Disabilities Matter: Vote 2016 Release Five Key Provincial Election Priorities
As Manitoba prepares to go to the polls on April 19, Disability Matters: Vote 2016 (DMV2016) is launching their key priorities to be addressed by all parties and candidates.
“After over 1600 people showed up at the launch of the DMV2016 campaign at the Legislature on December 3, we knew we wanted to involve the disability community in choosing the priorities that are important to them,” said Malinda Roberts, spokesperson for Disability Matters: Vote 2016.
DMV2016’s focus includes all disabilities including: physical, mental, developmental, sensory and intellectual, all in all approximately 168,000 Manitobans. The priorities are all centered around the human rights of all people and how our province can and should support full inclusion for people with disabilities.
The goal of the campaign is to support people with disabilities to learn about their candidates and be supported to vote if they need accommodation. A big part of the campaign is also to work with the provincial parties to respond to the key priorities and gain commitment on these issues. Through public consultations over the past few years, Barrier-Free Manitoba and Abilities Manitoba had three key issues identified but wanted to crowd-source the last two.
“We had hundreds of responses to our survey; going through the data the two final priorities became clear quite quickly,” said Allen Mankewich, spokesperson for DMV2016.
Disability Matters: Vote 2016 will announce the key priorities and distribute copies of their Election Tool Kit at the press conference Friday morning February 12. The information will also be available online Friday afternoon at disabilitymatters2016.ca.
Event host, the Fresh Carrot is an excellent example of an employer who has seen the benefits of employing an individual with a disability and advocating to other businesses to do the same.
“Hiring people that have a disability has taught us a number of things but mostly that the individuals have many abilities so we shouldn’t focus on the disability,” said Terry Zolinski, Owner of The Fresh Carrot.