Getting media attention is an invaluable tool for disability rights advocates. Whether you’re trying to pressure your provincial/state government or a private company, the public scrutiny a high profile media piece can provide is often the decisive factor that turns an advocacy battle in your favour. In this episode, David talks to Michelle McQuigge, a Canadian Press journalist of nearly 20 years. She is very familiar with the processes within news organizations that dictate whether or not a potential story gets published. It has to be understood that news outlets receive dozens, if not hundreds of emails with potential stories every single day. Michelle shows us how to cut through that noise by telling us how journalists think and what editors are looking for. With the information found in this episode, disability rights advocates fighting disability barriers can confidently approach the media with compelling stories that they’ll actually want to cover.

In this episode, you’ll hear from Bruce MacIntosh about a remarkable disability advocacy campaign he helped organize in the 2000s. It centered around hugely problematic, arguably unconstitutional, age cutoffs for crucial government funded therapies for Ontarian children with Autism. The 26 events they put on directly lead to the government backing down. While this was only one small chapter in a much larger advocacy battle, this moment showed that successes can be had when a motivated group of advocates utilize smart strategies and clever messaging. It's great to hear disability advocacy stories that lead to real progress but this episode is about extracting the specific elements that made the campaign successful, like creativity, a practical organizational structure and precise messaging, among many others.

Builders and architects are overwhelmingly misinformed on the realities of what it takes to make our shared spaces accessible. Why is this? One of Canada’s top built environment accessibility experts, Thea Kurdi, makes it clear that a few persistent misconceptions continue to counter efforts to make our shared spaces fully accessible. Those misconceptions are: - Building codes insure accessibility - Accessible buildings will be more expensive - Accessible buildings will be ugly In this episode, you’ll learn why all three of these ideas are misguided and what you can do to make our shared spaces more accessible.

In this first episode, David Lepofsky shares one of his most impactful advocacy stories—the time he dragged the Toronto Transit Commission to the Human Rights Tribunal just so blind riders could know what subway stop they were at. Sounds simple, right? It wound up being a 12 year battle. But thanks to that fight, we now have the automated stop announcements you hear on every subway and bus in Toronto. David walks us through the struggle, the wins, and the lessons learned along the way.

David Lepofsky and AMI’s Jacob Shymanski discuss the latest in disability rights … and wrongs.