NS Court Victory May Bring Lasting Improvement to the Lives of People with Disabilities – Halifax | The Canadian News

A Nova Scotia disability advocacy group says its historic court victory is an opportunity to push through reforms that will improve their daily lives.

Claire McNeil, an attorney for the Coalition for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, said today that she will bring a Court of Appeal ruling declaring systemic discrimination against people with disabilities to a human rights inquiry board, and is hopeful that a set of binding resources results in better services and accommodation.

Prime Minister Tim Houston said yesterday that his government will not appeal the case to the Supreme Court of Canada and will try to address long waiting lists for housing, the need to close large institutions and the practice of moving people away from their families. and friends. .

Marty Wexler, chairman of the coalition, says the prime minister’s reaction is encouraging and that the group will accept Houston’s offer to meet and discuss remedies.

However, McNeil says the group has called for a new human rights inquiry board and says that if remedies are achieved with the progressive conservative government, the improvements should be included in an enforceable legal order.

The group’s judicial victory on Wednesday came after both the coalition and the province appealed a 2019 human rights board ruling.

The original human rights case was started by three people with intellectual disabilities who spent years in a psychiatric hospital despite medical opinions that they could be housed in the community.

The original decision found that the individual rights of the three people – Beth MacLean, Joey Delaney, and Sheila Livingstone – were violated, but it also ruled against the separate claim by the coalition that the system more widely discriminated against people with disabilities.

This Canadian Press report was first published on October 8, 2021.