Unintended Consequences Dept.: If next week's election turns into a Liberal sweep, as seems increasingly likely, there will be many, many new faces at Province House. All those new members will be required to find fully accessible constituency offices within one year, or forego reimbursement of their office expenses. Returning members have three years to comply. AMI, the accessible cable channel, has a nice video on the new rules: These consequences aren't completely unintended, of course, but at the time the new rules passed the House of Assembly Management Committee, few realized how many freshman MLAs might be arriving later this month....

02 October, 2013

Contrarian friend Gus Reed, co-founder of the James McGregor Stewart Society, sums up the significance of a unanimous decision today by the House of Assembly Management Commission that will require that constituency offices for all Nova Scotia MLAs to be barrier free: This simple regulation marks a sea change in approach for the provincial government: People with disabilities are acknowledged to have the same rights as others Written rules, rather than promises, are the solution All parties agree on the principle, the problem and the solution The initiative came from the community of Nova Scotians with disabilities Let's hope that the lesson is not lost and...

14 August, 2013

The Nova Scotia House of Assembly Management Commission will meet Wednesday to clear up an injustice that should have been fixed decades ago. Its members will pass a new rule requiring MLAs' constituency offices to be free of barriers to wheelchair users. The commission reached all-party agreement on the change a month ago, but inexplicable last-minute foot-dragging by senior NDP officials threatened to deep-six the deal. Lobbying by the James MacGregor Stewart Society, a disability rights group,  embarrassed the government into action Friday. The new rule will come into effect after the election, at which time newly elected MLAs will have one year...

09 August, 2013

In a telephone interview moments ago, Jennifer Stewart, press secretary to Premier Darrell Dexter, said "there absolutely will not be an election called tomorrow." We were discussing election timing because of the danger that an early election call could torpedo all-party efforts to bring in new rules ensuring that people in wheelchairs can visit and even work in MLAs offices in Nova Scotia. More on that shortly....

02 August, 2013

The James McGregor Stewart Society, a small voluntary group with a single summer intern, has managed to pull off in a month what the Disabled Persons Commission of NS (annual budget: $600,000) and the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission ($2.1 million) have not achieved in the decades of their existence. It has surveyed the accessibility of MLAs offices throughout the province. The results will not be a source of pride for Nova Scotia or its legislators. The survey rated MLAs' constituency offices based on parking facilities, power door buttons, entrance accessibility, washroom accessibility, and proximity to accessible bus routes. Since accessible bus routes are...

05 June, 2013