By Angela Bonfanti, President and CEO, CNIB
As Equalize celebrates its 10th anniversary, our community has an extraordinary opportunity to shape what comes next.
People who are blind, Deafblind or have low vision have knowledge this country needs. Every day, you navigate systems, encounter barriers and find solutions that decision-makers need to understand. That experience should carry real influence over how our communities are designed, how services are delivered and how new technologies are developed.
Over the next decade, we have an opportunity to help more people turn that knowledge into change. At CNIB, that means ensuring more people have the tools, connections and confidence to influence the decisions that affect their lives. It also means thinking differently about how we work.
An anniversary gives us a reason to celebrate progress. It also gives us an opportunity to ask what we have learned and what our community should expect from us next.
What we carry forward
Some of my earliest lessons in advocacy came from working in the House of Commons. Working through minority Parliaments showed me the importance of building relationships across political lines, finding common ground and demonstrating how a proposed change could benefit Canadians.
Those lessons remain relevant to our work today. When we advocate for accessible transportation, inclusive workplaces or technology that more people can use, we are contributing to a stronger Canada. Helping others recognize their stake in that work opens the door to new allies and broader support.
We also need to examine our achievements honestly. The Accessible Canada Act stands out as both a significant milestone and a source of deep frustration.
Our community brought extraordinary energy to shaping that legislation. People shared their experiences, challenged CNIB to push further and raised difficult questions about whether it would go far enough. We supported moving forward, believing it was better to have legislation we could continue working to strengthen.
That decision deserves continued reflection. For all the work that advocates and volunteers have contributed, the pace of change has not matched what our community needs and deserves.
We need to carry that lesson forward. People must have a central role in setting expectations for change, determining what they are willing to accept and holding decision-makers accountable. At CNIB, we must help make that participation possible and measure our success by what changes in people’s lives.
More people with the power to act
The next decade offers an opportunity to help more people become advocates on their own terms.
Perhaps you want to address an unsafe intersection in your neighbourhood, challenge a barrier at work or influence a decision about your child’s education. You understand what that experience means in your life. That knowledge belongs in the conversation about how to make it better.
Taking the first step can still be daunting. Knowing who to contact, how a decision is made or where to find others who share your concerns can make a real difference. Through CNIB, more people should be able to find those tools and connections, leaving better equipped to pursue the issues that matter to them.
Technology could help us extend that opportunity. Communication tools have already created more ways to share experiences and organize around a concern. Artificial intelligence could make it easier to research an issue, prepare a submission or write to a local newspaper. Helping people access and use those tools could bring perspectives into advocacy that we have been missing.
CNIB’s national voice remains essential. We have a responsibility to tackle systemic barriers and bring evidence, relationships and collective strength to that work. Alongside those efforts, we should welcome and support advocacy that community members lead independently of us. Their influence should reach well beyond the opportunities we organize.
Building that future together
Making this shift will require us to look carefully at our own choices. Where can our time and resources make the greatest difference? Which approaches need to evolve? Who else should be involved? Our community must help guide those decisions.
We will need strong relationships across the disability community and allies in other sectors who share our ambition for a more inclusive Canada. Together, we can develop solutions that draw on lived experience from the beginning and build the support needed to put them into practice.
Ultimately, our progress must be felt in everyday life: in the journey someone can make safely, the education they can pursue or the workplace where they have an equal opportunity to succeed. Those experiences should guide our priorities and how we measure the impact of our work.
Advocacy is the heartbeat of CNIB. That means listening to what matters to our community, making deliberate choices about where we can have the greatest impact and helping more people take part in shaping change.
As Equalize enters its next decade, our community should expect us to keep asking difficult questions, build new partnerships and stand alongside people who are challenging barriers. Everyone who turns to CNIB should know that their experience matters and that we are ready to help them act on it.
We have learned a great deal about what it takes to move this country forward. The next decade is our opportunity to put that knowledge, and the strength of our community, to work in new ways. Together, we can build a Canada where more people have a say in the decisions that affect them and can see the difference their contribution makes.