People with disabilities in Canada inhabit a system of deep structural, economic, social, political, legal, and cultural inequality – a regime of dis-citizenship. Despite the widespread belief that Canada is a country of liberty, equality, and inclusiveness, many persons with disabilities experience social exclusion and marginalization. They are socially constructed as second-class citizens.

Conventional understandings of disability are dependent on assumptions that characterize disability as misfortune and by implication privilege the “normal” over the “abnormal.” Consequently, it is presumed that societal organization based upon able-bodied and -minded norms is inevitable and that the best we can do is show sympathy or pity. The essays Critical Disability Theory contend instead that achieving equality for the disabled is not fundamentally a question of medicine or health, nor is it an issue of sensitivity or compassion. Rather, it is a question of politics, and of power and powerlessness.

This book argues that we need new ways to think about the nature of disability, a new understanding of participatory citizenship that encompasses the disabled, new policies to respond to their needs, and a new vision of their entitlements. Twenty-four scholars from a variety of disciplines come together here to identify the problems with traditional approaches to disability and to provide new directions. The essays range from focused empirical and experiential studies of different disabilities, to policy analyses, legal interrogations, and philosophical reconsiderations. The result will be of interest to policy makers, professionals, academics, non-governmental organizations, and grassroots activists.

Dianne Pothier has been teaching at Dalhousie Law School since 1986 and has been a Full Professor since 2001. Her teaching and research subjects include constitutional law, conflict of laws, public law, labour law, human rights, equality rights, and disability rights. She was legal counsel to the Canada Labour Relations Board from 1984 to 1986, a Supreme Court of Canada law clerk to Justice Brian Dickson in 1983, and is currently on the Equality Rights Panel of the Court Challenges Program. In 2005, she received a Frances Fish Women Lawyers’ Achievement Award from the Nova Scotia Association of Women and the Law. She was called to the Nova Scotia Bar in 1982 and her litigation experience includes being the appellant’s co-counsel in the Supreme Court of Canada in R.D.S. v. The Queen, and being counsel for the joint intervention of LEAF and DAWN in British Columbia v. Auton.

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Richard Devlin is a professor of law at the Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University. In 2005, he was appointed a Dalhousie University research professor, and this position was renewed in 2010. His areas of teaching include contracts, jurisprudence, legal ethics, and graduate studies. In 2008, he was a recipient of the Canadian Association of Law Teachers Award for Academic Excellence. Recent books include editing Critical Disability Theory (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2006) and Lawyers’ Ethics and Professional Regulation (Toronto: LexisNexis Canada, 2008).

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