On November 9, 2012, the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) handed down a landmark decision on disability rights. TheMoore case says that students with disabilities are entitled to receive the accommodation measures they need to access, and benefit from, the service of public education. In this regard, the Court said that adequate special education is not “a dispensable luxury”. The Court acknowledged that such measures serve as “the ramp that provides access to the statutory commitment to education made to all children in British Columbia.”
The Council of Canadians with Disabilities (CCD) intervened in the B.C. Court of Appeal and the SCC. The Moore decision is an important victory for CCD. Moore (SCC) reaffirms that human rights law requires service providers to make their services accessible to persons with disabilities. This means that where a barrier is identified, the service provider must provide accommodation to overcome that barrier, unless to do so would cause an undue hardship. Our challenge is to turn these important court decisions into positive results in the daily lives of persons with disabilities. Read more.