Leaping forward, looking back
By Marcia Yale, AEBC National President
With content borrowed from Lee Pigeau, Louise Frazer, John Rae, Judy Prociuk, and Dar Wournell
This has been a year of milestones. We were granted another year of ESDC funding, extending our project to March 31, 2027. We received the final gift from John Rae’s estate—more than twice what we had been expecting. And, finally, we received funding for a three-year project which could result in our community receiving the compensation we deserve for providing our lived experience to consultations. How did we get here?
Governance
Looking back to our 2025 Annual General Meeting, one position on our National Board changed hands—we wished a fond farewell to Pat Seed, with sincere thanks for her work with the Board, and welcomed Louise Johnson as Director. The three other incumbents were acclaimed—Diana Brent as Secretary, Ryan Fleury as Second Vice-President, and yours truly as President. We are all grateful for the trust the membership has shown us.
We celebrated our volunteers, awarding the long-established Volunteer of the Year Award to Diana Brent, and a newly established Distinguished Service Award to Ryan Fleury.
In October, we learned of upcoming changes in reporting thresholds for in-house lobbyists and the Board approved our Executive Director, Lee Pigeau, to register as such for AEBC. By doing so, we ensure compliance with federal law; protect AEBC’s credibility as a transparent, ethical advocate; and avoid fines or penalties for unintentional non-compliance. Looking ahead, this means more administrative work for Lee, but no changes in how we conduct our advocacy at the federal level.
Looking back on recent years, the Board has spent considerable time this year considering the future of our National Board—who will agree to join and who will agree to become leaders. In pursuit of some options, we contacted a group of people whose skills were known to us and, not too surprisingly, found that most of them were already using their skills elsewhere, leaving no time to devote to AEBC. We are still actively seeking anyone who is willing to become involved at the National level, as the organization cannot continue without them.
We also held a meeting to discuss succession planning in June led by Grant Monck, who had facilitated our leadership symposium in 2024. We spoke about the importance of finding and encouraging new engagement at all levels and left the meeting with five suggested areas of further discussion or action. We were tasked to identify a few projects that might be of interest to new volunteers and lessen current workload of board members, if we could find volunteers to run a pilot. some current tasks undertaken by board members and Committee Chairs could be either eliminated or performed less frequently. Significant structural changes were suggested including moving to a two-tiered board with an Executive carrying on day-to-day tasks, while the remainder of the Board was less involved. We also agreed that we needed to ensure we enhanced our outreach efforts to key members to address concerns and seek buy-in for future changes personally in advance of the related membership meeting. The topic of organizational change has become a regular agenda item at our Board meetings in order to maintain focus. Looking forward, we have made some progress but have the opportunity to leap even farther down the road to stable succession.
Programs and Events
International Day of Persons with Disabilities Event
On December 6, 2025, we held our annual virtual event, with the theme “Inclusion Benefits Everyone”. We explored how everyone benefits—not just people with disabilities—and we attempted to bust some myths that perpetuate exclusion. This virtual conference featured guest speakers and an interactive, “Ask Me Anything” panel, with ASL interpreters and real-time live captioning, and is available on our YouTube channel.
Scholarship Program
This year, our AEBC/Allyant Scholarship Program awarded scholarships to ten students. Each has demonstrated strong academic achievement, leadership, community involvement, and a commitment to advancing accessibility and inclusion. Their accomplishments speak to the range of talent, ambition, and contributions these emerging leaders bring to their communities and to the future of a more equitable Canada.
One of our recipients, Aidan Lapp, gave us a wonderful testimonial about the program, which we turned into a submission to the third Annual Access to Education Summit - Empowering the Next Generation, which can be watched on their website!
In addition, AEBC was given the honour of nominating a youth candidate for consideration as a member of Canada’s delegation for the 19th session of the United Nations Conference of States Parties (COSP) to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, held in New York City in June. We nominated Aidan, and he was chosen as one of three youth delegates.
Trivia Events
This year, we had two chances to dig into our trivial knowledge and participate in an evening of fun trivia. In February, the BC Affiliate held their annual event in support of the AEBC/Allyant Scholarship Program. In July, the Toronto Chapter held their event to celebrate the transition from spring to summer. Both events gave us a chance to stretch our mental abilities, raise some money for AEBC, and have fun!
National AccessAbility Week
This year, we held several virtual events in honour of National AccessAbility Week, along with launching a survey on travel concerns.
Ryan Fleury and I explored the mixed emotions and important conversations surrounding National AccessAbility Week on our podcast. It was a chance to advertise our upcoming events, as well as discuss what accessibility really means and why these conversations matter year-round.
On June 1, we heard from Alberta MLA Marie Renaud, who crafted and introduced Bill 206, the Alberta Disability Act, which was sadly defeated in the legislature. Feel free to watch it again! It was a very interesting discussion about provincial legislative procedures.
On June 3, we held our first Authors’ evening. Hannalora Leavitt spoke of her new book, All About Us: 20 True Tales of Courage and Disability, which introduces twenty inspiring kids and adults living with disability today. From journalists to NASA scientist to TikTok stars, these incredible people developed their own unique set of adaptations to help manage the tasks of daily life, solve problems and achieve exceptional things. Then we heard from David Lepofsky, whose memoir, Swimming Up Niagara Falls! tells the inspiring story of the battle to get disability equality added to the Charter of Rights.
On June 4, two more authors joined us to speak about their books. Penny Leclair told us about Life With Jefferson, the true story about the remarkable partnership she shared with her guide dog, Jefferson, whose unique intelligence, sensitivity, and ability to meet Penny's specific needs helped increase her independence.
Lynn Jensen told us about Best Kept Secrets for Travelers with Sight Loss, the first book aimed at giving travelers who are blind or have low vision the tools to make travel fun and safe. As a certified vision rehabilitation therapist, Lynn has provided plenty of advice for her clients about traveling with sight loss, and now she has put all that advice into her debut book.
Communications
In September of last year, we took a leap of faith and turned our AEBC Connect into a weekly newsletter to be distributed to all our contacts, not just our members. This has given us a broader reach for our own news and has also allowed us to spread more widely news from other sources which we receive. Thank you to Diana Brent, Carol Austin, and Louise Frazer for your work on this project!
In another leap of faith, Chantal Oakes and I established a French-speaking Friday night chat, which has occurred several times since October 31. We plan to hold these every so often to encourage our French-speaking members and friends to spend time speaking their beautiful language with us.
We also launched a podcast last fall: Inclusion in Motion By AEBC, which began as another platform on which to host our training sessions and audio versions of blog posts, but which has seen some specific episodes created, profiling a few members and events throughout the year. This is something which we have attempted several times in the past, including an executive “podcast” as well as seven episodes of “Walking the Talk”, spearheaded by long-time member, Devon Wilkins. Sadly, she passed away peacefully on Tuesday, November 4, and therefore did not live to see the true podcast grow. Devon’s tireless advocacy, infectious enthusiasm, and deep love for guide dogs and their handlers touched the lives of countless people across Canada and beyond. Her dedication extended across many organizations, and her voice—full of warmth, wit, and wisdom—will be deeply missed. Beyond her advocacy, Devon was also a talented writer, broadcaster, poet, ham-radio enthusiast, Old-Time Radio expert, musician, and so much more—whose creativity and compassion inspired everyone who had the privilege of knowing her. I have no doubt that she would have played a big role on the podcast had she lived.
In March, we bid a sad farewell to Carol Austin, who had been our Admin and Communications Coordinator since July of 2023. She decided to retire—against our wishes, but I know she is living her best life! Louise Frazer, who joined us in the position, has some big shoes to fill but is already making her own mark on AEBC.
Our communications results also speak for themselves. Across almost every channel we can track reliably, our audience is larger than it was a year ago and substantially larger than it was in 2023. LinkedIn and YouTube have grown particularly quickly, Facebook continues to build steadily, the mailing list is much larger, blog readership is up, and membership continues to grow. These results show that more people are finding AEBC, following our work and staying connected with us.
Facebook continues to be a solid and steadily growing channel for AEBC. We had 540 followers in November 2023, 615 in September 2025 and 685 in September 2026. That is an increase of 145 followers, or about 27%, since late 2023. Over the past year alone, we added another 70 followers, an increase of about 11%. This is not our fastest-growing platform, but it continues to bring new people into AEBC's audience consistently. A Facebook group for the Toronto Chapter was also established, giving them a place to gather and exchange ideas.
LinkedIn is one of the clearest communications success stories. In May 2023, AEBC had just four LinkedIn followers. After focused work on the account, that grew to 55 by November 2023, 179 by September 2025 and 231 by September 2026. In just over three years, the audience has grown from four people to more than 230. This gives AEBC a much stronger professional audience for our advocacy and accessibility work, partnerships, and organizational news than we had even a few years ago.
YouTube
YouTube has also become a much stronger part of AEBC's communications. The channel had 123 subscribers in September 2025 and 190 in September 2026. That is an increase of 67 or about 55%. The subscriber base is now almost five times what it was three years ago, and the growth is continuing.
People are also watching more AEBC video content. Views during the most recent 28-day period increased from 152 a year ago to 194 this year, while watch time increased from 17 hours to 19.3 hours. AEBC has now published 111 videos. Together, these numbers show that the video library we have built is continuing to attract an audience.
Podcast
The podcast channel has now recorded 2,221 total audio listens. There have been 202 listens in 2026 to date, and the channel recorded 40 new listeners in the most recent 30-day period. Podcasting remains a smaller channel for AEBC, but it gives people another accessible way to hear our content and keeps extending the life of material we are already producing.
Blog
AEBC published eighty-nine blog posts in 2025 and forty posts have been published so far in 2026. Blog post views have reached 6,620 in 2026, about 16% higher than the same period in 2025. Blog visitors have reached 4,508, about 28% higher than the same period last year. The encouraging part is that readership continues to grow even with fewer posts published so far this year, which suggests that our content is continuing to find an audience and that older material is also contributing to ongoing readership.
Press Releases and External Reach
AEBC submitted eight press releases during 2025 and has continued regular media outreach in 2026. This year's releases have covered our Scholarship program, the Canada Disability Benefit, Ontario's new guide dog access enforcement measure, and accessibility improvements to the standardized air travel medical form.
The Board was tasked to explore our organization using artificial intelligence, and Lee was able to turn the results into an article. It is a fascinating read!
Several releases have also been picked up outside AEBC's own channels, including publication by The National Law Review. That kind of pickup is valuable because it puts AEBC's name, positions and advocacy in front of audiences we do not reach directly ourselves.
What the Results Show
AEBC is not relying on one social platform or one type of content. More people are following us, watching our videos, reading our blog, receiving our emails, seeing our media releases and joining the organization. That is a much stronger communications position than AEBC had three years ago. The next opportunity is to build on that momentum and show more clearly how this growing audience turns into participation, membership, volunteering and advocacy engagement.
Speaking of the Canada Disability Benefit, I took aim at the paltry increase we received with a scathing little song—thank you, Suno AI! I’m really pleased at how it turned out and it’s worth a listen, or another one!
Collaborations
On October 21, Lee and I met with CNIB President and CEO Angela Bonfanti and CNIB National Board member Penny Hartin for a wide-ranging and genuinely positive discussion. It was one of the best meetings we’ve had with CNIB in years, and both of us came away feeling encouraged about the tone, content, and potential for collaboration.
Angela was very clear that CNIB wants to move forward from the past and focus on constructive cooperation across organizations that serve the blind, Deafblind, and partially sighted community. She acknowledged that CNIB can’t and shouldn’t try to do everything alone, and that a coordinated voice on national issues would strengthen everyone’s work.
We talked at length about the National Eye Care Strategy. CNIB confirmed that they have deliberately stepped back from leading this initiative publicly, choosing instead to play a supportive role while allowing others — including AEBC — to take more visible advocacy positions. Their stance closely mirrors ours: supportive of a national strategy but wary of approaches that use fear or stigma around blindness to secure funding. CNIB and AEBC agreed that any national messaging must promote dignity, ability, and lived experience, not pity or fear.
Although the quarterly meetings which we discussed have not materialized, we did succeed in producing a joint press release with CNIB and the Canadian Council of the Blind (CCB) commenting on the budget outcomes last November.
In February, Chantal Oakes collaborated with CNIB on three sessions concerning Emergency Preparedness.
On May 26, Chantal represented AEBC at CNIB’s Connecting the Dots Light Conference held in Kelowna. She was one of three panelists who spoke about Emergency Preparedness again, this time in a much more condensed version. There was also the opportunity to network.
On September 26, A group of AEBC members participated in the Vision and Hearing Resource Fair organized by the CCB BC-Yukon Division and the Lions from MD-19 at the Fleetwood Community Centre in Surrey.
We used to take part in many events of this type, and it is wonderful that we are getting the opportunity to do so again.
Training
We continued our tech training sessions throughout the past year, posting most of them on YouTube for anyone to find. We also started a monthly tech drop-in session in December, and it has gained popularity.
AEBC is planning two knowledge exchange webinars with the Alzheimer Society of Ontario. The webinars will focus on aging with vision impairment, including how cognitive decline and dementia may affect blind, Deafblind and partially sighted people, care partners, and service access.
Projects
After almost a year, we finally learned that our proposal to Accessibility Standards Canada was approved. Promoting Equity in Accessibility Consulting (the PEACH Project), is a national research initiative running from July 6, 2026 to March 31, 2029. It will address the ongoing reliance on unpaid or minimally compensated contributions from people with disabilities in government consultations, advisory processes, accessibility standards development, procurement-related engagement, and program or service design. While engagement is common, compensation is inconsistent or absent, which limits participation and reinforces inequities, particularly for people who cannot afford to volunteer their time and expertise. Catherine Dumé was hired as the Project Coordinator, and she is already working hard to get the project off the ground.
We have been given two teams of students from the UBC Sauder School of Business to do some research for us on volunteering. The turn-around is short, with the final reports due in November. We hope their work will give us some much-needed information and tools to increase our volunteer engagement.
Membership
In August, we received word of the passing of another long-time AEBC member, Beryl Williams. She was 87 years young! She was born in the United Kingdom but moved to Saskatoon in the early 1960’s with her husband Keith, and they raised their family there. She was a great organizer—if she saw something that needed fixing, she did her best to find a solution. Keith was teaching in the engineering department at the University of Saskatchewan and, at Beryl’s request, he and some of his colleagues developed some of the first audible pedestrian signals in Saskatoon. When they were installed they had both male and female voices—the voices of her son and daughter. In the mid-1980s, Beryl was instrumental in organizing VIPAC, an organization for the blind and visually impaired. When that organization ceased to exist, she joined AEBC. She will be missed by many. Rest in peace, Beryl!
In December, we launched a membership survey which, in part, asked members whether they would support a proposed by-law change that would allow the board to make certain governance or operational decisions between AGMs, provided those decisions were made transparently, reported back to the membership, and did not affect advocacy direction, by-laws, elections, or members’ resolutions. Overall, a majority of respondents (approximately 61%) indicated support for this change. However, the bylaw change failed at the special membership meeting held on March 23. It was a wake-up call, demonstrating that we had not been clear or transparent enough when communicating the suggested change, and we will endeavour to do better when we next tackle the bylaws.
One positive outcome of that same meeting was the change in our membership fee structure. All active members became lifetime members as of March 31, 2026, and new members will only have to pay $30 to achieve lifetime status, either as a one-time payment or in three annual payments of $10. This simplification will reduce the administrative burden significantly.
Fundraising
In 2017, John Rae, one of our long-time, gone-too-soon members, wrote: “For years, the federal government has indicated the Program that has provided core funding to 18 national organizations will finally be opened up and accept applications from some additional organizations. The AEBC looks forward to applying when the Program is opened up, and it hopes to finally secure reliable core funding to support its extensive work.”
We received our first National Operating Funding Agreement under the Social Development Partnerships Program – Disability Component in 2023, and were notified on November 13, 2025 that an additional year had been approved, extending our funding until March 31, 2027. This was a very welcome piece of news and means we will be able to make the legacy funds from John Rae last even longer. In addition, we received our final legacy amount, more than three times what we had been led to expect.
Conclusion
Looking back, I borrowed some more words written in 2017 by John Rae, Chantal Oakes, our current National Treasurer, and Louise Johnson, National Director: Together we are stronger, and the stronger we become, the more changes we can bring about for both ourselves and those blind persons who will follow us. We can admit that times have changed and for better or for worse, we have more choices than ever before. Can we attribute any of this to the work of AEBC? My answer would be yes in a heartbeat. The way I feel, all of us can say we are in part responsible for change happening and it is evident even when we don’t realize it. Stand up and be counted as someone who won’t be told, “No, you can’t.” The more we achieve, the sooner we can say: “Yes, we have arrived.” You don’t need to have all the answers—you just have to give a few hours of your time and you will find that your life will be enriched and you will make friends and will help make a difference for our community.
