MLA Rice hails the work of Disability Alliance BC with Legislature

The Tuesday morning statements period of the Legislature session gave North Coast MLA Jennifer Rice the opportunity to provide a quick update on the work of the organization Disability Alliance BC for the House.

In a short presentation for the Members Ms. Rice, calling on her work as Parliamentary Secretary for Emergency Preparedness highlighted some of their work in that area of engagement in the province.

Since 1977, the Disability Alliance of British Columbia has been dedicated to ensuring that all people with disabilities in this province are able to live with dignity, independence and as equal participants in our communities. They offer direct services, community partnerships and advocacy and have contributed to numerous research projects and publications.

 Most recently, the Disability Alliance of B.C. has been advocating for the need to establish functional needs frameworks for our communities in order to integrate the needs of persons living with disabilities into local emergency plans. In this way, they are working hard to ensure that large-scale emergencies will not disproportionately affect persons with disabilities — people who have higher level of disaster vulnerability. 

They also have worked to provide training for local authorities in support of the province's commitment to emergency preparedness building block of accessibility 2024. This has dramatically increased the capacity for local communities around B.C. to respond to the needs of people with disabilities in emergency and disaster scenarios.

The Disability Alliance in partnership with Prepared B.C. also helped create the resources for people with disabilities guide, which provides vital information for those with unique preparedness considerations, and it's provided recommendations to local communities on how to identity people's actual needs during emergency events.

MLA Rice in the Legislature
on Tuesday speaking of Disabilities BC

 I want to thank the Disability Alliance for their dedication to providing essential services for people in this province living with disabilities.

 I look forward to meeting with the Alliance later today, as we continue to work together in improving all British Columbians' level of emergency and disaster preparedness.

You can view the MLA's statement through the Legislature Video Archive, her comments for the House start at the 10:22 mark.

More background on the work of the organization can be found here.

Other items of interest related to the work of Ms. Rice at the Legislature can be reviewed from our archive page here.