Sarnia is a city in Lambton County, Ontario, Canada. It had a 2021 population of 72,047, and is the largest city on Lake Huron. Sarnia is located on the eastern bank of the junction between the Upper and Lower Great Lakes where Lake Huron flows into the St. Clair River in the Southwestern Ontario region, which forms the Canada–United States border, directly across from Port Huron, Michigan. The site's natural harbour first attracted the French explorer La Salle. He named the site "The Rapids" on 23 August 1679, when he had horses and men pull his 45-ton barque Le Griffon north against the nearly four-knot current of the St. Clair River.
Accessibility is the design of products, devices, services, vehicles, or environments so as to be usable by people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design and practice of accessible development ensures both "direct access" and "indirect access" meaning compatibility with a person's assistive technology.
Goodwill Industries International Inc., often shortened in speech and writing to Goodwill, is an American nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that provides job training, employment placement services, and other community-based programs for people who have barriers to their employment. Goodwill Industries also hires veterans and individuals who lack either education, job experience or face employment challenges. The nonprofit is funded by a network of 3,200+ retail thrift stores which operate as independent nonprofits as well.
St. Marys is a town in southwestern Ontario, Canada. It is located at the confluence of the north branch of the Thames River and Trout Creek southwest of Stratford, and is surrounded by the Township of Perth South in Perth County, Ontario. St. Marys operates under its own municipal government that is independent from the county's government. Nonetheless, the three entities "enjoy a large degree of collaboration and work together to grow the region as a leading location for industry and people". Census data published for Perth County by Statistics Canada includes St. Marys and most Perth County publications also do, at least in some sections of the document.
Lambton County is a county in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. It is bordered on the north by Lake Huron, which is drained by the St. Clair River, the county's western border and part of the Canada-United States border. To the south is Lake Saint Clair and Chatham-Kent. Lambton County's northeastern border follows the Ausable River and Parkhill Creek north until it reaches Lake Huron at the beach community of Grand Bend. The county seat is in the Town of Plympton-Wyoming.
Roger John Gallaway, is a Canadian educator and retired politician. He was a member of the House of Commons of Canada from 1993 to 2006, representing the riding of Sarnia—Lambton for the Liberal Party.
The Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services is the ministry in Ontario, Canada responsible for services to children and youth, social services such as welfare, the Ontario Disability Support Program, and community service programs to address homelessness, domestic violence, spousal support, adoption, and assisted housing for people with disabilities. Michael Parsa was appointed Minister of Children, Community and Social Services after the resignation of Merrilee Fullerton in 2023.
The Ontario Rugby Football Union (ORFU) was an early amateur Canadian football league comprising teams in the Canadian province of Ontario. The ORFU was founded on Saturday, January 6, 1883 and in 1903 became the first major competition to adopt the Burnside rules, from which the modern Canadian football code would evolve.
The Southern Ontario Junior A Hockey League was a Tier II Junior "A" ice hockey that lasted from the late 1960s until 1977 in Southern Ontario, Canada. The league was swallowed by what is now called the Ontario Provincial Junior A Hockey League in 1977.
Plympton–Wyoming is a town in the Canadian province of Ontario, located in Lambton County immediately east of Sarnia. It is the seat of the Lambton County Council.
Disabled Peoples' International (DPI) is a cross disability, consumer controlled international non-governmental organization (INGO) headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and with regional offices in Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, Europe, Africa, Latin America, and North America and the Caribbean. DPI is a network of national organizations or assemblies of disabled people, established in 1980–81 to promote the human rights of disabled people through full participation, equalization of opportunity and development. DPI assists organisations in over 152 nations with the day to day issues of helping disabled people. They also host assemblies and symposiums across the world with their different national branches.
Michael Bradley is a Canadian politician, who has served as the mayor of Sarnia, Ontario since 1988, and the 66th person to hold the office. He is the longest-serving mayor in Sarnia City Council history and currently the second longest-serving mayor in the province of Ontario behind Milton's Gord Krantz.
Sarnia Transit provides public transportation within the City of Sarnia and the independent village of Point Edward in Ontario, Canada. This includes conventional bus transit, transportation of people with disabilities (Care-A-Van), transportation support for major events and charter services.
Marceil Saddy was a Canadian politician, who served as mayor of Sarnia, Ontario from 1980 until his death in 1988. Prior to becoming the city's mayor, he was a journalist and editor of the Sarnia Gazette.
The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005 (AODA) is a statute enacted in 2005 by the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in Canada. Its purpose is to improve accessibility standards for Ontarians with physical and mental disabilities to all public establishments by 2025.
Norman (Norm) Perry was a Canadian football player in the Ontario Rugby Football Union for the Sarnia Imperials for eight seasons. He was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1963 and into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in 1975.
Rise provides microfinancing and mentorship to entrepreneurs living with mental health and addiction challenges who are interested in pursuing self-employment. Business loans, leases, and other investments are offered depending on the stage of development, needs and capacity of each business. Rise provides business financing up to $25,000 throughout Ontario, with financing averaging from $3000 to $5000. The Rotman School of Management and Centre for Addiction and Mental Health participate in advisory functions, lending their respective expertise for business mentoring and mental health supports and services to the benefit of Rise clients. In January 2012, Rise received the Social Entrepreneurship in Mental Health Equity Award for Toronto social enterprises advancing mental health equity.
Community integration, while diversely defined, is a term encompassing the full participation of all people in community life. It has specifically referred to the integration of people with disabilities into US society from the local to the national level, and for decades was a defining agenda in countries such as Great Britain. Throughout recent decades, community integration programs have been increasingly effective in improving healthcare access for people with disabilities. They have been valued for providing a "voice for the voiceless"
Sarnia's Chemical Valley and the surrounding area are home to sixty-two facilities and refineries. A widely quoted 2007 Ecojustice Canada report showed those large industrial facilities located within 25 km of Sarnia, Ontario, Canada emitted more than 131,000 tonnes of air pollution in 2005, a toxic load of more than 1,800 kilograms per resident.
According to a 2012 survey by Statistics Canada, around 3.8 million adult Canadians reported being "limited in their daily activities due to a disability". This represented 13.7% of the adult population. The three most-prevalent forms of disability in Canada are chronic pain issues, mobility, and flexibility limitations. Around 11% of Canadian adults experience one of these disability types, and 40% of those people have had all three at the same time. Disabled people in Canada have historically experienced many forms of discrimination and abuse, such as segregation, institutionalization, and compulsory sterilization. They were not given the same rights as non-disabled people until the end of the 1970s, when the Coalition of Provincial Organizations of the Handicapped initiated significant changes. Legislation intended to protect disabled Canadians include the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Canadian Human Rights Act, and the Employment Equity Act.
