On September 28, 2025, a research team from the Live Work Well Research Centre (LWWRC) presented their paper titled “The Challenges of (Re)Building Trust Post-COVID: People with Disabilities and Canadian Governments” at the 2025 Atlantic Provinces Political Studies Association conference in Fredericton, New Brunswick.
The paper, authored by the LWWRC Director, Deborah Stienstra, and second-year PhD student Maria DiDanieli, is part of a larger Canadian–Brazilian project supported by the New Frontiers in Research fund and led by Dr. Trudo Lemmens of the University of Toronto.
The research team explored the experiences of diverse people with disabilities resulting from Canada’s COVID-19 pandemic response and asked if these experiences impacted the ability of people with disabilities to trust that governments are committed to ensuring their safety and inclusion when creating and implementing policy in crises situations.
Our data shows that people with disabilities in Canada experienced a sense of being invisible, if not forgotten, throughout the pandemic. They felt they had been excluded in the planning and implementation of government policies.
We also found that many people with disabilities in Canada have lost trust in their governments’ willingness to ensure their safety through inclusive and accessible policies and programs, both during and between major crises.
To rebuild this trust, people with disabilities ask that governments let people with disabilities know they are valued by including and listening to them, as well as by prioritizing people with disabilities in policy planning and creation for crisis situations and at all times.
We look forward to coming together with the full research teams from Canada and Brazil to share, and collaboratively synthesize, the results from all arms of this project.
