‘A champion throughout his whole life’: Manitoba disability rights activist Jim Derksen dies at 75

A legendary, lifelong advocate for folks with disabilities in Manitoba and throughout the nation has died.

Jim Derksen, one of many founding members of the Council of Canadians with Disabilities and the Manitoba League of Individuals with Disabilities, died on the age of 75 earlier this month, marking the top of a life crammed with tireless activism.

Derksen, who used a wheelchair after contracting polio within the late Nineteen Fifties when he was only a baby, grew up in an period when there was no accessible transportation, when kids with disabilities did not have entry to common education and when his rights weren’t enshrined in Canada’s Constitution. 

He did not let that stand, stated Derksen’s longtime buddy, Laurie Beachell.

“Jim was a champion all through his entire life, and he he satisfied many who our problem is creating extra inclusive and accessible communities, and he did so with nice ardour, with nice data, and with a mild firmness that introduced folks onside to create the modifications that had been essential,” he stated in an interview with Janet Stewart on CBC Winnipeg Information at 6 on Thursday.

“Jim made folks perceive that the issue didn’t reside inside the particular person, however … with the best way we construction our society, with the constructed atmosphere, with folks’s prejudices and biases.”

Derksen was instrumental in enshrining incapacity rights in Canada’s Constitution of Rights and Freedoms.

On the time, he was working with the Council of Canadians with Disabilities, however was seconded to a federal committee to advocate for inclusion within the Constitution’s fairness rights part.

“Within the early days, they solely wished to incorporate bodily incapacity, not psychological incapacity. Jim led that battle and stated, ‘No, it must be each,'” Beachell stated.

“Jim was a kind of characters that in a mild method might deliver folks onside.”

In a single not-so-gentle second, Derksen adopted then Justice Minister Jean Chrétien into a toilet to proceed lobbying him on the eleventh hour of the drafting of the Constitution.

“He satisfied folks with the ability of his mind and with the ability of his argument,” Beachell stated.

Accessible transit

Derksen was at one level the chair of the Winnipeg Taxi Board, and advocated for accessible transit.

He additionally lobbied towards medical help in dying.

Debbie Patterson, a Manitoba artist, founding father of Shakespeare within the Ruins and incapacity advocate in her personal proper, was pals with Derksen for greater than three many years. She says he frightened Invoice C7, which amended the felony code to permit for folks to have a physician’s assist to die, was harmful, and will goal weak Canadians

“He believed very strongly that folks with disabilities, our lives are undervalued in society. Folks have a look at us and assume our lives will not be price dwelling. And and due to that, we’re extra weak to an early dying,” she stated in an interview with Religion Fundal on CBC Manitoba’s As much as Pace on Thursday.

“He additionally was was fairly vehement that with out acceptable helps to stay properly, that it is unconscionable to supply help to die.” 

‘Not ashamed of his incapacity’

Not solely was Derksen an advocate for incapacity rights, he was additionally a supportive buddy.

The 2 turned shut when Derksen requested why Patterson, who lives with a number of sclerosis, was limping sooner or later.

“He simply he turned a mentor for me by way of navigating life with a incapacity. As quickly as he noticed that one thing was up, he was proper in there asking questions, serving to me work out what I wanted to do,” Patterson stated.

Patterson says his gregarious and trustworthy nature made her really feel comfy sharing something with him.

“He was so upfront and weak … he was not ashamed of his incapacity. He was not ashamed of the best way his physique labored, not ashamed of his physique in any respect. He was simply very candid and upfront and that made me fully disarmed and comfy sharing something with him,” she stated.

Derksen was additionally a Winnipeg People Competition fanatic, and had he not died, Beachell stated he can be in Birds Hill Provincial Park this weekend.

He isn’t conscious of 1 12 months his buddy missed for the reason that music pageant’s inception.