In a decision issued a year ago a Nova Scotia Human Right Board of Inquiry ordered the Department of the Environment in no uncertain terms to enforce food safety regulations that make it mandatory for restaurants to provide wheelchair-accessible washrooms. Almost a year later plaintiffs are still waiting for actual changes.
Scott Neigh, of the excellent Talking Radical podcast, interviews Marty Wexler and Claire McNeil about the fight against institutionalization in Nova Scotia and the appalling Human Rights tribunal decision (which is being appealed).
A little bit of good news for anybody wants people labelled as living with intellectual disabilities to have better access to community-based housing options in Nova Scotia.
The Disability Rights Coalition is seeking to appeal a Human Rights Board of Inquiry decision that found that people with intellectual disabilities face no systemic discrimination in terns of housing needs.
Judy Haiven attends the human rights tribunal for former firefighter Kathy Symington, and hears more corporate HR jargon in a couple of days than during her entire career teaching HR at St. Mary’s.
Robert Wright’s full response to the Wortley report, as delivered at this morning’s press conference at the Central library on Spring Garden Road. Robert Wright spoke on behalf of the African Nova Scotian Decade for People of African Descent Coalition (DPAD), one of the organizations that long ago demanded a moratorium on the racist practice of police street checks.
There is nothing in Wortley’s report about police street checks we didn’t know, or could not have known, or should not have known before. Sure makes you wonder…
The Disability Rights Coalition is collecting signatures to an open letter to Premier Stephen McNeil, asking his government to stop warehousing people with disabilities and focus on investing in community living options instead. Alternatively, the group is asking people who are institutionalized and/or waiting for a community living space to file an individual human rights complaint.
Dr. Cynthia Bruce on the recent Human Rights decision on institutionalization and what it says about the pervasive force of ableism in Nova Scotia. “Describing ableism only in terms of discrimination against disabled people fails to capture the essence of ableism’s power to oppress. Discrimination is an intensely felt outcome of ableism, but the origins of such discrimination rest in deeply held beliefs that disability is undesirable, unwanted, and a burden on individuals, families, and society.”
News release: Krista Carr, Executive Vice-President of CACL, explained, “When it comes to pursuing justice for Canadians who are or have been institutionalized, CACL will do whatever it takes for as long as it takes. Even if it takes 1,500 individual complaints – as these rights are secured in the CRPD, which Canada has ratified with Nova Scotia’s agreement.”