Council lacks ethics
Council of Disabled plagiarizes UN statement on Day of Persons with Disabilities
By Stephen Pate
Today is International Day of Persons with Disabilities.
This is the day the politicians and other wind bags proclaim their support for persons with disabilities. The rest of the year they can ignore us.
Marcia Carroll, CEO PEI Council of the Disabled - plagiarist?
Marcia Carroll and the PEI Council of Persons with Disabilities trotted out a fancy opinion piece for the Guardian today which the paper dutifully printed.
The article is plagiarized from the United Nations press release. This is, I’m afraid, the norm for the low ethics of the Council who pretend to advocate on behalf of the disabled. Why low ethics? If you espouse a cause and get paid handsomely to advocate for the disabled, not doing so is unethical.
Ms Carroll should write her own original content but then the Council doesn’t know much about disabilities and says less.
Dare to Compare
UN Statement
Dignity and justice for all of us is the theme of this year’s International Day for Persons with Disabilities, as well as for the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Ms Carroll signed opinion
Dignity and justice for all of us is the theme of this year’s International Day for Persons with Disabilities.
What about the disabled on PEI
Carroll goes on to add some of her words to the UN press release and wax eloquent about disability rights all over the world. Meanwhile the Council cannot help students and staff at UPEI with their accessible parking. It is always easier to advocate in the abstract about people far away.
The Council cannot find the time to correct the error filled letter written in support of UPEI’s decision to remove accessible parking, Accessibility Committee made call.
UPEI and President Wade MacLauchlan have pointed to that letter over and over as an endorsement of removing accessible parking from the UPEI campus. The Council’s mistakes are not benign: they hurt the disabled who they are supposed to help.
Carroll says in the letter “Unfortunately not all designated parking spaces are within that 75-metre radius.” The city by-law clearly states the maximum distance is 50 meters. Carroll has been stalling for 5 months on publishing a correction, despite promises she would. I believe it is the Board of the Council who are unethical. Carroll tells me her hands are tied.
The Council’s commitment to disability advocacy is as phony as their signed, plagiarized press release.
How about stepping up to the plate with some real advocacy?
Plagiarism
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was one of the lead developers of the email message. You can blame them for spam.
They say “the UNC Honor Court defines plagiarism as “the deliberate or reckless representation of another’s words, thoughts, or ideas as one’s own without attribution in connection with submission of academic work, whether graded or otherwise.”
Generally in the media, a reporter caught plagiarizing some else’s work is fired.
Intellectual dishonesty
Intellectual dishonesty is at the core of the Council of the Disabled. They want to maintain their $800,000 annual government supplied budget but they don’t want to help us any more than they have to.
I don’t think their worth $10 and I’m not renewing my permit this year.
We have long called for the Council to fulfill its role in PEI’s disability community but they have failed to do so. Islanders with disabilities don’t need rhetoric: we need the Council to do the work it claims as its job.
Thank you Marcia for illustrating how dishonest the Council of Persons with Disabilities has become.
