PUBLIC STATEMENT FROM ZACHARY WEEKS

Bill 12 Has Passed and Disabled Albertans Will Not Be Silent, Will Not Be Dismissed, and Will Not Forget

Today, Premier Danielle Smith, Minister Jason Nixon, and every MLA who voted for Bill 12 made a choice. Not a mistake, not an oversight, but a choice to ignore the voices of disabled Albertans. They pushed forward the Alberta Disability Assistance Program, ADAP, knowing full well that the people most affected did not ask for it, were not included in shaping it, and have been sounding alarms from the beginning.

Judy Heumann taught us something essential. “Nothing about us without us” is not a slogan. It is a demand for basic human respect. This government has shown Alberta that they still have not learned that lesson.

Let us be clear. The disability community did not request ADAP. We did not call for the dismantling of AISH. We did not endorse the consultations this government keeps claiming to have held. What they call consultation was selective, controlled, and designed to justify a predetermined decision. When a government buries an accessibility report, avoids transparency, and cannot answer the simplest questions about stability, the truth becomes painfully obvious. They were never looking for our input. They were looking for our permission to do what they already intended.

If Premier Smith, Minister Nixon, or their caucus truly believe ADAP will improve our lives, I invite them (and anyone else), respectfully but directly, to live under the conditions they have created. Try navigating this system. Try finding a job that isn't there. Try surviving the instability. Try living with the uncertainty they expect us to shoulder. Then come back and tell us how modernized it feels.

I have been taught that if you want to understand oppression, listen to the people living it. This government has done the opposite.

This is not only an attack on disabled Albertans. It is an insult to every taxpayer who wants their hard-earned dollars to support people who genuinely need it. Most Albertans believe in fairness, dignity, and taking care of one another. They are not the problem. Government spin is the problem. The language behind Bill 12 was crafted to obscure harm, not prevent it.

History matters here. Marginalized communities in this province, including Indigenous peoples, racialized groups, 2SLGBTQIA+ communities, and disabled people, know what it means to endure government decisions that harm us. We know how to recognize patterns. Judy Heumann reminded us often. “We are not fragile. We are forced to be strong.” We remember. We always remember.

To disabled Albertans, and to disabled people watching across Canada, hear me clearly.
This moment does not define us.
This government does not define us.
Your worth is not dictated by legislation.

We come from a long line of people who refused to disappear when the world told us to. Judy understood that our power comes from each other, from solidarity, from speaking truth, from refusing to be silenced. This is one of those moments.

Find your voice. Use it. Raise it.
Stand with one another. Protect one another.
When government abandons us, we do what this community has always done. We lead ourselves.

Bill 12 will follow this government in the history books. And like every movement that came before us, we will respond with resilience, strategy, community, and truth. Judy once said, “Change never happens at the pace we want it to, but it always starts with someone refusing to give up.”

We are that someone. All of us.

We are not going anywhere. And we are not done.

Zachary Weeks
Disability Advocate & Accessibility Consultant
www.zacharyweeks.ca
zachary.weeks@gmail.com