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City and territory grapple with meaning of accessibility

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Sidney Cohen/NNSL photo Cor Van Dyke, pictured in his home in Yellowknife, says he can rarely leave the house in winter because he never knows if the sidewalk up ahead will be cleared of snow or not. Dec. 22, 2017

"I have a pet peeve with city hall," says Cor Van Dyke of the municipal building.

The building is technically accessible, but a person in a wheelchair must enter through a side door, navigate his way through corridors to find the elevator, and then take the elevator upstairs to get to the service desk and council chambers, he said.

"Everybody else gets to use that nice ceremonial entrance," said Van Dyke, who sits on the board of the NWT Disabilities Council, and has been in a wheelchair for 18 years.

"That's very degrading for a person in a wheelchair, to know that we have to use something out of sight and out of mind."

Sidney Cohen/NNSL photo
Cor Van Dyke, pictured in his home in Yellowknife, says he can rarely leave the house in winter because he never knows if the sidewalk up ahead will be cleared of snow or not.

A senior technologist at a Yellowknife-based architecture firm, Van Dyke said he knows what little effort it takes to make public and commercial buildings more welcoming to people of varying abilities, and what great returns doing so can produce.

"It improves the building, makes it accessible not just to me, but ... to people that are temporarily walking around with crutches, parents with strollers," he said in an interview a few days before Christmas.

It's also about promoting the fact that people with disabilities are no different from anyone else, he said, "except that I'd like a little bit of assistance to get into a store to spend my money."

One needs only to take a short walk outside right now to know that Yellowknife is not especially hospitable to people for whom mobility is a challenge, he said.

Off the main drags, snow and ice-covered sidewalks are virtually impossible to traverse via wheelchair, to say nothing of the dangers of sitting outside in sub-zero temperatures for any length of time.

While he'll clock hundreds of kilometres on his motorized chair in the summer, Van Dyke rarely leaves the house during Yellowknife's long winters.

"I can't go around town," he said. "It's physically not possible."

Municipal and territorial to audit accessibility

Both the municipal and territorial governments are currently undertaking accessibility audits.

The city's audit, which is set to be presented to council in early 2018, is focused on infrastructure: making buildings and the physical environment accessible to a broader range of Yellowknifers and visitors.

The city's accessibility audit is a positive step, says the executive director of the NWT Disabilities Council, but true accessibility extends far beyond sloped curbs and automatic doors.

For one thing, said Denise McKee, recreational facilities, "from the pool to curling, straight on through," remain inaccessible.

Specifically, she said, they are not so accommodating of adults who require an attendant to change clothes, or to participate in a sport or a swimming lesson.

"It is a dignity issue," she said.

Training for support 

McKee suggested building gender-neutral change rooms, training instructors in how to support people with diverse abilities, and designing recreational programs for people with a wide range of abilities, as a few actions the city could take to make Yellowknife's recreational centres more welcoming of everyone.

People who can't access facilities and activities, said McKee, end up staying home "When when we continuously isolate people and don't give them access, they become marginalized citizens who don't actually get to experience full citizenship," she said.

Though the city's accessibility audit does not include recreational programming, administration told city council in February that they would "endavour to ensure accessibility in city programs" in 2017.

In its most recent annual report, the NWT Human Rights Commission determined that 63 per cent of all
complaints it received in 2016- 17  included "an allegation of discrimination based on disability.

In at least three cases of this nature that were adjudicated that year, either the city or the GNWT was ordered to pay damages up to $10,000.

In the legislature in June, Health and Social Services Minister Glen Abernethy said the territorial review of accessibility is looking for gaps in programs and services, and will lead to a "five-year action plan" to improve inclusion and increase awareness and education about disabilities.

Emily Harman is a nurse and sits on the board of the NWT Disabilities Council. She said resources in
Yellowknife for people with disabilities and their families are limited.

"Wait times often exceed six months and it's a constant struggle to maintain continuity of care," she stated in a Dec. 22 email.

"Support systems for families are equally as important as the support for the child. It can be a long and sometimes lonely journey, it takes great strength, and you can never give up hope."

In a December interview, Harman talked about her own daughter, Sophia, who is three years old.

"Sophia is a teacher," she said. "She's teaching kids how to accept and learn about diversity and differences at a young age, and that's pretty cool."

Sophia is Metis, and Harman says more culture-based and on-the-land programming would be beneficial for people with diverse abilities.

In general, said Van Dyke accessibility in Yellowknife is improving.

The big-box stores are accessible, and there is growing awareness within governments that facilities must be barrier-free.

"I can sit here and say: 'In that building, here's what issues are,' but I prefer to say in that building I can get around and I can do what I need to do. Sometimes I have to ask for help, just like I have to ask for help to lift stuff off of the grocery shelf, but that's simply a function of life," said Van Dyke.

"I look at the possibilities more than I look at the difficulties."