432-01217 (Civil and human rights)

WHEREAS the United Nations Special Rapporteur and the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities have recently expressed concern that Canada's government continues to hold reservations to Article 12, an integral part of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) - Article 12 ensures that persons with disabilities have the right to: refuse treatment, not be deemed incapable, and not be subjected to substitute decision-making;

WHEREAS Canada's federal government has claimed in its latest report to the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities that Canada has met the standards of the CRPD;

WHEREAS persons with psychosocial, intellectual and other disabilities continue to be at grave risk of:

• being detained in facilities, and/or otherwise subjected to limitations on freedom of movement, including the use of physical restraints and isolation,
• being forcibly, coercively, or surreptitiously administered drugs which frequently cause toxic and damaging effects, reducing life expectancy (in the case of "antipsychotics") and inducing dependency (in the case of "antidepressants" and "anxiolytics"), and notwithstanding that some people believe these drugs help them,
• being given electroshock, which has been proven to cause brain damage resulting in devastating memory loss and cognitive problems,
• and even being subjected to unwanted tubal ligations in recent years, harkening back to Canada's shameful eugenics programs; and

WHEREAS the Accessibility Canada Act now promotes the myth that Canadians with psychosocial and other disabilities will be protected through a process that represents them, even as groups led by family members and professionals are tasked with proceeding with the implementation of CRPD-based initiatives, with no public debate on Article 12,

THEREFORE, we, the undersigned citizens and residents of Canada (many of us survivors of such abuses, joined by researchers, professionals, family members, and concerned allies), call upon the House of Commons in Parliament assembled to:

rescind all reservations to Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and repeal laws that authorize "substitute decision-making" related to treatments for psychosocial and other disabilities, as well as laws that violate the CRPD by continuing to authorize detentions, restraints, isolation, community treatment orders, drugging, electroshock, sterilization and similar impositions.