Interviewer:
Patrick
Toronto, September 2000
Peter Park © Linda Dawn Hammond, 2000
Patrick: How did your association with People First begin?
Peter: I remember in Brantford, people wanted something other than the association, because the association said they would do things, but it might be ten years later . . . people wanted something that they owned, they controlled, and so I just used myself as an instrument. I didn't know what I was doing but I started something. That was back in May, 1979.
Patrick: Where does your sense of justice come from?
Peter: I think it's my own personal set of values, maybe it was something that was instilled in me when I was younger. My father was always that way too, and my older brothers. So I grew up in a household where you were conscious of those sort of things - although I wasn't conscious of it.
And I had a cousin who at the time, in the 40s and 50s, was a real pedal pusher. She travelled North America from New York City to Los Angeles at night, was an unescorted woman, would go to Jamaica, was in the Zeigfeild Follies, and was one of the survivors of the Titanic. That right there, I've never thought about it this way before, is where my social values come from.
I keep growing every day, I won't stop learning things. People like Richard [Ruston] for instance, will say 'Oh, I'm learning from you, Peter,' but I'm learning from Richard. I'm never going to stop learning until I'm put in that hole six feet under. I just feel so positive that things are going to work out for the best.
Patrick: But it's taken a lot of work to make them work out for the best?
Peter: The work in itself is rewarding. It's not just you, it's for us, for everyone. They don't have to live the life that I had. Like being put in an institution for eighteen years, from 20 to 38. If anyone asks my age I'm fifty-nine. But take 18 years off that, and that's my right age, as far as I'm concerned. Because those eighteen years were wasted, and I'm just starting to live. That's the way I look at it, I'm only forty-one.
That's part of history - I know it's important, and I can't forget it. I can't change that. But I don't concentrate on that. I concentrate on what I can change, and I can effect some change for the future, but I can't do anything about the past.
Patrick: You are making sure other people don't use those years.
Peter: That's right. And maybe people wouldn't be at the same stage they're at nowotherwise. It's good just seeing other people. . .
Patrick: You're optimistic for People First and the Rights movement?
Peter: Oh yes. I see this as going along the right way right now. It started with Martin Luther King, who started people thinking more about equality and rights. People First has taken it a step further - they're saying it's for people with disabilities too. But we used that for our model.
Patrick: It seems like an exciting movement to be a part of.
Peter: I'm taught by everybody in the movement, and there are people all over Canada. John Cox in Nova Scotia has taught me something. There's people like Arnold Bennington, out in British Columbia, just the opposite end of the country.
Patrick: What are some of People First's triumphs?
Peter: I know that People First was very much involved in the name change, from the Association for the Mentally Retarded to the Association for Community Living. If it hadn't been for people who had been labelled taking the reins and saying, this is an important issue, it would have been swept under the carpet.
Patrick: What is the most important issue now?
Peter: The Latimer decision now is the most pressing. We don't know when that decision will come down - it went to the Supreme Court, but when they release the verdict, that's a different thing.
The name change was important, and so was the fact that it helped solidify everybody right across Canada. Maybe we were using different words, but everyone wanted the same thing - we all wanted the name change.
Patrick: It must be challenging to coordinate a group across such a large country.
Peter: Yes, it is very challenging. That's what makes it so rewarding. You'll say 'okay, what challenge will I be facing today?' or 'I've got to continue working on that challenge.' Well, like the name change. People are saying that's over? Well, I'm saying 'Hey, what's next?' If you don't keep watch on some of these more powerful people, they're going to say 'mentally retarded' again. We don't want that, and we've made it quite clear.
Patrick: How did People First of Canada come about?
Peter: Back in the early 80s, a member from People First of Ontario, went to NIMR to ask them to help him get a grant that would be for something national. At that time it was called the Self-Advocacy Developmental Project. There were two people to be hired - the coordinator and a person who had a disability - that was how we wrote it. I happened to be on the hiring committee for the first project. At the time it was called the Consumer Advisory Committee of CMR - we hired two people, found that all the time was spent telling people what SADP - self-advocacy developmental project - was about. It was asked by the funding body if it was alright to change the name to the National People First Funding Project rather than something that we had to explain forever and a day, and so finally we got the okay and it was changed. From that we developed a steering committee of members, and the steering committee decided that maybe it was time we became more independent on our own rather than being answerable to the CACL. So they pulled back saying that we wanted a more independent voice, and we couldn't if we were answerable to the board of CAC. So they said, okay, go on your own. So the steering committee made up the first board, and it evolved from there. That was in 1991.
There were provincial associations before the national association. Every province has a provincial association - the only one that doesn't is the new territory, Nunavut.
Patrick: What do you think about the idea of an International People First?
Peter: There's been talk about an international coordinator. Paul [Young] and I have an idea of where it should go and what it should look like. But other people are afraid, saying 'Oh, yes, but then there's funding, there's this other stuff . . . ' - but let's cross that bridge when we get to it.
I would like to see a coordinated effort by all the international groups, but we have to agree to get together before we can have a coordinated effort. I would like to see something like a federation, a body that's sort of locked in stone, but flexible enough to change somewhere. It would be an International People First, it would be a way of coordinating things with each other. I have visions of how it could work, and I think they would work. Other people have different visions - that's okay too. Paul may have a little different idea from me about what it might look like, so then he and I need to talk about that and we can come to a mutual agreement as to what it should look like. Even at when we're travelling, at conferences at midnight, Paul and I talk - we always make time.
Patrick: What is the role of advisors?
Peter: The role is always changing, depending upon the newness of the group. At first they may be there to take minutes, and they may find themselves helping with other things. They may know more about the court system, from experiences with things like parking tickets, so they're able to give legal advice - their help is based on things that many people haven't experienced.
I think the role is quite unique - it's up to the members to say to the advisor, 'Sorry, you're getting too involved. It's time to you to shut up.' We make the mistake of not having a working contract with them. I don't know what it would look like, but they should know exactly what is expected of them and when.
Patrick: When did you first get to vote?
Peter: After I got out of institutions. I was still in a group home at that time. If it hadn't been for myself . . . they said, 'Oh, you've been enumerated with the association,' but I found out I had not been enumerated. So I made sure I was. I don't know how I knew that you had to answer all these different questions, but I think that part of it was that I had lived at home, and had seen that happen with my mom and dad and brothers and sisters.
In the institution when I first asked about voting, I was told by a guy, 'Peter, you have no rights.' I figured that for the 18 years I spent in the institution, because I was such a rebel, I was locked up in Dewar, the detention ward, for nine of those years. Mind you, you get locked up for fool things like refusing to take medication that the doctor said, 'you are being used like a human guinea pig,' so we will refuse to take that medication. That would happen many times with me.
Patrick: Was there a community of people who resisted authorities in the institution?
Peter: There were quite a few people who would say, okay, we'll take the soft side, and few of us who would say, 'You guys are all wet.' And I was the loudest one to say 'You're all wet.'
And I made no bones about where I stood. And I don't know how I knew that. But I would say 'Hey, I don't agree with you on many things - or most things in fact, not many.'
People First has taught me a lot about patience and listening. I think that's the biggest thing I've learned. Taking the time to listen. And by listening I mean not just giving an opinion right away, but thinking it through. People don't give that respect to other people. They think, because you are taking that time, 'oh well, you're hearing's bad,' or something like that. So they shout at you. I don't mean People First members. But it happens.
Patrick: What did you think of the 2000 International Association for the Scientific Study of Intellectual Disability (IASSID) conference in Seattle? [Peter Park attended this conference at the beginning of August 2000]
Peter: I thought it was very important that we were there, because those are the unconverted people. They don't know a danged thing and their ignorance shows. The whole conference was totally inaccessible - escalators, stairs - accessible? Great big words that nobody understood - I don't know if the presenters even understood what they were saying - in which case they figure everybody like them is not understanding. So that's fine.
The one person that really annoyed me said 'Oh, after talking with you and Paul [Young] I'm including people who have been labelled at all times.' He was including them, but not letting them talk. They had a physical presence there. But that's tokenism. He couldn't see it. That led to a big discussion. We pointed this out, and not politely.
I said I will go to the IASSID conference and not the other [on self-Determination and Individualized Funding]. I thought it was more important to go to the conference where I'm talking to the non-converted. Paul Young couldn't get into the conference's opening session because he didn't have a name tag. We were going into the session, and the security person said, 'I'm sorry, you cannot go in without a name tag.' I said 'Pardon me? I would like it to go on record that you can tell the chairperson that I just walked out because if he can't go in, then I won't go.' So I didn't go.
I really enjoyed just being able to have the opportunity to bring the issues more to the forefront. I look at it as saying, 'That's a challenge to get this on the agenda'
Patrick: Do you think it's on the agenda now?
Peter: I don't think it's that high, but at least its there. And we've got some friends, like Michael Bach, on the inclusion committee, so we've gone a step in the right direction. It may be small right now, but we get more powerful and more powerful as time goes on. People take time to change - it doesn't come in a hurry. At least real change comes slowly. Change that doesn't mean change comes in a heck of a hurry.
I was told that I had no rights. I was told you'll never get married, well today I'm happily married. I live in a place of my own, I have a job I enjoy doing. And yes we have, well, we call her our child, our cat, because we don't have any children. But boy is she spoiled. My wife says 'We've got to spoil something, we've got no kids.'
That's the big void in my life, is the fact that we don't have children. I would have liked children. But it's just one of those things. At that time, I didn't know. I wish I knew what People First has taught me back twenty-one years ago. However, I didn't. Life goes on. Let's look toward the future.
Patrick: Did you decide you didn't want kids?
Peter: Well, we talked about it. At that time I was on the road an average of three weekends a month. So she said I wouldn't be home often enough when the kids are growing up, and I said that's true. And there were a few other reasons. Anyhow, we didn't have them, and now we wish we did. Hindsight is twenty-twenty.
Patrick: Aren't you like a parent of People First?
Peter: In my life, I wanted to become a minister. Now, my ministry is People First. The movement has come a long ways since I didn't know what I was doing.
Peter Park © Linda Dawn Hammond, 2000
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