Annual General Meeting

Photo: From left to right: Terri Dame- Project Officer Ministry of Housing and Social Development, Wendy Cox – Personal Supports Worker, Pat Danforth – Manager Personal Supports Centre at the opening of the new personal support centre at the new Victoria Disability Resource Centre location.

We have been in high speed mode preparing for the IL Canada Annual General Meeting being held in Victoria BC from October 16 – 18th. We have a line up of very interesting guest speakers including Jocelyne Daw, Vice-President, Marketing and Community Engagement, Imagine Canada and Burt Danovitz, Executive Director of the Resource Centre for Independent Living, Utica, New York.

Jocelyne is also the founder of Causemarketing.ca and author of Cause Marketing for Nonprofits, the definitive hands-on guide to cause marketing. Jocelyne is a recognized leader and pioneer in creating cause marketing partnerships (recognized by the American Marketing Association). For over 15 years, she has actively used cause marketing as an important fundraising, marketing and corporate citizenship tool to advance community and business needs.

Her presentation at the IL Canada AGM is entitled “Good for Business, Good for Community: Business and Community Partnerships – The Growing Movement”.  She believes successful non-profits must understand the strongest relationships are ones that are based on an exchange of value. 
Jocelyne will share what is happening in business – Cause Marketing partnerships in Canada, look at their benefits and challenges and how to proactively build and develop strong, deep mutually beneficial relationships.

The title of Burt Danovitz’ presentation is ‘Super Charge Your Mission – High Impact IL Centres’ and coming from a Centre for Independent Living with a 30 million dollar budget with projects in 5 countries, I have no doubt that they know how to super charge!  Sounds like they “super-sized” their IL Centres.

Burt is an advocate for revenue generation; however, with a firm commitment to using that money to also help alleviate the oppressing socio-economic and political conditions that people with disabilities face in their daily lives.

The meeting in Victoria will also include a visit to the new location of the Victoria Disability Resource Centre which includes a new Personal Support Centre (PSC) funded by the BC Ministry of Housing and Social Development. The PSC is intended for seniors and people with disabilities to have easier access to programs that offer equipment and assistive devices thanks to the first $858,000 from the BC Government.

The Victoria Disability Resource Centre is partnering with the Province to operate the Personal Supports Centre as part of an 18-month pilot project that began in August. The Centre will help the Province and community determine the best methods to help individuals to obtain the personal supports they need to reach their goals, such as finding employment or participating in recreational activities. These supports may include equipment and assistive devices such as wheelchairs, walkers, speech-generating devices or specialized computer programs. You can visit the new Centre at 817A Fort Road in Victoria.

Other honoured guest and speakers at the Annual General Meeting include the Mayor Clement of Victoria, Molly Harrington, Ministry of Housing and Social Development and Alexis Carty from the Department of Justice Canada.

Photo: Guests at opening of the new personal support centre at the new Victoria Disability Resource Centre location

The Federal Election: 

Independent Living Canada and its member IL Centres are dedicated to ensuring access to information for people with disabilities. On our website you will find all of the latest election information from the Council of Canadians with Disabilities. Please make sure that you read everything very carefully about what the parties have to offer our community.  Your vote is critical!  We belong to a group of 4.5 million Canadians with disabilities and together we can make a difference. Please do not forget this!  Look at the party platforms and see which ones will help you. Do they look at people with disabilities as needing to be taken care of or ignored or do they see us as citizens of this country who deserve access and inclusion to all of what Canada has to offer.  Look for whether the platforms have responded to any of the priorities that have been identified by our community.  

Our community has waited year after year for national leadership, a strong vision and action – not just words.
Your vote is so very important so please make a difference and make our concerns heard through our vote.

A Big thank you to the RBC Foundation

We just received word yesterday that the RBC Foundation is providing IL Canada with another $50,000 financial contribution towards our Investing in Futures – An IL approach to Registered Education and Savings Project. 

We are currently receiving funding from HRSDC’s Canada Education Savings Program for a national initiative aimed at educating people with disabilities and their families on the Gov. of Canada’s RESP programs and their financial incentives. The RBC is contributing to help us offset some of the additional costs of the projects both locally and nationally.

A special thank you on behalf of the national board of directors, volunteers and staff of Independent Living Canada to the RBC Foundation!