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Access plus ability equal accessibility

RMOW Policy and Program Development
1441whistler2020

Let’s say I just rolled into Whistler for a weekend on the mountains. I get off the bus in the Village Loop and am drawn to the sights, sounds and smells of night-time Whistler Village… visions of a patio and chicken wings dancing in my head.

I push forward and, bam. My progress, complete with drumstick dreams, disappears in a millisecond as a seemingly insurmountable barrier greets me… a set of giant stairs is between me, my wheelchair and those Whistler Village wings I smell.

In reality, I am able bodied, but this past weekend as I was giving thanks amidst tons of retail tourists gobbling turkey sale deals about the village, I envisioned myself in a wheelchair for half an hour. Throughout my virtual wheelchair tour, I realized Whistler is doing a lot on the ground to overcome barriers, but there are still a few stairs to climb.

One out of every seven Canadians aged 15 and over — an estimated 3.4 million people — reported some level of disability in 2001, according to a Statistics Canada report profiling people whose everyday activities are limited by a physical, psychological or health condition. The type of disability reported most often involved mobility. Just under 2.5 million people aged 15 and over had difficulty walking, climbing stairs, or moving from one room to another. More than 1 million adults reported hearing difficulties and some 600,000 had a problem with their vision. More than half-a-million adults reported limitations that were the result of emotional, psychological or psychiatric conditions.

The language of barrier breaking is simple if you analyze dictionary definitions: “Access: the ability, right, or permission to approach, enter, speak with, or use; admittance. Ability: power or capacity to do or act physically, mentally, legally, morally, financially, etc.”

Through Whistler2020 and our social sustainability objective, Whistler has made the shared commitment to reduce and eventually eliminate barriers that undermine people’s ability to meet their needs. Whistler has already made some progress to deconstruct barriers. Some great examples are: accessible signage indicating routes in the village, a barrier free map of Whistler on whistler.ca and a “Whistler Way” advertising campaign highlighting accessibility issues.

The Whistler Accessibility Project Advisory Group (WAPAG), a dedicated group of community volunteers, has been meeting since August 2006 and is in the process of stepping out of the “advisory” role and into the space filled by a bona fide RMOW Committee of Council. Opportunities to apply for a seat on this committee will be advertised later this fall. From WAPAG has come an audit of the village and RMOW parks facilities outlining existing barriers and recommending action.

Whistler has signed on to “Measuring Up” a program designed to assist municipalities and communities in British Columbia assess the degree to which their citizens with disabilities are active participants in community life. Active participation has two dimensions: accessibility and inclusion. Accessibility means recognizing, reducing and removing any physical or structural barriers that prevent individuals with disabilities from actually being present in the community. Inclusion adds another critical dimension — the degree to which the contributions of all citizens are welcomed and enabled.

The RMOW has also signed on to B.C.’s 10 by 10 Challenge to increase employment for persons with disabilities in British Columbia by 10 per cent by the year 2010, a big year for Whistler as the lever which is the 2010 Paralympic Games should help us do some heavy accessibility lifting. Post 2010, Whistler’s newest neighbourhood, the athletes’ village, will include 116 accessible beds and the Whistler Adaptive Sports Program (WASP) will have a permanent home there. Office space and accessible training facilities will help WASP support the exponential growth it has experienced over the past couple years.

Chelsey Walker, WASP’s Executive Director, says the group has doubled its annual client base from 500 in 2006 to around 1,000 this year. WASP provides the opportunity for people with a wide range of disabilities to take part in sports and recreation programs along-side anyone. With seven different year-round programs encompassing six sports, Walker says having fun is a universally accessible ideology. With 3.4 million potential visitors from Canada alone, accessibility also makes good economic sense for Whistler.

“The more you create opportunity for people to roll through your door, business will be more successful,” she says. “As a community, the more we can be inclusive and accessible the more opportunity we have to support people’s desire to be here. It’s all about building equity.” To volunteer or get involved with WASP, check out their annual general meeting, 1 p.m. Oct. 27 at Millennium Place.

Whistler has plenty of accessibility role models, Phil Chew, the coach of the B.C. Disabled Ski Team, and Hugh Tollett, hearing accessibility crusader and creator of Whistlerforthedisabled.com, are a couple examples. There are a legion of others working behind the scenes to identify and disable barriers. Tollett, a tireless advocate, has almost singlehandedly lobbied Telus to install TTY phones, pay phones with keyboards attached to allow hearing disabled folks to communicate on a telephone, in Whistler Village, and is working right now to expand accessible communications and transportation in and around Whistler. All of this action needs to involve the folks who are most effected, he says.

“I can't tell you how many times I have heard this from a disabled organization representing a specific group: Why didn’t they ask us?,” says Tollett.

To KNOW MORE about other actions that are moving our community toward Whistler2020, to tell us how you’re contributing, or to find out how we’re performing visit www.whistler2020.ca .