Wolf Wolfensberger spent two years at The Roeher Institute (then known as the National Institute on Mental Retardation) as a visiting scholar, and the Canadian Association for Community Living (then the Canadian Association for the Mentally Retarded) invested heavily in promoting the concept of normalization through training and publications. As the concept gained acceptance, advocates and service providers alike began to look at emerging community programs and to question how services might be organized differently to include previously devalued individuals in the mainstream of their communities. While the principle of normalization prompted a healthy re-evaluation of community services, as the 1980s progressed it became clear that simply improving segregated services would not provide the tools for eliminating the barriers to inclusion in the mainstream.
Concurrent with the emerging experiences rooted in normalization, activists promoting changes for persons with a mental handicap were influenced by an increased awareness in Canada of human rights. In 1981, Canada repatriated its constitution and included in it a Charter of Rights and freedoms. The original Charter prohibited discrimination on the basis of race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex or age. A 1985 amendment also prohibited discrimination on the basis of mental or physical disability.
Protection by the Charter provided individuals, families and advocacy organizations with a weapon to use in gaining access to generic services. It also helped people to recognize citizenship rights, which enabled them to be more demanding of services. People no longer had to depend on charity or voluntary goodwill, but could make certain demands on the basis of their citizenship. The Charter influenced both how individuals who had been labelled mentally handicapped saw themselves and how they were perceived by others.
