Disability Justice: Fighting for a Better World

Disabled activists are experts in solidarity and using humour to challenge ableism. The People’s Alliance for Disabled Albertans was created by disabled people to stand up to Alberta government cuts. In this talk, Dr. Janz will speak about her experience helping to create PADA as an example of disability leadership that subverts injustice and fights for a better world for all.

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For many disabled people in general, and disability rights advocates in particular, working cooperatively and building alliances are both survival skills and traits for which they are known. Another trait often found to be common among disabled people in general and disability rights advocates in particular is  a sardonic sense of humor which often enables us to flip ableism—even in its most deadly form—on its head, in order to expose its true absurdity. It was out of both these traits that the People’s Alliance for Disabled Albertans  (PADA) was born

In this talk, Dr. Janz will reflect on her recent experience of helping give birth to the People’s Alliance for Disabled Albertans. The acronym PADA is a rather ingenious inversion and subversion of the acronym for the new Alberta Disability Assistance Program (ADAP), the Government of Alberta’s new workfare program, which is scheduled to begin in July 2026. From its initial inception, PADA was conceived of as a disability-led force, whose purpose it is to oppose the implementation of ADAP through a variety of means. Dr. Janz’s ultimate aim in relating some of the experiences that she has had with PADA thus far is to illustrate how important it is for disabled people to develop the skills of alliance-building and community-building in order to survive in a society that is becoming increasingly utilitarian and ableist. 

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Heidi Janz, Ph.D. (she/her) is a long-time disability rights advocate, academic, filmmaker and playwright. Currently, Heidi is a Core Faculty Member and Associate Adjunct Professor with the John Dossetor Health Ethics Centre at the University of Alberta. Her primary area of specialization is Disability Ethics. Much of her research and teaching in recent years has focused on ableism in general and medical ableism in particular. She has written and co-written articles on Disability Ethics and medical ableism for numerous journals, including The Lancet, the Canadian Medical Association Journal, The Conversation (Canada), the Canadian Journal of Disability Studies, and the Canadian Journal of Bioethics. Through her research, writing, and teaching on Disability Ethics and ableism, she seeks to educate students, academics, and practitioners in fields as diverse as Medicine, Health Sciences, Social Sciences, and the Humanities and Fine Arts, about the prevalence of ableism and the, often lethal, harms that ableism causes to disabled people. 

Lunch and ASL interpretation provided. No registration required. 

Tuesday April 7, 2026
1:00-2:00PM
Carnegie Learning Centre, 3rd Floor
401 Main St., V6A 2T7