Elmwood
Communist Party of Canada – Manitoba (CPC-M) - Candidate: German Lombana
I have read your questions and I am sending a synthesis of my party's policy on those important topics:
- Adopt a national disability strategy and plan of action.
- Provide adequate funding and improve affordability.
- In formulating and implementing policies, laws and services, people with disabilities should be consulted and actively involved.
- CPC completely agreed to raise the minimum wage to $23.
Green Party of Manitoba (GPM) - Candidate: Nicolas Geddert
Q: How have disabilities played a role in your life and the lives of your loved ones?
I’ve had the privilege to make friends with many people dealing with disabilities, , and I know no matter the kind of disability, it’s challenges, when there are supports and care around these affected, the effects are positive. People will look after people because we’re people. I’ve also heard many stories from people trapped in a system that isn’t designed for their benefit, unable to get permission to work but unable to make ends meet with their benefits.
Q: Which one of DMVote’s 5 priority issues is of the greatest interest to you and why?
I am most keen on building an accessible Manitoba. Much like our environmental building codes that are decades out of date, we are not paying enough attention to a vision of a province that includes full spectrum human design, which opens the economy to anyone that wants a job, increases safety and accessibility in communities improving public health outcomes, and considers how much future generations will actually want to live here. When we build our environment with universal access in mind, we will always build better places.
Q: Disability discrimination has made up the largest share by far of all the formal complaints lodged with the Manitoba Human Rights Commission over the last 20 years. What do you think accounts for this and what do you think needs to be done to address it?
When Human Rights are being threatened or abused, it’s usually for a few reasons; these people rights are too expensive, they don’t actually have those rights, they don’t deserve those rights, and those rights won’t do any good. I’m sure all of those have been heard at some point by the community. I don’t know that there’s a universal answer to why we discriminated, as individuals and demographically. What we can act on is educating and enforcing standards, responding to those complaints with tangible improvements, and creating networks with disability advocates to ensure to ongoing support of the community.
Manitoba Liberal Party (MLP) - Candidate: Donovan DeBattista
The candidate did not respond by our September 20, 2023 deadline
New Democratic Party of Manitoba (NDP) - Candidate: Jim Maloway
Q: How have disabilities played a role in your life and the lives of your loved ones?
My family has been fortunate not to face the many challenges associated with disabilities.
Q: Which one of DMVote’s 5 priority issues is of the greatest interest to you and why?
The Priority 1 Accessibility appears to me to be of paramountcy. Everyone needs to access the things that make for a quality life, including services, of course.
Q: Disability discrimination has made up the largest share by far of all the formal complaints lodged with the Manitoba Human Rights Commission over the last 20 years. What do you think accounts for this and what do you think needs to be done to address it?
As accessibility becomes more mainstream, the places that haven’t yet caught up are under greater scrutiny. That’s a positive pressure to effect change!
The Progressive Conservative Party of Manitoba (PC) - Candidate: Josh Okello
Q: How have disabilities played a role in your life and the lives of your loved ones?
Before I ventured into politics, I worked at Gateway Resources out of Winkler Manitoba as a caregiver and skills teacher to our participants who were struggling with different disabilities. It opened my eyes to the importance and potential that our members of the community who are struggling with disabilities go through. I witnessed the discrimination and support that the disabled are getting in our community. With discrimination, I strongly believe that creating public awareness and teaching people about how to treat one another would be of great importance to eliminating discrimination against our brothers and sisters who are living with disabilities.
Q: Which one of DMVote’s 5 priority issues is of the greatest interest to you and why?
Accessibility is very important to me. Accessibility creates visibility and awareness. It also creates recognition of our brothers and sisters who are living with disabilities. It also educates the public on coexisting with the challenges that our people with disabilities go through.
Being able to participate in our community is very important but this can only happen if there is access to the facilities and buildings that support accessibility. With accessibility, our disabled friends can access key things such as education, sports, shopping, and leisure activities just like anybody else. We are living in a country that is supported by the constitution and Charter of rights and these rights apply to everyone in the country. For this reason, it is the right of our disabled brothers and sisters to also enjoy the freedoms, rights, and privileges but the first place to implement this is by creating accessibility for our brothers and sisters.
Q: Disability discrimination has made up the largest share by far of all the formal complaints lodged with the Manitoba Human Rights Commission over the last 20 years. What do you think accounts for this and what do you think needs to be done to address it?
Disability discrimination is of great concern to me because no one deserves to be treated as a lesser human being. We are all the same, created in the image of God. Public awareness and education on matters pertaining to the disabled is highly needed not only in our province but country-wide and beyond. This lack of awareness has made some people act out of ignorance without intentions of discrimination while others have acted out of knowledge of discrimination.
It would be great to incorporate discrimination topics especially on disabilities in schools and public places as a way of speeding awareness to the world on the dangers of discrimination.