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Article 24(1) of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) provides a commitment to the full development of human potential and of the student’s sense of dignity and self-worth, as well as a commitment to develop the student’s personality, talents, and creativity, along with their mental and physical abilities, to their fullest potential. Article 24(5) builds on this commitment by guaranteeing persons with disabilities access to general tertiary (or post-secondary) education, vocational training, adult education and lifelong learning without discrimination and on an equal basis with others. Yet, on the ground, within educational institutions, disabled post-secondary students continue to face barriers to education every day.In Canada, the right to post-secondary education for persons with disabilities is protected through various domestic human rights instruments and supplemented by the CRPD. At the same time, obstacles for disabled students exist at different stages of the experience of post-secondary education. This article uses a case study to identify the barriers experienced by students with disabilities on the ground despite the long-standing legal frameworks that ensure post-secondary education for persons with disabilities in Canada. It further examines how law and policy may be improved to ensure access to post-secondary education for students with disabilities. This article begins with a discussion of the legal frameworks that exist in Canada to protect the right to post-secondary education. Part II provides an overview of the types of barriers that students with a variety of disabilities have faced during the course of completing post-secondary studies. The barriers are identified through an analysis of decisions of Canadian human rights tribunals and courts rendered between 2014 and 2021.These barriers to pursuing post-secondary education are identified in relation to the admissions process, in-program learning, and the pursuit of remedies. In Part III, I draw from an analysis of these contemporary decisions to argue that the right to post-secondary education for disabled students in Canada would be strengthened if more inspiration were drawn from Article 24 of the CRPD and instituted a human capabilities approach.

In this study, the author analyzes, comparatively, the administrative governance functions of legislation that provides accessibility standards in six jurisdictions that also offer legal protection from discrimination to people with disabilities: Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario, Manitoba and Nova Scotia. The following governance functions were examined: a) creating accessibility standards, b) enforcing accessibility standards, c) enforcing decisions, d) encouraging compliance, e) raising public awareness (and promoting systemic culture change) and f) public education. The study was conducted with a view to understanding how human rights laws, principles and values can be used to further and strengthen disability access laws on the ground. The federal government has proposed to introduce legislation that will likely establish a framework for the development of accessibility standards within Canada’s federal legislative jurisdiction. This follows on the heels of accessibility legislation being enacted in Ontario (2005), Manitoba (2013) and, most recently, Nova Scotia (2017). Public consultations in 2016-17 for the proposed federal accessibility legislation identified confusion about the practical differences between human rights laws and accessibility laws, and the need for more clarity about how these two laws interact. This study was commissioned to examine the interplay between human rights legislation and accessibility legislation in Canada and internationally. Based on the research findings, several recommendations are made regarding the complete set of governance functions examined. These recommendations include: incorporating a mechanism for public enforcement within the enforcement of accessibility standards, incorporating human rights supports and technical expertise within the development of standards, strengthening the statutory language to ensure an inclusive equality approach, avoiding confusion between reactive and proactive approaches to accessibility legislation by keeping the two systems distinct, and, establishing a Commissioner to take leadership in promoting awareness and systemic culture change, in encouraging compliance and in public education both across the federal government and with the general public. Finally, throughout this report, the author argues that all administrative governance functions in the proposed federal accessibility legislation should be guided by and promote an inclusive equality approach. Inclusive equality is a theoretical framework put forward by the UN that focuses on recognizing the intersectionality of individuals with disabilities in their experiences of disability discrimination. Power relations, access to justice, and the socio-historical context surrounding legal efforts to realize equality by people with disabilities within a reactive regulatory (complaints-based and adjudicative) system should also be considered through this lens.The views expressed in this document are those of the author and not those of Employment and Social Development Canada (Government of Canada) (ESDC).

The worker who receives compensation through the Commission de la santé et de la sécurité du travail (CSST) for an injury resulting from the sexual harassment finds herself with no recourse to the Quebec Charter for moral, material or exemplary damages. This principle has become entrenched in the law since the decision of Béliveau St-Jacques v. Fédération des employées et employés de services publics inc. [1996] 2 S.C.R. 345.The matter is further complicated by the fact that the Act respecting industrial accidents and occupational diseases compensates only for loss of integrity, providing a completely inappropriate compensation for sexual harassment – an incident through which the person’s dignity is first and foremost put under attack. In this paper, the author explores the possibility of reforming the Act in order to provide a more appropriate compensation for victims of workplace sexual harassment, one that addresses the very real affront to dignity that sexual harassment poses. As the Act is grounded in a particular social and legal history, this exploration involves a review of its history and evolution as well as an examination of recent decisions by the CSST’s reviewing bodies. Consideration of the place of the person in Quebec Civil Law and the definition of certain personality rights (integrity and dignity) also form an integral part of this article.

This paper examines one of the most recent and widespread cases of consultation to occur in the development of lawmaking in Canada: citizen participation in the enactment of accessibility standards for persons with disabilities. Canadian provinces are attempting a new politico-legal experiment to combat disability discrimination. Through consultation processes leading to binding regulations, they are enacting mandatory standards of accessibility under legislation such as the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005 (AODA). These statutes create an antidiscrimination regulatory process designed to offer participatory rights to persons with disabilities and other interested stakeholders in the development of accessibility standards. The standards address conditions of social inclusion in areas such as customer service, employment, transportation, and information and communication, and aim to break down a host of barriers including architectural and attitudinal ones. Collaborative standard development is a new and proactive approach to addressing disability barriers in society. The first part of the paper presents a comparative overview of Canadian accessibility legislation with a focus on citizen participation.

In Canada, access to post-secondary education is guaranteed by a number of domestic instruments. These instruments are: statutory human rights legislation, constitutional law, and accessibility legislation. These guarantees are further bolstered by Article 24 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Statutory human rights legislation (or anti-discrimination law) plays the most extensive role in controlling the discretionary power that colleges and universities exercise with respect to the admission of prospective students and the reasonable accommodation of matriculated students with disabilities. This article presents the findings of a review of decisions by human rights tribunals in Canada over the 7-year period of 2014–2021. With respect to both admissions cases and in-program reasonable accommodations cases, it identifies the main types of barriers experienced by persons with disabilities. It also examines the ways in which accessibility legislation, a proactive standard-setting form of legislation in Canada, has sought to improve access to post-secondary students with disabilities, focusing on Ontario’s post-secondary education accessibility standards as an example. Finally, it argues that changes to policies and practices on the ground that draw more inspiration from Article 24 of the CRPD will help to ensure that the equality right to post-secondary education for students with disabilities is fulfilled in letter and spirit.

This article documents and explores the history of the e-scooter ban in Toronto, Ontario, Canada as a pathway to examining broader issues concerning the eradication of accessibility barriers in public spaces for pedestrians with disabilities and respectful uses of consultation to develop disability-inclusive regulations. The use of e-scooters poses a particular dilemma to accessibility for persons with disabilities. On the one hand, the concept of disability contemplates attitudinal and environmental barriers, as noted, for example, in the Preamble of the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Attitudinal and environmental barriers have traditionally stemmed from interests that are inherently opposed to the collective interests of disabled persons. Examples include attitudes that project stigma against persons with disabilities or a focus on seeking to preserve historical features of the built environment for their aesthetics, without consideration for their accessibility or functionality for disabled persons. They have also generally originated in periods of historical marginalization or exclusion of persons with disabilities. By contrast, e-scooter debates and connected debates regarding the regulation of micromobility vehicles, contain at least one dimension that could very well be shared with persons with disabilities—that is, the preservation of the environment. E-scooters are also a phenomenon of contemporary disability exclusion: policies concerning environmental sustainability, including those promoting e-scooters, are being developed contemporaneously with growing international and national legal recognition of disability rights. These factors render arguments over appropriate regulation of the use of public spaces more complex as, within those arguments, one sees two competing positive policy directions that need to be addressed: the rights of pedestrians with disabilities and environmental sustainability. This article concludes with theoretical and practical suggestions for strengthening regulatory policymaking to address these and other complex intersectional issues of accessibility policy design.

‘Inquisitorial processes’ refers to the inquiry powers of administrative governance and this book examines the use of these powers in administrative law across seven jurisdictions. The book brings together recent developments in mixed inquisitorial-adversarial administrative decision-making in a hitherto neglected area of comparative administrative process and institutional design. Reaching important conclusions about their own jurisdictions and raising questions which may be explored in others, the book's chapters are comparative. The contributors to this collection, who are leaders in the field, explore the terminology and scope of the concept of inquisitorial process, justifications for the use of inquiry powers, the effectiveness of inquisitorial processes and the implications of the adoption of such powers. The book will set in motion continued dialogue about the inherent challenges of balancing policy goals, fairness, resources and institutional design within administrative law decision-making by offering theoretical, practical and empirical analyses.

Co-edited by Laverne Jacobs and Justice Anne Mactavish, This volume provides analysis of key issues of administrative law and justice.

’Inquisitorial processes’ refers to the inquiry powers of administrative governance and this book examines the use of these powers in administrative law across seven jurisdictions. The book brings together recent developments in mixed inquisitorial-adversarial administrative decision-making on a hitherto neglected area of comparative administrative process and institutional design. Reaching important conclusions about their own jurisdictions and raising questions which may be explored in others, the book's chapters are comparative. They explore the terminology and scope of the concept of inquisitorial process, justifications for the use of inquiry powers, the effectiveness of inquisitorial processes and the implications of the adoption of such powers. The book will set in motion continued dialogue about the inherent challenges of balancing policy goals, fairness, resources and institutional design within administrative law decision-making by offering theoretical, practical and empirical analyses. This will be a valuable book to government policy-makers, administrative law decision-makers, lawyers and academics.

Through this paper we attempt to define the concept of the expert tribunal both as a juridical notion and a tribunal reality. The first part is devoted to a brief overview of the movement of expertise from political theory to legal concept. Following this, we discuss the use of expertise within the tribunal and on judicial review, in an era in which legislators do not always stipulate the qualifications necessary for tribunal appointment.