Disability-Based Discrimination and Prejudices in Canada

Unreasonable attitudes, feelings, or opinions of hostility about ethnicity, social and religious groups define the discrimination of disabled persons in Canada. There are various forms of discrimination; commonly, bias has its roots in the labor market where disabled people tend to be isolated and underrated for vague and absurd reasons of inability. This alone is a violation of human rights.

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In Canada, disabled people are rated as inferior in the sense that they are devalued and isolated explaining how permanently substandard they are. Thousands of disabled persons are therefore limited to their daily activities due to mental or physical disabilities. This has negatively affected their standards of living in the sense that they lack opportunities in the job market despite the fact that they actively participate in growth and development of the labor market. Like abled persons, disabled people desire to be employed. However, the situation is often insignificant, as most employers prefer physically and emotionally fit workforce as compared to the disabled. Either way, employers tend to withhold benefits meant to be equally allocated to disabled workers portraying unfairness and injustice. This, for various reasons, is evidently a violation of rights of people with disabilities, a failure that the Canadian government is unable to curb.

Underrepresentation of educational programs has seen the level of education in Canada gradually deteriorating. Programs based on disabled children have targeted for years legal challenges on discriminatory grounds and racial biases. As a result, students either fail to complete their education or spend more time schooling than recommended, for instance, approximately 59% of disabled youth in Canada have access to post-secondary learning compared to 72% of `normal` youth. Various barriers result in the ineffective schooling of disabled children.

Firstly, the disabled students lack support and disability accommodation. For instance, reports have often communicated insufficient and inadequacy in accommodation of disabled students in most schools in Canada. Such incidences lead to students failing to achieve their goals, and their dreams are often shuttered.

Nevertheless, organizations that deal with disabled people face challenges as they are run with bankruptcy. They lack monetary funds and services from the Canadian government, about special schools; there is a lower number of attendants with large class sizes and reduced rate of funding. This has however led to a challenge in the accommodation of needs of students that in turn poses a high risk regarding efficiency in the quality of education in such institutions.

Discrimination can also be institutionalized meaning that it happens in ways that are complex. Such systemic discrimination involves practices or policies that consist of administrative structures that in turn perpetuate disadvantage for psychologically disabled people. As a means to combat the effect, the Canadian government ought to set up environments that can help in the challenging of discouragement of negative attitude and practices. Such a measure can see the Canadian government prosperous in fostering equity and fairness among its citizens.

Research has moreover shown that most populations that are marginalized (racial minorities, sexual minorities, people with disabilities) are large in numbers among homeless Canadians. Either, poverty and homelessness restrict the people from accessing necessary support and services including employment and housing. Also, homeless Canadians are denied access to many places that most `normal` people visit for instance streets, parks, malls, restaurants, and stores. Homelessness further worsens not only their living standards but also affects their health adversely impairing their ability to progress with their life.

Most disabled youth aged 17-24 drop out of college before attaining their degree and are therefore underrepresented both in the labor force and in higher education levels. This insignificantly affects the disabled youth as most of them end up jobless. Research shows that disabled youth with a PSE qualification have chances of approximately 63% of being employed in comparison with disabled youth that lack PSE qualifications.

Stigma is commonly understood as attributes perceived as limitations, blemishes, and failings on a person's character that results to others viewing them differently. In contrast, the stigmatized are `abnormal` conceptualizing stigmatized-free individuals as `normal`. This has resulted in inequality, as the disabled are isolated from the average people; it further underrates self-esteem in disabled people, as they perceive themselves incapable. In schools, the disabled are prone to discretization for instance; the physically disabled are discredited at first glance (visible stigma) while those with learning disabilities, invisible stigma risk being discredited as their flaws are monitored. Therefore, impression management mainly occurs when people convey attributes that are either legitimate or stigmatizing by hiding their qualities.

For disabled children, bullying and social exclusion are like a norm. Children that have cerebral palsy insignificantly get bullied which in turn leads to social exclusion. This poses a great danger since teasing and bullying result in negative and adverse self-concept. The Canadian government is therefore required to create and stabilize networks that are peer support to help in building the children's self-confidence. Moreover, the social landscape of disabled children is seen to have many barriers that explain their lack of awareness, negativity in attitude and bullying hence their resulting loneliness.

Measures the Canadian Government Can Use to Counteract Disability as `Inability`

Canada is a third world country in Europe with a large number of populations. About 70% of Canada's population is employed with only about 18% disabled persons employed. This is a lower number compared to the total number of learned disabled persons, a clear distinction regarding equality. It is an issue that raises concern, and that requires immediate action as the standards of living of the disabled worsen by the passing of each day.

There are various measures that the Canadian government ought to employ to serve its citizens with equity. Firstly, the government should oversee matters of monetary funding. Inadequacy of money is the primary cause of extreme poverty and poor allocation of services that mostly affect the weak individuals-the disabled persons. Having equal and regular disbursement of monetary funds is a significant way of supporting disabled children. The funds for instance aid in the purchase of braille used by blind students in special schools to study, purchase of hearing devices for the deaf, payment of accommodation and services offered at special schools and centers of the disabled such as psychiatric hospitals. These are some of the necessities that can significantly reduce the negative impacts of disability.

The Canadian law should enact necessary actions against harassment at workstations. Disabled persons are usually subjected to oppression from their counterparts and bosses. This is dehumanizing as they receive equal treatment only because they are regarded weaker than the average people are. Such mistreatments include late payments or no payments of salaries and benefits. Either, the disabled are prone to losing their jobs in due course due to their employers' perception of their `inability`.

Besides, the Canadian government should prioritize the disabled by organizing support services that majorly help in improving their self-esteem and self-acceptance. This makes them feel part of the society and positively shuns discrimination and prejudice. Fiscal limitations in some areas create barriers to investments that support disability in Canada, lack of support from the Canadian government leaves the disabled territories stuck and unable to progress on their own.

Parliamentary committees can also play a significant role in the war against perceived `inability` in disabled persons. Past committees have turned out successful by legislating mechanisms that are non-partisan for reporting and researching of the status of disabled persons. Is therefore recommended that the Canadian parliamentarians hold regular sessions to discuss the progress and the barriers that need to be fixed (Russell S. 2009).

The Canadian government should also delve into building an inclusive Canada by coming up with measures that prioritize and address the disabled community regarding poverty and support services. Development of long-term strategies to counteract the adverse effect of `inability` in disability; requires a coordinated, comprehensive, multijurisdictional and inter-sectoral collaborative approach hence the quest for a long-term solution about the exclusion of disabled people. The Canadian federal government therefore, should be committed towards the success of the long-term solution (Prince M. 2009).

Setting up of bodies that; manage and advocate on issues that improve on the status of men, women, and children living with disabilities by eliminating discrimination and inequality. For instance, the Canadian Association for Community Living- a federation of territorial and provincial associations' advocates for intellectually disabled people together with their families. CACL is however comprised of approximately 30,000 members from various local associations countrywide. The federations aim is to achieve 100% inclusivity of people who are intellectually disabled (Russell et al. 2005).

With the current mode of programs and social policies offering much towards disabled persons, evidently, there is more need for programs and policies to embody the evolving attitudes. This points a reflection on the Canadian country to accept and value disabled persons as part of the society. By doing this, systemic discrimination is shunned, and disabled persons set free to contribute and wholly participate in the community.

People living with disabilities ought to be respected and treated fairly, this defines inclusivity. Canada as a country has failed to support the disabled though indirectly inclusively. As a measure to combat the problem that is adversely posing a menace both to the Canadian government and to the outside world, there are various ways through which the Canadian government should delve into to enhance inclusivity for people living with women, men, and children living with disabilities. (Prince M. 2009)

Among the measures to be employed is, increasing disability representation politically. Most nations have either few or lack political representatives that are disabled. Accepting and electing disabled persons can incorporate voices of the disabled hence shunning the perceived `inability` of the disabled persons (Devota et al. 2013). Besides, politically involved disabled people tend to comprehend the challenges the disabled encounter in the society, this opens the door to equity, fairness, and equal distribution of resources such as disbursement of monetary funds. Politically involved disabled people also contribute to the country's income and development- an ability that shuns disability.

Disability is a challenge that transcends across people from all walks of life, children too are adversely affected by discrimination in schools. They are however discriminated in various forms such as being isolated by their friends and being mocked for the `abnormality` they possess hence demoralizing their self-esteem. To counteract the effect, the Canadian government should establish and integrate disability education and its history as part of the school curriculum (Smart et al....