1800’s
The institutional period. It is generally agreed upon that it was in the late 1800s, when industrialization in Canada was rapidly growing, that public concern regarding disability emerged.(1)(2) This time period saw the development of a plethora of institutions designed to segregate people with disabilities such as asylums for housing, residential institutions for education, and church-run homes.(3)(4) The widely held Christian values of the time were utilized by social reformers to garner support for disability-related charities and programs.(5) This dynamic led to the perception that people with disabilities were dependent on Christian charity, and because of this, people with disabilities were often not granted the ability to exercise their civil rights.(6)
1. Mary Ann McColl, Lyn Jongbloed, and Anne Crichton, Disability and Social Policy In Canada. 2nd ed, (Concord, Ont.: Captus Press, 2006), 73.
2. Dustin Galer, “Disability Rights Movement in Canada,” Historica Canada, accessed June 4, 2018, http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/disability-rights-movement/.
3. Mary Ann McColl, Lyn Jongbloed, and Anne Crichton, Disability and Social Policy, 73.
4. Dustin Galer, “Disability Rights.”
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
