Premier Danielle Smith’s recent remark — “You can earn your way into inclusion, but you can earn your way out of it, too” — reveals a troubling understanding of disability and the conditions under which Albertans with disabilities are permitted to exist in public life.

Inclusion is not a reward or a privilege granted to those who perform compliance or social acceptability. Inclusion is a baseline condition of a just society. To suggest otherwise is to cast people with disabilities as provisional citizens whose right to participate in society is conditional and revocable.

When Smith frames inclusion as something one can “earn,” she reinforces that ableist logic that ties human worth to productivity and normative behaviour. This logic disproportionately harms people with disabilities, whose lives are already scrutinized through bureaucratic assessments of eligibility and “deservingness.”

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More concerning still is the second half of her statement — that one can “earn your way out” of inclusion. This implies that........

© Calgary Herald