Disability Rights, and Wrongs: The David Lepodcast

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...

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, t...

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...

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 t...