Defining Our Future: public policy and desired directions

1. Defining Our Future:public policy and desired directions Presentation to the Centre for Inclusion and Citizenship Workshop on Future Trends Vancouver Public Library February 25TH 2013 Michael J. Prince

2. my remarks today • Discuss what public policy is and why it is important in addressing barriers and in advancing citizenship and inclusion • Recognize five core elements of policy that we need to focus on in defining our future • Note some features of the public policy and political context in BC • Suggest some policy opportunities and challenges that lie ahead for the disability community

3. What is public policy? • Courses of action or inactions by public authorities • Made by governments: federal, provincial, municipal, Aboriginal • And made by public sector agencies in education, health, housing, social services • Existing policies may act as enablers or barriers • The absence of policy can also have positive or negative consequences

4. THE IMPORTANCE OF PUBLIC Policy • Determines programs and services that affect the material living conditions of individuals, families, groups • Contributes to the formation of identities of people as dependent or deserving or not • Shapes relationships between people in terms of inclusion/exclusion, or respect/stigma • Structures clientele as a potential basis for political awareness, debate, and action

5. Core elements of policy • People: citizens, officials, neighbourhoods, communities • Purposes: a position, goals, objectives, intentions, promises, claims, hopes, expectations , commitments • Procedures: ways and means of designing, delivering programs and laws • Products: income benefits, services, supports, rights and responsibilities, words and symbols • Power: roles of authority, ideas of legitimacy, and relations of advocacy and influence

6. Public policy and political contexts • Deficit reduction agendas for province and federal government: • General funding for school districts frozen for three years • Income assistance rates for people with disabilities not raised for several years nor are they indexed to cost of living • No real increase in supports for children and youth with special needs and their families • Continued absence of provincial legislation on the inclusion rights of all persons with disabilities • No independent provincial advocate for adults with developmental disabilities • Environmental and indigenous issues at forefront of public agenda

7. Economic and Social trends • A growing population in the province • An ever diversifying population • An aging population too, including of caregivers and workers, increasing pressures on Community Living too • Labour shortages in various sectors of the mainstream workforce over next several years • Growing economic inequalities • Persistent poverty, limited employment opportunities, financial insecurity

8. Policy opportunities • Working with the BC Representative for Children and Youth on her extended mandate • May 2013: BC general election – • Raising awareness about the UN Convention on the Rights for Persons with Disabilities ratified in 2010 • Renewing focus on employment programs for adults with disabilities • Modernizing income support benefits and system • Embedding community living in a comprehensive economic and social inclusion strategy for the province

9. Your Comments, ideas.... Thank you! Michael J. Prince Lansdowne Professor of Social Policy University of Victoria mprince@uvic.ca