Nothing about us without us

A discussion on advocacy groups in Alberta with Mike Wing and Kathleen Biersdorff

Advocacy focused initiatives have often led revolutionary changes within government, politics or economic structures. Grassroots organizations that focus on bringing people together by creating a community of similar interests are working hard to shift policies and to influence decision makers. Although these methods are based on breaking down barriers in systemic structures, community groups focused on advocacy end up offering much more to their members other than working to create a world where their opinions and life experience are considered – although that alone offers plenty. An advocacy group becomes a life line, a family, a circle of friends, and a safe space for many. Where some individuals may find solace in family structures, traditional workplaces or through post secondary cohorts, others find similar support through advocacy groups.

People come together based on similar interests or in wanting an initiative to move past an ideating phase and into actionable steps. Advocacy groups for people with disabilities do exactly the same. The process of creating a group focused on certain initiatives is a structure that many individuals have been involved in, if they have volunteered, joined a board, or even a school club. Advocacy groups may involve the same level of commitment and offer similar results. Perceived as a group that only leans on opportunities to advise on policy changes, it is actually an initiative that does much more by being focused on action and educating. The definition of advocacy depends on the individual or organization, and on the funds or the general capacity of its leadership. Mike Wing and Kathleen Biersdorff explain how advocacy groups have helped a lot of people and they mourn the moments where the groups have lost their funding and cannot continue. An important group in Calgary, the Disability Action Hall has been sharing their impact stories on social media ever since the news to cut their funding was shared in early January of 2025.

Advocacy groups are misunderstood by governments and individuals who have never been involved, mostly due to the misjudgment of how these groups support resources that are funded as direct services to the audiences that they serve. For example, an employment agency such as Gateway Association relies on advocacy groups to keep the pulse on employment for people with disabilities in Alberta. While Gateway Association may connect with folks with disabilities through their employment support services, there are other barriers that people with disabilities face that feed into employment circumstances, many of which fall outside of the agency’s scope. In this way, the agency can collect information and education from the advocacy groups to ensure their services are always fairly representing people with disabilities. Advocacy groups also offer direct services depending on the needs of their members. Based on the example above, agencies that rely heavily on quantifiable deliverables suffer without community groups that share their lived experiences or can revise programs and policies, because the work of the agencies cannot reflect community needs when the channel to community voices is no longer.

“Without advocacy group feedback, there are no longer channels that will actually give proper recommendations about policies or policy changes.” – Kathleen Biersdorff.

Wing and Biersdorff share how strong the network of advocates is in Alberta. They have seen firsthand how the groups have not only supported the work of service providers but how the groups have felt like family over the last few decades. Biersdorff supports Albertans Advocating for Change Together (AACT) and Wing has been a part of AACT as well as the Disability Action Hall and the Self Advocacy Federation. These 2 last groups are losing their funding by March 31st 2025 and he is reflecting and mourning on the detriment this has been to community advocacy work. As a member of the Gateway Association Board of Directors, Wing knows that a strong employment agency depends on the channel of lived experience stories to influence an agency’s processes and structures. People with disabilities should be involved in conversations on self determination and choice – especially in the employment process. Advocacy groups ensure that these opinions are documented and shared with the relevant parties.

Advocacy work has shifted pre and post the Covid pandemic. The shift to digital platforms allowed for more members to join disability advocacy groups and created a larger reach across the province. Although work in the community needs to happen on the ground and in person, a lot of discussion and planning can happen online. Covid also created barriers for folks who were already facing systemic roadblocks and it called for community. Places where folks were isolated instead became opportunities to learn how to connect digitally. AACT set up self advocates with digital resources to ensure the work moved forward. The capacity for innovation and adaptation of advocacy groups stands the test of time, even during fearing and isolating times. Folks who were once shy to ask for support found themselves typing into Zoom chats or were found listening in with their cameras off. Organizers and allies such as Biersdorff offered resources and answers to questions such as “what’s a tariff?”. An all encompassing space has been created in advocacy work for members to show up as they are and receive insights and support where they otherwise would not have access to the same information.

“Did you know that the Disability Action Hall has been around since 1998?” – Mike Wing

There are currently no advocacy groups working within the Government of Alberta. Wing has previously been a part of an advisory group for Persons with Developmental Disabilities (PDD) funding which was the closest he came to advising the government. He witnessed the benefits of advocacy working in tandem with the government and dreams of a day where the efforts of community and government can be combined in an equitable and accessible way. Although these efforts have not been targeted, he knows that the sector will see the effects of advocacy group funding cuts over the next few months. Wing reminisces on pre Covid times when meetings were led in person with higher commitment that was needed from government of Alberta representatives when they joined in person meetings. It has currently been a barrier to meet with the relevant parties from the government of Alberta. The Premier’s Council on the Status of Persons with Disabilities is the only body that currently “provides advice to the Alberta government through public discussion and engagement with the disability community”. In the last few months, the Disability Action Hall and the Self Advocacy Federation have not had the opportunity to meet with the Premier’s Council to combine efforts and share feedback based on lived experience.

“I want to encourage the government and MLA’s to come to one of our meetings, not a separate meeting with only some members, but a regularly scheduled one to just join to see what we do.” – Mike Wing

Biersdorff shares how the efforts of self advocate groups rely on a strong ally or organization to organize the group. Since advocacy groups do not work within the government, they are able to be transparent in a way that pleases them. She has sent meeting notes from AACT meetings with the Disability Advocate to the Minister of Seniors, Community & Social Services in an effort to share the insider information that emphasizes what the self-advocates said. In group meetings, they focus on a specific strategy to provide information to the Government. They first take steps to learn how the systems in place function, they label the barriers and then collect stories by those affected. With all of this information, they are able to provide direction to changemakers. This process ensures that everyone’s voices are heard and the collection of information is done in an accessible fashion. This process led Wing to Bow Valley College students with an opportunity to present on how health care processes can better support people with disabilities. As a mentor to these students, he shared very valuable information that was not otherwise included in the course material. Being a part of the Disability Action Hall advocacy group led him to this opportunity. There are multiple parties and places that advocacy groups have touched with education, consultation and/ or resource sharing. Hundreds of people will be affected by the funding cuts and this is not specific to only members of advocacy groups but also allies and organizations who lean on the work being done.

AACT itself is not funded by the government of Alberta and relies on membership. They are still accepting members, and foresee new members joining due to the cuts. AACT functions as a mostly virtual advocacy group and stretches across the province. Because they cannot be in every region at once, they rely heavily on regional advocacy groups – most of which have had changes to their funding structures over the last decade. To sign up and check them out click here – http://www.albertaact.com/. Biersdorff shares that the regional advocacy groups lead the action on the ground, which inherently supports AACT. Recently, in Lethbridge there has been advocacy work being done for accessibility on city transit. For optimal accessibility, it is helpful when a bus stop is announced on an intercom for transit riders. The intercom service has not been utilized in every circumstance and the regional advocacy group has come together to promote accessibility for every single transit user. The network of regional groups create a place of idea sharing and resource sharing ; every regional advocacy group has insights on their own cities or towns that can be brought forward. If no regional advocacy groups exist, the knowledge that is dependent on local members is lost.

Over the last few weeks, Wing has been putting together testimonies from past members of disability advocacy groups within Alberta. Find them here – https://www.facebook.com/share/g/12GY3aYDn6N/ and here https://www.actionhall.ca// .

A popular testimony has been from members who first showed up to the group without confidence to lead initiatives in their own regions and these members have evolved into speaking at town halls, joining boards or leading initiatives on their own with the support of other advocates.

“It is hard to speak up by yourself. It is much easier when you have a community around you to help you.” – Kathleen Biersdorff

Wing and Biersdorff have seen the streams of communication grow between allies and relevant organizations – there are equitable relationships built when communities rely on each other. AACT will be attempting to fill the major gaps left by regional advocacy groups but will not be able to cover for all the wonderful work that has been done by each region. When asked what he remembers about past initiatives of the Disability Action Hall and AACT, Wing names a few :

Low income bus passes in Calgary
The partnership with Disability Pride Alberta (thousands of attendees in 2019!!)
The collaboration with the Centre for Sexuality in Calgary to develop a curriculum on the “Right to Love” . This collateral was also shared on city buses and in public places.
Alberta Disability Workers Association Wellness Toolkit (project on employee burnout by AACT)
AISH changes – the groups advocated for better timelines
Creating a method to connect with others during Covid isolation
AACT summits and Disability Action Hall in person events

What is next for disability advocacy groups in Alberta? The work is still being done ; if there is one thing advocacy groups are known for is for being able to adapt to barriers. That being said, there is a stronger call for allies and community members to come together and push forward the work. There is a major call from advocacy groups for the government of Alberta to sit with them and discuss the cuts in how it will affect the community of people with disabilities. Wing and Biersdorff are involved in work through AACT and the Disability Action Hall that will collect the history of self advocacy groups across the province to really showcase the important work that has been done and the tangible ways it has affected members and community. Self advocacy groups have served hundreds of individuals over the years and they have lessened the load of work on organizations in the sector such as PDD focused employment services. With the release of information on the Alberta Disability Assistance Program (ADAP), there is a stronger demand for the government to consult communities of folks with disabilities to ensure that its roll out fairly represents the needs of the community of persons with disabilities.

Support Alberta wide disability advocacy groups with the following resources :

Write a letter to the government: https://win.newmode.net/keepyourwordhonourthecontractswithdisabilityadvocacygroups.

Light the Way for Self-Advocacy – Disability Action Hall fundraising (tax receipt immediately available): https://www.canadahelps.org/en/pages/light-the-way-for-self-advocacy/