Courage To Come Back: Medical winner fights for civil rights of disabled

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – A lifelong battle with Muscular Dystrophy has kept him in a wheelchair since his 20s, but nothing can stop Paul Caune from fighting for the rights of others with disabilities.

News1130’s series of Courage To Come Back profiles continues with a look at the winner in the medical category.

“I’m not an activist, I’m a citizen, and I’m a voter,” explains Caune. “I try not to use the phrase ‘people with disabilities.’ I’m a voter. Period.”

As a voter, he is fully up on the rights people like him are entitled to because he was forced to learn them the hard way.

“My disability got worse as I got older and through a series of unfortunate events, I got sucked into the bad parts of publicly-funded services for people with disabilities,” he recalls.

“I learned the hard way that I had been neglecting my duties as a citizen. It is my country, my society, my health care system; it’s my social services system and the reasonable expectations of citizens are not being met.”

Born and raised in North Vancouver, the 45-year-old has had to fight for his right to live independently.

At one point, the Vancouver Coastal health authority called the RCMP on him when he refused to move to a nursing home, what he called a transparent attempt to scare him.

Those events were later chronicled in “Hope Is Not a Plan,” a documentary he co-produced in 2013.

“I said to myself, ‘If I ever get out of here, I have to do something about this, the way people with disabilities are treated.'”

That’s why Caune founded “Civil Rights Now,” a group dedicated to lobbying government to improve the rights of those who can’t always speak for themselves.

“There are 750,000 people with disabilities in BC, not all but many of whom are not reaping the benefits of the success of Canadian society,” he points out.

And as our province’s population continues to age, he expects the issue to come further into the forefront.

“They can live in denial all they want, but many seniors become people with disabilities and if you think your civil rights are going to be protected, think twice.”

Caune’s “Think Twice” campaign encourages a growing number of disabled British Columbians to know what they’re entitled to under the law.

“You don’t need to ask anybody’s permission to have civil rights. You have them. You have to use them. It’s like a muscle: use it or lose it.”

News1130 is a proud sponsor of the Courage To Come Back Awards, which will be handed out May 8th at the Vancouver Convention Centre.