Everyone Has the Right to Make Choices
How would you feel if you had no say in where you live, who you spend time with, what you wear, what you eat, who you visit, or what you can spend your money on? That’s what can happen to people with disabilities when someone else has the power to make choices and decisions for them. We believe that everyone has the right to make choices, and we always assume that a person can make their own decisions. Supported decision-making is a way that people with disabilities can make their own decisions and stay in charge of their lives, while getting the help they need to do so.
Everyone Has the Right to Make Choices
“Supported decision-making” is just another way of describing how everyone makes choices and decisions in their lives. This short document explains supported decision-making in simple and straightforward language.
Resource #1: Defining ‘legal capacity’ and supported decision-making
A simple reference sheet with definitions of language related to the Right to Decide in Canada, including terms such as ‘will and preference’ and ‘mental capacity.’
Resource #2: The dangers of guardianship for people who have an intellectual disability
Many people think that guardianship increases people’s safety and security. However, guardianship strips away people’s rights and can increase their risk of being abused and neglected. This document offers real-life examples of guardianship gone wrong.
Resource #3: Supported decision-making legislation and policy in Canada
Many Canadian provinces and territories have introduced legislation that recognizes supported decision-making and increases people with intellectual disabilities’ control over their own lives. This document provides an overview of relevant legislation and policy in British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, New Brunswick, and Yukon.
Resource #4: Legal capacity and intellectual disability: A cautionary tale for capacity assessors, lawyers, and judges
Ontario’s court system can have life-changing impacts on the lives of people who have an intellectual disability. This document analyzes an important example of this: a recent decision of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice that led to a young woman being placed under guardianship.
Resource #5: Barriers to financial control – ‘Banking with a disability’
People who have an intellectual disability consistently face inappropriate questions about their mental capacity when they bank, which puts their financial health at risk. This short document offers insight into this problem and brings attention to the need for immediate legislative and policy changes in Ontario.
Resource #6: A short primer on the Right to Decide in Canada
People’s right to control their lives and make decisions in Canada is supported by international, national, and provincial legislation and policy. This document summarizes key provisions from the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the Accessible Canada Act, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and Supreme Court of Canada decisions.
Resource #7: Youth, self-determination, and legal capacity
Young people have had a huge impact on the developmental service sector in Ontario, and continue to challenge the sector to change. This document takes a close look at the negative role that substitute decision-making can play in the lives of youth, and discusses alternatives that can lead to better outcomes and a higher quality of life.
Supported Decision-Making In Action
Many developmental service agencies have changed the way they work in order to increase people’s decision-making, control, and quality of life. This document offers insights from extensive interviews with five organizations that have made choice and control a central part of their service mandates.
Discussion paper: Recommendations to reduce substitute decision-making and increase access to supports for decision-making in Ontario
Ontario has fallen behind other jurisdictions in recognizing the Right to Decide among people who have an intellectual disability. This document offers recommendations to bring the province up to date with changes that will increase choice, control, decision-making, health, and quality of life.
Assessing the legal, regulatory, and policy basis for supported decision-making among people who have an intellectual disability in Ontario
An expanded version of Resource #6, this document makes the case that current practices in Ontario go against international, national, and provincial legislation, regulation, and policy. Relevant for all policy makers, judges, lawyers, and health professionals involved in questions of legal capacity across the province.
