Disability Justice Network of Ontario is committed to home care as a public good. Bayshore and their revenues are built on the backs of sick and disabled people, seniors, home care workers, and community nurses. For profit models of care only ensure the profits of executives and not based on ensuring the wellbeing of and justice for disabled care recipients, seniors, or care workers. Together, all of our struggles are united to ensure real, just care for our communities.
We know that the Ontario Government has systematically encouraged companies like Bayshore in the home care industry to push for more profit over our health and our communities. OPSEU Local 745 workers are fighting not just for good wages and support for workers—but for investments in care for disabled people and seniors across Thunder Bay. We also know that there must be continued support for deinstitutionalization and a just care transition for all care workers.
We reaffirm that "[h]ome care is not a commodity. It’s a public service – and it must be protected". We need a world where we all can live our lives in our homes and communities without precarity and profit-driven austerity.
Disability Justice Network of Ontario was founded in Hamilton, Ontario in 2018 by disabled Ontarians to build a world where we are free to be—where we can be in community together, have political and social agency, and hold the powerful to account.
Toronto, Ontario—Disabled Ontarians express our collective disappointment and concern with the 2025 Speech from the Throne delivered by the Honourable Edith Dumont, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, on behalf of the Government.
“Disabled Ontarians have been left behind in the face of generational crises and economic instability. Social Assistance Increases, Accessible, Affordable Housing, and fulfilling legal commitments under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act have all been left off the table by this government once again.” , said Brad Evoy, Executive Director of Disability Justice Network of Ontario, “Instead, this government prepares to posture against Donald Trump while enacting many of the same ideas and policies at here at home.”
While Ontario prepares for the challenge ahead, the Province leaves behind disabled people from every region and city to barely survive, let alone thrive in community together. Without clear and immediate investment in our social systems to end austerity across this Province, there remains an ever-present economic and social threat that only low-income and disabled communities will be left to bear alone.
As Ontario prepares to ‘unleash’ its economy, violence will be unleashed on the most vulnerable within our communities as the Government prepares to rush ahead with disabling, colonial resource extraction projects, resume attacks on our unhoused disabled neighbours and drug users, and continue the rampant criminalization of disabled people throughout the Ontario justice system.
“The Province talks tough about unconstitutional bail reform and stacking the deck against those in prison” , said Pam Reaño, DJNO Prison Project Lead. “We see the results of these ideas every day—in every harm done to unhoused people and drug users; in the mass human rights violations and death occurring in prisons across Ontario, like in the Maplehurst Correctional Complex.”
We know what this speech means: a Province full of legislated death, disablement, institutionalization, and poverty for disabled people. Disabled Ontarians know that it doesn’t have to be this way. Ontario can become a place where we stand up for each other, build lives in community together, and—in times of uncertainty like these—reinvestment in social programs and systems for all. To learn more about the Ontario we wish to build, please see our community’s ongoing campaign: endausterity.ca
Disability Justice Network of Ontario was founded in Hamilton in 2018 by disabled Ontarians to build a world where we are free to be—where we can be in community together, have political and social agency, and hold the powerful to account.
Note: The lowercase "i" in this piece is intentional until the very end, to highlight the shame I feel when resting.
In all honesty, i have been spending a lot more time in bed than i would like to admit and i feel lousy about it. i am choosing to talk about my feelings associated with being in bed and resting here because i know i am not the only one who experiences such feelings. Feelings that we are not productive enough when we are resting, not worthy enough to rest and many other narratives we have pushed on us as disabled, chronically ill, pain-filled, exhausted and marginalized folks. These narratives often include disabled folks being told that we are “too lazy” or “too much of a drain on the economy” because our body-minds cannot work the amount needed (day in and day out) to sufficiently feed the ferocious lion known as Capitalism.
This lion rules the world and all systems within it. It is a scary, racist, prison- producing, energy-sucking and ableist creature which preys on every individual, specifically the most vulnerable populations. Capitalism feeds off us over and over again and if we are lucky, we will be left with our skeletons mostly intact and if not, we will cease to exist. Once our bodies cannot withstand exploitation any longer, we no longer have value! This is why i actively chose to rest. Even when i feel lousy about it. And especially when i feel like i need to be “more productive.”
As a black, disabled, queer, neurodivergent individual, my body-mind will never be enough to satisfy this creature we are held captive by, so why should i [or we] even try?
Disabled folks have been practicing and living through the practices of Bed Activism. This form of activism is exactly as it sounds.It is work and community building from our beds. So many of us exist in Bed Space Activism without even knowing that we do. For instance, cuddling in bed with friends/family is a form of activism and an example of collective care. Reading books by disabled authors, who have written from beds, couches, wheelchairs, and/or the ground is activism.
From my personal discoveries of activism, activist spaces, and in “doing the work”, i know every form of activism looks and feels different to everyone. To me, this form of activism looks like sitting in my hospital bed, tilted up right, my laptop balancing on my knees, covered in cozy blankets, as large rain droplets hit my window. During this time, i meditate as i listen to other activists talk about the importance of liberation, community and rest. My eyes feel heavy through the hum of their voices, but i do not fall asleep.
i hate naps. So i chose not to nap. i strongly encourage you to take naps, if that works for your body-mind.
As Tricia Hersey states in her transformative book Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto (2022):
This work [rest work] is a battle cry for being sick and tired of capitalism and white supremacy. A resting place. An alternative and temporary space of joy and freedom. (Hersey 11)
I could not agree more.
My bed is a space of creativity, rest, sleep, joy and love. I choose to reimagine the bed as more than a physical artifact, but as a portal to new worlds and vibrant disabled futures. I hope you will too. I am still an activist, no matter where I fight from. I still deserve rest, no matter where I take it, and so do you. I do not have to do anything to be worthy of rest and neither do you. Whether you rest in bed, on the couch, in your mobility aid(s), in a prison cell or on the ground- You are worth resting for and it is a privilege to rest with you.
Until next time, keep rolling, growing, stimming, moving, shaking, resting, resisting and loving.
Jay Baldwin xx
(they/them)
A picture of Jay, all cozy in their hospital bed and smiling. Their eyes are almost completely shut and they are holding a stuffed cow tightly.
Bibliography
Hersey, Tricia. 2022. Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto. Little, Brown Spark.
(This book is so worth the read!!!!)
Check out this talk from some amazing activists, who are fiercely doing this work:
UIC Institute for the Humanities. 2022. “The Reciprocal Politics of Bed Space Activism: Creative Resistance and Radical World Making.” YouTube. October 18, 2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHO26DZAqUI.
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