Government’s attack on mentally disabled a moral failure

There's room for disagreement on lots of policy issues.
But when government passes a cabinet order so it can abandon people with developmental disabilities to the streets - or worse - that's just callous, and irresponsible.
We're not talking about borderline cases.
These are people who, by the government's own assessment, need support in making their way in life and face face terrible risks without it. Two court decisions have found the government has a legal duty to them.
But, on the recommendation of Premier Gordon Campbell and Children's Minister Tom Christensen, cabinet issued an edict this month that freed it from obeying the court rulings.
The issue is straightforward. The government has passed laws setting out its responsibility to help people who are genuinely unable to make their way in this world.
But the cabinet didn't really want to provide the support.
So an arbitrary rule was created. No matter how badly a developmentally disabled adult might need assistance, no matter how severe the problems or clear the looming disaster, if he scored 70 on an IQ test, he was cut off services.
Parents could spend years fighting for help for a young person with mental handicaps and serious problems - autism, FASD, emotional trauma. The support - social workers' time, housing, work programs - could be working, giving hope to all involved.
Everyone - doctors, counselors, family, social workers - might agree the young person couldn't make it on his own. They might even agree that without support he would be a danger to others, destined for the streets or jail.
But despite all that, the government said the magic IQ score of 70 absolved it of all responsibility. The same rule denied help for older people with disabilities when their parents, some in their 70s or 80s, could no longer provide the needed support.
A IQ of 70 to 80 puts a person in the bottom 10 per cent of the population in mental functioning. In a competitive society like ours, that's a big disadvantage. Add other problems and the situation is dire.
That's what the courts found when a Victoria mother challenged the policy. Her adoptive son, whose IQ was just over 70, had been receiving intensive daily support. Without it, the agency's own psychologist warned, the young man's disability, FASD, autism and other problems would make him a threat to himself and others in the community.
But Community Living B.C., the agency delivering services to the developmentally disabled on behalf of he government, said it would him he turned 19.
The B.C. Supreme Court ruled the arbitrary IQ cutoff violates the law setting up Community Living B.C., which said it was to provide needed services to help people independently. It didn't say needed services, unless the person scored over a certain level on an IQ test. The government challenged the decision in the B.C. Court of Appeal and lost.
The courts noted the government could pass a cabinet order exempting itself from the requirement.
But Christens said that would be wrong. A solution would be found.
But the cabinet shuffle took responsibility for services to adults with disabilities away from Christensen and handed them to the new Housing and Social Services Minister Rich Coleman.
Wrong became right and Christensen and Campbell signed the edict giving the government the right to deny help based on an IQ test.
Coleman says it's a temporary measure. Another pending lawsuit meant the government had to do something.
Which is rubbish. The lawsuit could have been delayed with an interim promise of continued services. The government consulted no one before making the change, which it didn't announce publicly.
And it has had two years since the court ruling - and five years since cabinet minister Linda Reid acknowledged the arbitrary IQ standard was wrong and should be changed - to deal with the issue.
Now people with serious disabilities, who could live successful lives, are being punished terribly for the government's.
It's one thing to disagree with government policies - that kind of debate is normal and healthy.
But this is a question of morality. The government, for no good reason, has placed itself above the law and chosen to make people whose lives are already difficult suffer
Footnote: Coleman and Campbell didn't consult the B.C. Association for Community Living, the Children and Youth Representative or anyone else on the change. Coleman's bleak record as a cabinet minister has been attributed in part to a failure to consult with those directly affected by government decisions. This decision has added to fears about his new role of minister for gambling, alcohol sales, welfare, the disabled and housing.