Season’s Greetings from the Staff and Board of Progressive Alternatives Society.

As in previous years, our office will be closed next week (December 26 through 30), and January 2. We will reopen on Tuesday, January 3.

We wish you all the best for the holiday season.

CBC Radio One recently broadcast an excellent, but depressing, documentary on the experiences of people who had lived in a large institution in Orillia, Ontario, called Huronia Regional Centre. You can listen to it in their archives here. Some of those people are now participating in a class action lawsuit. There were similar institutions across Canada. Their closure, and the move to community living, was a hard won battle, fought by the people themselves, their families and advocates. The stories told are only a few decades old – not that long in the big scheme of things. It is important to remember this history and to appreciate and preserve the gains that have been made since.