♪ >> Valerie Pringle: Welcome to Canada Files.

I'm Valerie Pringle.

My guest today is Rick Hansen, who's a Canadian hero.

After a car accident at 15, that left him a paraplegic, he became one of the world's most successful wheelchair athletes.

He decided to wheel around the world, in the Man in Motion tour, to raise awareness and money for spinal cord injuries and accessibility.

He then founded the Rick Hansen Foundation to help create a world where everyone can go everywhere.

I spoke to him in Vancouver.

>> Valerie Pringle: Hello, Rick!

>> Rick Hansen: Hey, Valerie!

>> 50 years ago, you were in an accident, at age 15 and it changedyour life.

You've said, you wouldn't change a thing.

A lot of people would have a hard time understanding that.

>> Yeah, I sure did when I was 15 laying on the side of the road with my back broken!

Paralysed and legs not working, thinking my life was over.

All my hopes and dreams shattered with my spine and my spinal cord.

50 years later, looking back at it going through the gauntlet of life and thinking about what's important.

Having to work hard and ask those questions early.

Being able to retool and realize that you're still the same person.

Where are your biggest handicaps?

Ultimately, it's in your mind.

It's all about your attitude.

Being surrounded by so many amazing people.

Living life to its fullest.

You feel like the luckiest guy on the planet.

Why would you change that for the use of your legs?

>> It's interesting you say, I'm still me .

I remember that was the title of Christopher Reeve's book.

>> Yeah!

>> Still Me.

>> Yeah, a great guy, it's the same thing.

Whether it's Christopher Reeve or Michael J.

Fox, people who have faced big challenges.

The key to their salvation is not being cured.

It's actually being able to recognize they're still whole .

That's the mindset and the discipline of the journey.

>> You've been such an advocate for people with disabilities.

Did you see things early on when you became a paraplegic?

You thought -- I've got to change this?

Was that something that developed more gradually?

>> It was an organic process.

The first battle was the battles in my mind.

the battles of what was in the community that I faced.

I had to struggle through attitudes about me.

People pitying me.

One of the people in my medical journey early on, told me not to set my sights too high because I wouldn't become disappointed -- [Rick Hansen Stutters] >> It's amazing how people think that's going to help.

>> Yeah!>> Ouch!

You realize that you're surrounded by people.

You meet other people with disabilities.

You start sharing similar stories.

What's the hardest part of the journey?

The mind, getting that under control and in sync.

Ultimately these other barriers, social or physical barriers, that don't have to be there.

At some point, as you start to emerge, feeling like you're back in the groove.

You're realizing that you're an athlete.

Nowhere in the definition of an athlete says you have to use your legs in order to be one.

You realize, I'm feeling so grateful to be engaged now.

No one gets anywhere on their own.

What do you do?

You try to pay it forward.

You start thinking of ways to do that.

Little things and they become big things.

>> Because of the anniversary of your accident.

There was a documentary done.

You went back to that spot on the road.

Where the truck flipped over.

>> That fateful day.

>> You looked sad.

>> Yeah, it was a tough emotional journey.

I've -- moving past that in the work that I'd done.

Now I've come back, to that moment, to that place.

50 years later, sitting there, right at the spot where I was dumped.

Rolled over in this pickup truck.

My back was broken and I was covered in debris.

It was brutal !

I, for the first time in a long time, put myself back in that moment.

>> An image you talked about when you were immobilized, at one point in your rehab and recovery, in a bed that would flip you over and you were somehow just left face down, kind of like vomiting and crying, thinking -- >> Why me?

What now?

The worst.

>> Yeah, that was about the end of it.

I was close to giving up the most important thing in life, which is hope.

Something happened the next day after they gave me something for the pain and to clean things up.

I just started asking myself desperately there's got to be something you can do.

Trying to anchor on that before I went down into the abyss.

I realized I hadn't been using my arms for a long time and they were getting weak.

I asked somebody there, one of the health care professionals, could they bring me something.

Rubber bands or something I can start exercising my arms.

They did and that was it.

Band on the side of the hospital bed and started to work my arms.

It was like, finally I had something to look forward to.

Little baby goals builds momentum and you start feeling, okay, what's next?

Get out of that horizontal bed and get into a normal bed for your 16th birthday.

Celebrate being able to look around and see your roommates for the first time.

Look out the window for the first time.

Get out of that bed and into the wheelchair.

even though it was a symbol of disability -- >> I was going to say...tell me your thoughts about the chair.

At first, the chair didn't mean freedom to you.

The chair was... >> It was a symbol of disability.

I was like most Canadians and probably people around the world at that time, that era in the seventies, the wheelchair was like a symbol of disability.

It was for those people that you should pity.

I had no view of that in any reality.

I had this baggage so much so, I would do almost everything to avoid it until I absolutely had to.

This was a moment where if I was going to go anywhere, I guess I had to get on the chair and start figuring it out.

See if it could work for me.

>> Somehow, it did!

You became the greatest wheelchair athlete in the world.

Because of one particular guy.

>> Yeah, Stan Strong!

Wheeled into my life, guy with a spinal cord injury.

I was complaining about the four months in the rehab centre.

He was four years in a hospital.

Wasn't supposed to be surviving because he was injured in the thirties when people with spinal cord injury didn't survive.

He was the head, as a peer, counsellor in the spinal cord injury world.

He said,hey I hear you used to be a basketball player.

Yeah, I love basketball and volleyball.

He says, well, I'm the manager of this local wheelchair basketball team called the Vancouver Cable Cars.

I want you to come out and play.

It was pretty awesome!

He said, you could be on our team.

I went,well, I guess I'll go and check it out.

I went down to Vancouver.

I didn't have much of an expectation.

I opened the door and I saw these athletes.

We're talking guys that were ripped and they were wheeling circles around me They were shooting three pointers.

I'm going, Whoa, this is sport.

That just kind of changed me completely.

All of a sudden I got locked back in.

Athletics became possible again.

>> In marathons, You were really a full on international athlete.

>> I tried everything -- >> World champion!

>> Eventually, I realized that track and marathoning were my sport for sure.

>> One of the people you recruited for that basketball team... ...was Terry Fox!

>> I was asked by Stan.

It was the beginning of my pay it forward process.

You give back and he said, recruit!

I was always looking for people.

I had dinner with someone and they asked me if I knew this guy named Terry Fox.

I said no, he just lost his leg to cancer.

He played junior varsity basketball at Simon Fraser University.

I said,well give me his number I'm going to call him up.

He came out and he was just in chemotherapy.

Weak, but determined.

He became one of the best athletes on our team.

We became great friends.

He inspired me for sure.

He was inspired by our team, by Stan.

Next thing he's got this dream.

He's going to run across the country on one leg to help cure cancer because of his experience with cancer.

It was awesome.

>> Until he got sick again.

Then he lost his battle with cancer.

>> Of course, his whole journey continued.

His family, community and people around the world said we can be part of his annual run.

Raise hundreds of millions of dollars and really make a mark.

That was my greatest lesson with Terry.

Dreams come true, if you have the courage to try.

If you take the first step, you never know how far you'll go.

Even though he could only go so far himself, his dream went even further.

It was an incredibly powerful lesson for me.

I'd had this dream, this idea of wheeling around the world.

I really saw how people started thinking of disability differently.

Through his journey, they saw ability.

I thought, why not combine this dream of wheeling around the world with a purpose and see how far I can go.

>> You thought it would... did you think it'd be easy?

What did you think?

>> Having been a world champion wheelchair marathoner, I thought, it'd be pretty good.

I hadn't seen the fact that I would have a crash.

Dislocate my left shoulder, have another injury.

There I was at the beginning of this world tour having the welcome sendoff, I'm having to say a few words to this sparse crowd who believed in me.

Inside, I look like a deer in the headlights.

I'm thinking, God, I'm tired.

I haven't slept.

I've got an injury, my shoulders killing me.

I don't know, what I got myself in.

I don't even know if I can finish the day.

That's how bad it was.

That first step, the first day, the first push out.

That was the greatest hurdle of all.

Dealing with the fears, the skepticism, the self-doubt.

All the logistical drives for perfection before you start.

Just saying,Okay this is it, the window is here.

We've got to go and if we don't go, it will always be what should of could of.

Yet, so much of the tour sounded like real abject misery.

You were sick, you were injured.

The crowds were sparse.

When I read you went to Ireland wheeled 100 miles and you got $20.

>> Yeah!

[laughter] >> I just thought, Oh!

There were a lot of long, lonely, hard miles for sure.

Really hard.

The difference between dream and reality.

You would see something in a day if you were looking for it.

I guess, that's the key, for all of us on the long journey when it's not happening.

If we keep in mind where we're trying to go.

If we actually realize that we're in process and it's got to show itself somewhere today.

It would be a smile or a wave -- >> A young little boy who needed a wheelchair >> Just sitting there, in tears.

Because we were able to give him something that he desperately needed.

Those are the things that drive you forward.

One more stroke and you never know how far you'll go.

>> Then you hit Canada on the final leg of this Man in Motion tour.

David Foster had written a song for you.

St. Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion) It then became, huge !

>> Rick: It was amazing how Canadians responded.

I'll be forever grateful for them welcoming me home at a time just earlier, maybe a month or so earlier, I truly thought about quitting.

My physiotherapist at the time, who became my wife, Amanda.

She talked me out of that.

She said,Rick, you've just got to kind of hang in there.

Maybe it's not happening in the States because you haven't got the message out.

People that know about it care.

Things will change, people are better organized in Canada.

If you don't believe in it anymore, at least believe in me.

Maybe I can remind you that hope endures and providence will set in.

She was right.

>> Yeah, it was huge.

>> I almost gave up, it was that close.

Thank God for Amanda.

That's the other side of life right?

Sometimes when we think we're strong and independent, we realize that we're all interdependent.

We all need someone to lean on.

When you're at your weakest or sometimes your strongest, you have somebody that's there with you for you.

>> You finished... hugely successful fundraising, awareness, on a huge high.

>> Then it was hard again, you and Amanda got married.

Which was a wonderful, happy, love story.

Again, to sort of have to seek for the next purpose.

>> Yeah.

>> This is what you were meant to do.

That's when Rick Hanson Foundation, Rick Hanson Institute, raising money to raise awareness.

Also really try and force change about the way buildings are and barriers.

>> That's the key.

When you get to start your new career, you don't have experience in the business world.

Either you're an athlete... My father-in-law was an incredible mentor.

He reminded me, he said, look the skills you've learned living with your disability, the skills you've learned as an athlete, the skills you've learned bringing a team together to conduct and perform this Man in Motion World tour this is leadership and this is the nature that you have.

You can you can apply that to anything that you believe in.

You just have to become comfortable in that belief, in that reality and then cut and paste and keep moving.

Always follow your heart.

So what I've done is, I've constantly looked for barriers or challenges.

I've looked at bringing people together to solve those.

Then to be able to move the bar a little further.

that's what's got me to this place at this moment as we were chatting.

That's why I'm still, in many ways, well satisfied, of things I've done.

Restless and still growing.

Still looking forward to the future.

Still dreaming of new goals, dreams and new barriers to break down.

New people to bring together to help.

How can such an audacious, crazy dream come true.

Making the world accessible and inclusive for the 1.3 billion people on the planet living with a disability today?

>> As you saw, when you went around the world... You'd see it now because this is your mission.

Being treated like third class citizens or hidden away entirely.

>> People have to come at it from the same lessons that I had.

They had no view, old attitudes.

All the expectations until a family member or yourself, face a challenge.

Then you look at it differently.

Next thing you know, you go, oh my gosh!

I didn't realize, first of all, there were all these barriers.

I didn't realize maybe I had a bit of a pity attitude about people in this state.

Then once you realize, this person is still whole.

They still have amazing ability to love and be loved.

To be able to contribute and participate in a significant way.

There's just barriers in the way.

then all of a sudden people start to shift their view.

Ultimately, that's what it takes, you know?

How do you do that?

You get in front of people.

Yourself, team members or solutions.

People can then translate that into action.

>> How much better have things become?

In terms of maybe spinal cord research.

Would you, having had that accident today, be able to walk?

>> If you think about it, back then, 50 years ago, It took over three days for me to get to a hospital where I could surgically be operated on.

To decompress the spine and to help with the healing.

Now it happens in hours.

You know, people are medivacked out.

There was no specialized spinal cord treatment centre back then.

It was an orthopaedic hospital.

A doctor would, do their best, but that wasn't their main focus.

Now there's specialized centres all around the world.

If you talked to a researcher back then mentioned it could be possible to cure paralysis, they would say, I can't usher that, if I even uttered that, there's no way, anyone would accept me as being legitimate or credible.

Now you look, there's people who actually are having recovery, partial recovery or full recovery.

That's because research is starting to translate in how people are treated.

There's better understanding of the spinal cord and the mystery of it.

>> How about changing the way the world is built, the accessibility piece.

Is America better at that?

You talk about they have a disability act.

>> The world has come a long way since my injury back then.

There might have been an international Convention on Human Rights,.

In reality, disability was still considered a charity.

It wasn't until veterans, and really amazing champions like Judith Heumann and others got together.

They decided the United States needed to change.

People were given a lot and there are so many barriers.

They advocated forthe Americans with Disabilities Act.

George Bush implemented that in the 90's.

It was an 80's expectation of what that would look like, largely wheelchair centric.

It was a standard that was put in place and there was a heavy federal, legal approach towards that.

It powered a lot of change.

I'd say people didn't debate about... it was often, resolved in conflict and in courts.

There was a lens and a leverage to be able to make change.

I'd say that was a powerful way to move things forward.

when maybe people had been asking for other ways for decades and not much had happened.

Credit to the champions and credit to the government at the time for making that happen.

The unfortunate part of that is that they pushed forward... Now that expectation, that standard, back in the eighties and nineties, when it was implemented is considered to be the checklist that you actually tick off when dealing with accessibility.

Yet the world of disability has shifted.

Visual, hearing, mobility.

People with cognitive or neurodiversity.

Mental health, there's lots of different perspectives that need to be considered.

Also our expectations of people with disabilities has changed.

It's no longer just getting into a building.

You want to be the entertainer, the politician,the teacher.

You want to be the employee in the building and contribute.

The economy of disability has changed With 1.3 billion people with disabilities.

There's trillions of dollars globally in this market if customers are served.

That mindset has to continue to progress if we're going to see that potential being unleashed.

Otherwise, America will suffer.

America will struggle with the unsustainable nature of their state.

Places like Canada can learn from that.

Maybe try to not repeat it, but build off of it.

>> How are you feeling about the state of things?

>> Ha ha, in Canada?

>> No, just generally in the world.

>> I'm optimistic -- >> Of course, you are!

>> I am!

>> I'm a little bit nervous.

Of course in this era, where there's so many people who are seemingly at odds with each other.

Social media and people just loving to take shots at everything and everyone.

What I'm seeing tough is also with that the corollary to that is with social media.

With a global digital network of people coming together on common values.

Coming out of COVID, realizing that, equality and inclusivity...

The elements of being able to build a world based on your values.

Not maybe based on what you just were born into.

Is an evolving process.

Things are accelerating and they're accelerating in a way that can really have a huge impact on people with disabilities.

They're able to access technology and liberate their potential more effectively.

Working from remote locations.

Where they don't have to go through the incredible complexity of transportation and getting into a building.

Adapting to the workplace when they've already got it.

They just need to plug and play.

These are things that really help and create incredible opportunities.

However, of course, the pace of change may also be a little faster than humans and or systems are prepared or capable of dealing with.

This is ultimately the challenge of humanity, is how capable are we of sustaining this pace.

We really do need to be resilient and ultimately pay attention to that.

You can stretch things, but sooner or later there's always a limit.

>> This is why you still feel, after all this time, that your best work is still ahead of you.

>> Yeah, always.

Believe it.

I'm privileged to be here.

Passionate about my vision and my mission.

Not One Man In Motion anymore, right?

Manyin motion, working together and seeing how far we can go.

>> You must look back sometimes and go, what was I thinking?

[Laughter] [Valerie mumbles] >> I look back and I go -- I just pinch myself.

Because I'm almost living in a dream.

Compared to where I was back 50 years ago.

On the roadside, in the hospital or in the rehab centre.

Thinking that everything was lost.

I would have sold my soul for the use of my legs.

I wanted it all back.

How would I have imagined this life, How blessed I've been.

Yeah, I'm so grateful.

>> Valerie: What does being Canadian mean to you?

>> Ah, the great mystery... Canadians.

I believe Canadians don't speak enough about what it means to be Canadian.

They're caught in lots of perspectives.

Everything from maple syrup to health care to hockey.

[Rick Hansen laughs] If you strip it all away, we're a young country, we're a big country.

We've got a few people here and we're a colonial history with an indigenous history that's even deeper.

We've also got people from around the world who've come here.

All of us have hopes and dreams.

We all have the same core values that we need to really reflect on and pull out of what this great social experiment means to us and to the world.

If we can't do it here in Canada, where can you do it?

We have a great privilege being right next door to the greatest power in the world and a huge inspiration in the United States of America.

There's a lot to learn from and to benefit from in that relationship.

We can keep moving and craft our identity and our view of the future as well.

>> Well, it's wonderful to see you again.

>> Thank you, Valerie!

It's great to see you, as always.

Thank you for being part of this journey.

>> Thank you.

We'll be back next week with another episode of Canada Files .

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