Mona Winberg

Early Life

Mona Winberg was born with cerebral palsy. According to Winberg’s biography, doctors told her mother that she would never be able to walk or talk. They dismissed Mona as “nothing but a human vegetable,” stating that it would be preferable to put her in an institution and forget about her. (See Ableism in Canada.) Apparently, her mother replied: “Doctor, I suggest that you try doing that to one of your own children.”

Mona was the youngest of four children. Early on, she came into contact with the disabled community. She regularly attended summer camps meant for disabled children. The disabled community became a home for her.

At age six, Winberg began her education at the Wellesley Orthopaedic School ― now known as Toronto’s Sunny View Public School. The school was only for disabled children. Later on, she shared that she would have much preferred to attend a school that wasn’t segregated away from those without disabilities. At the time, non-disabled kids her age mistreated her by laughing and ridiculing her. She felt this nightmare could have been side-stepped if they saw her as their equal at a typical school.

When it came time for Winberg to transition to high school, she and her family faced another set of obstacles as multiple high schools denied her entry. Eventually, staff at Central Commerce high school allowed her to audit classes part-time. However, she wouldn’t be officially considered a student there by the administration. Later on, Winberg completed extension courses in journalism offered by the University of Toronto.

Advocacy and Career

In part due to her upbringing, Mona Winberg was a champion of the independent living movement from the start. The independent living movement has formal chapters across the United States and Canada. It encourages having disabled people live in the community rather than in an institution such as a hospital, a retirement home or a rehabilitation facility.

Like many disabled people her age, she found her first job at a sheltered workshop, as a payroll clerk. Also like many activists, then and now, Winberg came to disagree with the sheltered workshop model. As she shared in her biography:

Many people think all they have to do is establish a sheltered workshop and disabled people will be happy there for the rest of their lives. Maybe some are, but most people want change. Can you imagine yourself doing the same work for 50 years?

Winberg eventually secured support services and adaptations for herself. She was able to live independently which allowed her to focus on advocacy work. She spoke at schools and advocated for better transit services for disabled people. According to Winberg’s biography, she also served as a founding board member of the Canadian Cerebral Palsy Association starting in 1968. In 1972, she became the president of the Ontario Federation for Cerebral Palsy (OFCP).

In speaking about her roles on boards, she shared in her biography that: “The most difficult part of having cerebral palsy is being accepted by my peers.” Winberg mentioned that other militants thought of her as “passive” or as a token disabled person. Her reply was that: “I’ve got so many disabilities, I wouldn’t know what one I was a token of.”

She was also involved outside of the disability sphere. For example, she volunteered with the women’s arm of B’nai Brith, a Jewish Zionist advocacy group.

Much of her advocacy work was channelled through her writing. She initially started as a newspaper editor for her local Camp Easter Seals — an organization that runs recreational camps for people of all ages with disabilities. Later on, she served in a similar role as part of her work with the OFCP before becoming their information officer. From 1986 to 1999, Winberg wrote a weekly column for the Toronto Sun. She received that opportunity as a result of her complaints regarding the paper’s lack of coverage surrounding disability issues. Notably, the portion of her biography dedicated to her columns provides deep insights into Canadian disability activism over the decades.

Those who continue to publish opinion pieces related to being disabled in Canadian newspapers owe much to Winberg’s work. The topics she wrote about fiercely, and the ways she navigated newsrooms as a disabled writer, helped usher in a comparatively large number of Canadian disabled journalists writing about their own experiences.

Later Life and Legacy

In 1999, Mona Winberg ended her column because her disabilities prevented her from continuing to work on it. However, she did still contribute pieces on occasion while her advocacy and public life continued. Mona Winberg passed away in 2009 at the age of 76.

At the time of her passing, tributes poured in from outlets including the Toronto Star and the Canadian Jewish News. One public mourner was David Onley, the then lieutenant-governor of Ontario and himself a wheelchair user. At the time, he wrote:

Mona was known throughout the disability rights community as one of the few media voices who regularly provided insights and information on what was happening on the disability front. When she began writing in the Toronto Sun, just over 20 years ago, there was almost no coverage of disability issues; if you were disabled and wanted to know what was happening, you turned to Mona's column.

An archive of Winberg’s columns is not easily available online. However, a selection of her published writings is included in her biography, Solitary Courage: Mona Winberg and the Triumph Over Disability, published in 2010. These include articles that lambasted the political parties of the day, spoke to artists about their work, showcased activists’ work, and shared insights into Winberg’s own understanding of both her life’s work and her identity.

Honours and Awards

• Canadian Rehabilitation Council for the Disabled Award (1988)
• King Clancy Award (1988)
• Government of Ontario’s Community Action Award (1988)
• Ontario Association for Community Living Media Award (1989)
• Terry Fox Hall of Fame (now known as the Canadian Disability Hall of Fame) (1995)
• Special Media Award (2000)
• Order of Canada (2000)
• Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal (2002)