[Ottawa Citizen] A Canadian Human Rights Tribunal decision that ordered the National Capital Commission to make the huge York Steps accessible to the disabled has been overturned by the Federal Court of Canada.
In 2006, Ottawa resident Bob Brown, a quadriplegic, won a tribunal decision over the NCC’s grand York Steps, an award-winning $1.7-million pedestrian link between ceremonial Ottawa and Lowertown, descending from Sussex Drive by the U.S. Embassy. The tribunal found that the 45-step project was discriminatory because the steps were not accessible to the disabled, and ordered the NCC to work out a solution at the site. Building an elevator was estimated to cost at least $427,000.
The NCC appealed the tribunal decision and Federal Court Justice Simon Noël agreed that the commission did all it could to accommodate the disabled.
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“Had it proceeded in the correct fashion, the tribunal would have been alive to the fact that from the earliest planning stages of this urban development, the NCC was fully aware and anxious to fulfil its public duty to accommodate all members of the public,” Judge Noël wrote.
The rest.
Down With Everybody 