Disabled community continues calling on province to drop systemic discrimination appeal

While the provincial government moves ahead with its appeal of a systemic discrimination finding by the Human Rights Commission, the subjects at the heart of the case — people with disabilities — continue to advocate against the move.

Vicky Levack, who has cerebral palsy, is the spokesperson for The Disability Rights Coalition of Nova Scotia, an advocacy group formed to address the failed implementation of the 2001 Kendrick Report.

For Levack, the appeal marks a betrayal by the provincial government, who she says are now wasting money dragging this case through the courts rather than using those funds to rectify the systemic discrimination facing Nova Scotia's disabled community.

“Acknowledge there was a finding of discrimination and that you have to fix it now. Instead of using all that money to fight us in court, put it towards finding solutions to these systemic issues,” Levack said. 

Levack met with Premier Tim Houston in December in an effort to convince him to “do the right thing,” and drop the appeal. She says nothing has come from that meeting, where Levack asked Houston to order an independent party to look at the decision to appeal. At the time, she said she felt “hurt” by the government's decision, adding, “If there's one thing I don't like, it's liars, and that's what the premier has done.”

Community Services Minister Karla MacFarlane said at the time that the decision to appeal was made in the hope that the country's top court could answer lingering questions raised by the decision.