Is a failure to ensure that disabled individuals benefit equally from services offered to the general public discriminatory?
Alberta, Canada
The following excerpt is from Laidlaw Transit Ltd. v. Alberta (Human Rights and Citizenship Commission), 2006 ABQB 874 (CanLII):
Failure to take positive steps to ensure that disabled individuals benefit equally from services offered is discriminatory. In Eldridge v. British Columbia (Attorney General), 1997 CanLII 327 (SCC), [1997] 3 S.C.R. 624, the court stated at paragraphs 66 and 78: ... in the present case the adverse effects suffered by deaf persons stem not from the imposition of a burden not faced by the mainstream population, but rather from a failure to ensure that they benefit equally from a service offered to everyone. ... The principle that discrimination can accrue from a failure to take positive steps to ensure that disadvantaged groups benefit equally from services offered to the general public is widely accepted in the human rights field...
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