DAVID C. ONLEY

Former Lieutenant Governor of Ontario

On Destigmatizing Disabilities

In the days of quiet quitting and a labour shortage, the unemployment rate for people with disabilities is 47 per cent, while for women it’s 65 per cent. What can businesses do?

They can choose to become fully staffed by contacting the various organizations that assist disabled people or connect with www.magnet.today. Every company that has engaged in hiring disabled persons has increased their profits, reduced absenteeism, and improved morale. All studies have verified this to be true. Not one single study has ever demonstrated otherwise.

Having served in the position of Lieutenant Governor of Ontario for seven years, what personal life lessons have you taken from the role that you’d like to pass on to others?

Service to others beyond work responsibilities is in and of itself a great reward.

In 2015, just after you left your position, a study by the Canadian government found that although youths are less likely to vote, they are more likely to be civically engaged. What do you feel accounts for that and how do you get young people involved today?

Youths are tired of the inherent cynicism played out in the political system, yet they understand the rewards of helping in their communities, something I see all the time in my role as Associate Professor in Political Science at the U of T Scarborough. //

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Some of the people you work with are stars like Eva Longoria and America Ferrera, who are among the cofounders with you in Poderistas. You also work with people in the realm of professional sports. So, how do you bring people in different industries and activism together to work in tandem?

I've been really fortunate to work with people like America and Eva, who themselves are activists and advocates in so many spheres. Throughout the years — through our friendship and through our collaboration — you’ll always find yourself in the same spaces and around the same people advocating or speaking up for the same issues. That's kind of how my relationship with America and Eva was — based on engaging Latinas, making sure that we were parts of the conversation, civically and politically.

That's true for so many people who are humans, first and foremost, and care about the same things that everybody else cares about, which is their family and the well-being of their community. It's actually been a natural connection because we're really just working on the issues that affect our community most and in a deeper way. To me, it's really just providing an opportunity for individuals to get involved and get engaged and find different ways to plug in and elevate those issues and amplify them.

Can you speak about some of the challenges you and other Latina women have faced in making an impact both inside and outside the community?

There's a lot of conversation around Latinas and wanting to have us as consumers of information or of goods and whatnot. And so, I think one of the challenges is really finding that investment into the community. To say, “If you want us to be your audience, if you want us to be engaged with whatever