David. And it really is timely. It keeps you up to date. It really has great information. And if you're listening and you're in another
part of the world, very helpful if you're trying to get something going where you
are. So I would encourage everyone to
get on that e-mail list. Because it's
really, it's outstanding. Excellent work.
>> DAVID
LEPOFSKY: If you want to get on it. The e-mail address, either to get our regular
e-mail or just a copy of the history of the moment, it's
ODA@odacommittee.net. We learned that by
networking people on the Internet, it's a very inexpensive way to bring people
with disabilities together. And it
removes a lot of barriers. I'm blind,
but I can read e-mails that people type.
Even if they only print. I can correspond with people who are deaf or
deaf/blind who use access technologies on their computers. So it tears down a lot of barriers between
people with disabilities. It also it lets
the government know that the movement, anybody in government says something
publicly on the ODA, we get word of it.
We send it out to just hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of
people. And there can be letters to the
editor flying within minutes of it happening.
>> JOYCE
BENDER: Is that right? Well, I believe it. Because it's excellent. And I'll tell you, David, we are really
getting behind Tony Coelho, because you mentioned about the Americans with
Disabilities Act. I was very honored to hear Tony speak October 24 at the New York law
school, where he gave a challenge to all the presidential candidates, including
President Bush. So it was not a
challenge to the Democrats or to the Republicans. It was as you said about your committee,
bipartisan. It was across the board
where he said: If you want our vote, if
you want Americans with Disabilities to vote for you in the next presidential
election, you need to include us and you need to address several issues. And one of them was the restoration of the
Americans with Disabilities Act.
>> DAVID
LEPOFSKY: One of the issues that we
focused on, as sort of a symbol for the need of a barrier free society, is we
want a barrier free election. And we
have been challenging the government to come up with more barrier free voting
procedures and barrier free voting places.
And it's a wonderful symbol.
Because who can be in favor of an inaccessible voting process? I mean, nobody would argue in favor of that.
But it also carries
with it a secondary message, which is hey folks, people with disabilities are
voters. We talked during the election
about voters with disabilities. Any
politician who wants to get elected, they hear the word "voter" and
they start listening.
>> JOYCE
BENDER: That's right. And there are a lot of us out there to vote
we just have to get unified. Wherever we
are, we have to get unified together behind the issues. David when we went to the break, you were
talking about the ODA working to increase employment. And basically, the things you were trying to
do is one, prevent problems. And, two,
make it mandatory and impact the private sector, correct?
>> DAVID
LEPOFSKY: Absolutely. And what we are looking at is the idea of
removing and preventing barriers in the workplace. If you ask an employer, do you think it's
helpful to have barriers that impede qualified employees from coming to work
for you? They will look at you and go of
course not. And the more -- and to the
extent that you can show them that removing barriers is financially worthwhile
for the business, not just the right thing to do, but also financially
worthwhile to the business, then you make it -- make a stronger case. If you show that they will have a competitive
advantage by removing barriers in the workplace, they open up a new labor pool
that they didn't have access to before, and if they don't grab that labor pool,
then the competitors will, then you start speaking their language.
And the other thing
is, and I'm not the least bit shy about using the word discrimination. There is discrimination in the
workplace. But the word
"discrimination" has emotional baggage to it. If you go to an employer and you say do you
know you discriminate against people with disabilities? You get their back up. You have to get their back up sometimes and that's
life and that's reality. But if you try
to come up with proactive reform strategies, walking up to an employer saying
you may not know but you've got barriers, that's not as threatening. It's the thing that any self respecting
business person would say: If that is
the case, I want to fix it. Barriers are
bad for business, not only bad for people with disabilities.
>> JOYCE
BENDER: That's right. Listen, we are coming to the close of our
show unfortunately. But David, I want to
thank you so much for joining us and I hope that we can have you on again when
we have some executives on again from RBC Financial Group. I just want to say to everyone listening how
much we applaud David Lepofsky and the ODA committee
for the great work he has done.
>> DAVID
LEPOFSKY: Thanks for having me on.
>> JOYCE
BENDER: David, any last comments?
>> DAVID
LEPOFSKY: Contact us at
ODA@odacommittee.net.
>> JOYCE
BENDER: This is from Justin Dart: "Lead on." And that's what it's about. David, lead on. We will see you on the next show.
>> DAVID
LEPOFSKY: Thanks very much.
>> VoiceAmerica would like to thank you for tuning in. Please join us next Tuesday at 2 p.m. Eastern
time for another installment of "Disability Matters," right here on
the Internet leader in talk radio, VoiceAmerica.com.