Letters from the Editors - Emily's Statement

As a kid growing up with two disabled sisters, disability was never something foreign to me. Hospital visits, odd questions from friends, and overpacking on camping trips were just another part of life. But, as someone who grew up middle class, my knowledge of disability issues was quite limited to only what my sisters experienced. The disability issues I was seeing included inclusion in education, physical barriers in public and private spaces, and home-care nursing shortages. Our lives haven’t been simple (far from it!), but the world of disability I grew up in was a world largely inhabited by other middle-class families with disabled kids. 

Emily and her three siblings in 2010
Emily and her siblings in 2010.


As I became more interested in politics and advocacy in my late teens and early 20s, I learned more about the issue of disability poverty. In the third year of my film degree at Humber College, I started developing a documentary idea about the poverty people face on the Ontario Disability Support Program. After a few years, I finished the documentary “Disposable: Life on ODSP” as a self-funded project and premiered it at a screening put on by PV Forum in July 2024. While making the documentary, I was introduced to a world of disability I had never before encountered. I began to see the ways in which disability, poverty, and capitalism are intrinsically linked. I began to understand that while the issues that face disabled people are broad and incredibly diverse, a disability justice movement that does not prioritize solving disability poverty will never truly fix issues of exclusion. I also started wanting to do something more about it. 

My hope is that this newspaper can be a way to bridge the gap between the two parts of the disability community I’ve come to know and to draw in more allies of disabled people. From making my film, I’ve learned the importance of conversation over accusation. I’ve learned that most people –when you meet them where they’re at –do care about the lives of disabled people. I’ve also learned that I don’t need to abandon my own politics and principles when engaging in conversation with people who I disagree with; there is almost always common ground. 

I wish this newspaper to be a source of community and hope for disabled people across Canada and to be a vehicle for social change on disability issues. I hope that this community can grow and I know that a society that cares for everyone is within reach.

Written by Emily Pot (Co-Editor)

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