Honorary degree 2026: Rick Hansen continues to inspire 40 years after Man In Motion World Tour

When 15-year-old Rick Hansen was thrown from the back of a pickup truck and left paralyzed from the waist down, dark times followed. There was a long time, he says, when he was overwhelmed by pain and fear, and hope for the future was in short supply.

In those moments, the teenager could never have guessed that he would one day soon wheel himself around the world on the Man In Motion World Tour, raising $26 million to create awareness of the potential of people with disabilities and to remove barriers. Nor would he see himself spending the next four decades advocating for an estimated 1.3 billion people globally identified as having a disability, fighting on their behalf for an inclusive and accessible world.

“If someone had told me when I was lying on the side of the road, ‘Don’t worry. You’ll be all right, and not only that you will come to the stage in your life when you’d never trade your life for the use of your legs, and you’ll feel like the luckiest guy on the planet,’ I would have thought they were nuts,” says Rick, one of the University of the Fraser Valley’s 2026 honorary degree recipients. “But here I am, 52 years later feeling whole in spite of the fact that I can’t walk.”

A remarkable journey that began in one of his hometowns of Abbotsford has been filled with amazing moments.

One memory that still brings a smile to his face dates back 40 years, when his world tour brought him to the Great Wall of China. When Rick wrote a letter asking the Chinese government for permission to wheel from Beijing to Shanghai, he didn’t expect to get a yes.

Unbeknownst to him, the son of Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping had suffered a spinal cord injury years before and had gone to Canada for life-saving treatment. While there, he was exposed to Canada’s human rights and social vision, and when he returned to China he vowed to advance the rights of peoples with disabilities.

Rick’s letter got an enthusiastic yes, and they were welcomed to China with open arms. Rick’s arrival showed the Chinese people that people with disabilities weren’t shut-ins with limited mobility, or embarrassments.

2026 Honorary Degree recipient Rick Hansen

“I love that moment so much because it represents the tangible or intangible ripples that you have no idea are either propelling you along, or paving the way,” says Rick, who founded the Rick Hansen Foundation to advance the cause in 1988. “It showed that ultimately, people of significant difference can still be united by common values and the great humanity of our global journey.

“And of course, it rippled back and still propels my vision today of a world without barriers.”

UFV students, Rick says, have a role to play in creating that world.

“It’s always inspirational interacting with young people, and I’m continuously blown away by their curiosity, insight, and innovative perspective, and they tend to have progressive values around social justice and inclusivity,” he says. “But they also have a bit of a blind spot for disability. When you ask them, ‘Do you think persons with disabilities deserve the right to full participation and contribution to society?’ the answer is always yes. But when you ask them if they see diversity and equality as a major area of focus, their answer seems to be, ‘Well no. It seems to be everywhere but nowhere.’”

Rick says the university can support students with an inclusive culture, which is about more than student accommodation, an area in which he believes great strides have been made.

“If accommodating students is like going to the moon, going to Mars is about building your employee culture and mobilizing your curriculum, research, and innovation to transform the topic of disability from a place of accommodation to a fundamental source of transformation.

“And being a leader means you must then translate that out into your community and the world. If UFV believes in Canada’s Constitution and Charter of Rights and Freedoms, then it’s a challenge to the university’s board and senate, president and VPs, academic professionals, and staff to be fully accountable and embrace that leadership role.”

Rick says great strides have been made in the 40 years since he wheeled around the world, but the work is far from done.

He hopes UFV students, alumni, faculty, and staff are leaders in that work.

“There’s no one profile for a leader — it depends on an individual’s ability to inspire, bring people together, garner a sense of trust and respect, live their life with integrity, and be vulnerable enough to lean on each other for help with whatever challenge we face,” he says. “No matter what your style or approach, to move forward you have to put your trust and faith in people, and teams, and give people with talent a chance to shine and play their role.

“If you do that, you have a high likelihood of success.”