Jasmin Simpson is a young deaf-blind woman with lupus. While at university, she experienced unbelievable threats to her education due to elements of the Canada Student Loan Program (CSLP) that discriminate against students with disabilities.  Through sheer will power and determination she overcame these challenges and completed her post-secondary education with B.S.W. and M.S.W. degrees. However, because she is disabled she graduated with 60% more student debt than would a non disabled student graduating with comparable credentials.

With help from the federally funded Court Challenges Program (CCP) she brought a Charter challenge asserting the Canada Student Loan Program (CSLP) discriminates against students with disabilities by imposing higher CSLP debt on them. 

CHS is always working to find new ways to communicate with you.  See a sample of our new CHS TV by clicking below:

In the article, the Canadian Paediatric Society said there is a comprehensive and linked system of screening, diagnosis and intervention needed along with a need for provinces to unite their efforts to create a national program. We agree with these comments and wish to take this a step further to emphasis the importance of access to language and language acquisition at an early age.

There have been a lot of exciting events and articles in the news this week.  See some of them here:

• Test the hearing of newborns across Canada
• CHS Ottawa staff host successful Deaf for a Day event
• Legislation will enforce disability-friendly service
• Communication a daily challenge for people who are deaf

The Canadian Hearing Society (CHS) applauds SickKids Hospital for the tremendous work that it does. CHS also applauds advances made in cochlear implant technology. However, we do take exception to some of the conclusions attributed to Dr. Blake Papsin in this article.