DABC has updated our Disability Tax Credit (DTC) online tool! The tool now more closely reflects the eligibility criteria and format of the updated application.

Check it out here: https://disabilityalliancebc.org/dtc-app/

This tool is designed to give your healthcare provider the information they need to fill out the DTC application.

We are also going to update the tool more substantially next year, after seeking feedback through a survey and possibly other methods.

Thirty-four years ago today, on 6 December, 1989, 14 women were shot and killed while studying mechanical engineering at Montreal’s Ecole Polytechnique. An act of violence and misogyny took the lives, dreams and goals of Geneviève Bergeron, Hélène Colgan, Nathalie Croteau, Barbara Daigneault, Anne-Marie Edward, Maud Haviernick, Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz, Maryse Laganière, Maryse Leclair, Anne-Marie Lemay, Sonia Pelletier, Michèle Richard, Anne St-Arneault and Annie Turcotte. Ten other women and 4 men were injured. DABC remembers these women and their surviving classmates. We will not forget them, and we and condemn all acts and expressions of gender-based violence.

Communities across Canada and BC are holding vigils in honor of these women, and Salal Sexual Violence Support Centre is hosting an online vigil today at 3:30 pm. Register here for the online vigil: https://tinyurl.com/3ss25n2v.

The Province has adopted The Province the British Columbia Building and Fire Codes (BC Codes 2024).

Key updates will require all new buildings to:

• provide one living space that is designed not to exceed 26 C;
• have power-operated doors in all building entrances and universal washrooms; and
• have an elevator in all large two- and three-storey apartment buildings.

For further information, please read the Province’s press release:
https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2023HOUS0167-001923

From the press release:

Helaine Boyd, executive director, Disability Alliance BC –

“Disability Alliance BC (DABC) is looking forward to witnessing how these BC Building Code changes will directly impact the lives of people with disabilities in need of accessible housing. We hope that the BC Building Code changes will continue conversations and ultimately contribute to greater social and economic inclusion for people with disabilities in our province.”