David Lepofsky Case Study

David Lepofsky - Person A (Christina Tang)
David Lepofsky is a blind Canadian lawyer and the chairman of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance, who have suffered from vision loss. Blind for much of his life, Lepofsky understands the hardships that people with disabilities are forced to go through daily in society. As a lawyer and chairman of the alliance, his goal is to advocate for new laws to help disables overcome the barriers faced upon society such as unequal access to services, discrimination, and emotional stress.
Lepofsky led a campaign in 1994 to win the enactment of the AODA. One of the legislations he had won for disabled citizens was to have the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) announce all transit’s next stop as it approached it through an automated

announcement system, with the intention of providing equality for people who suffered from vision loss and weren’t able to know what stop they were at. It was finally approved of in 2005, only to have the stops announced in all subway transits. Two years later, The Human Rights Tribunal ordered all bus and streetcar stops to be announced. Despite having a disability himself, David Lepofsky led his campaign with perseverance to gain disability rights and demonstrate to the public that people with disabilities were people too and that they deserve equal access to services, awareness and acceptance as everyone else. He represented the voice of the disabled population and advocated disability rights to the society to make accommodations for them.
Currently, David Lepofsky is fighting for the public’s Freedom of Information against the Wynne Government to reveal key information about the AODA’s implementation and enforcement as he criticizes Kathleen Wynne for not putting her promises of making Ontario’s Healthcare system fully accessible to people with disabilities. Leposky obtained a Bachelors of Law degree and graduated with honours from Osgoode Hall Law School, and another Masters of Law degree in Harvard Law School in 1982.

Rick Hansen- Person A (Christina Tang)
Rick Hansen is most infamous for his passion for sports. After becoming paralyzed from the waist down from an accident on a family trip when he was 26, his ability to continue playing sports was taken away. Rick Hansen was forced to receive rehabilitation for seven months in Vancouver where he spent time contemplating what his future would be like. However, Rick Hansen never lost hope and kept the driving force inside of him. After rehabilitation, Hansen found new ways to adapt to changes and play sports. He had set new goals and let his passion for sports enlighten him to follow his dreams of becoming an athlete.
In 1976, Rick Hansen was the first person with a disability to ever graduate with a degree in Physical Education, inspiring many others that they shouldn’t let the barriers that their disabilities bring, stop them from doing what they enjoyed most. It also proved to the province that people with disabilities were equally as capable of achieving the same accomplishments as the majority. During his studies, Rick became involved in wheelchair marathons, winning nineteen international wheelchair marathons, the world title three times and nine gold medals at the 1982 Pan Am Games. He also won gold and silver at the 1984 Paralympic Summer Games and many more.
What really made Rick Hansen stand out wasn’t just his passion, it was the difference he made in the lives of others. On March 21st, 1985, Rick Hansen began his Man In Motion World Tour where he wheeled across 34 countries to spread the awareness of disabilities and fight for an uplift in disability research. Not only did he help people with disabilities by giving them higher chances of recovery through collecting funds, he also became a figure that changed the way the public perceived disabled people to be, with the realization that buildings and infrastructure should be built to be more accessible. After completing the tour, Rick Hansen established the Rick Hansen Foundation. His foundation has continued to raise funds and awareness to create a world with no barriers for people with disabilities. He aims to change the world’s perception towards disabled people, help break down their barriers by making the government create programs to push them to reach their full potential and to improve their quality of life.

Person A (Christina Tang)
Eldridge v. British Columbia (Attorney General), [1997] 3 S.C.R. 624
In 1997 October 9th, a hospital in British Columbia refused to deliver services of a sign language interpreter for a deaf patient who feared the risk of misdiagnosis and inadequate treatment, due to the absence of ineffective communication with the medical provider. The Hospital Insurance Act by the government, fund hospitals as they are reimbursed for the required services provided to patients. The funds are provided by British Columbia’s Medical Services plan which is regulated by the Medical and Health Care Services Act. Although the two programs funded medically required services to the public, both The Hospital Insurance Act and Medical and Health Care Services Act excludes the support of funds for providing sign language interpreters for the deaf. The appellants were unsuccessful in persuading the Supreme Court of British Columbia that the failure of providing a medically required sign language interpreter under the Medical Services Plan violated the s. 15(1) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. As a result, majority of the Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal from this declaration.
It was uncertain to the Court whether s. 15(1) of the Charter was infringed by failing to provide the benefits to patients under the Medical Protection Act and whether the regulations of Hospital Insurance Act infringed s. 15(1) by excluding the need to provide medical interpreters for the deaf. A remedy was needed to be sought of if s, 15(1) was assured to be infringed.
As a result, the appeal was allowed. The Court accepted that the disabled patient’s rights were violated but not by the legislation itself, but by the decisions of what was considered to be a “required” medical service. This case is significant for Disability Rights because it drew the public’s attention to the major improvements that the health care services and the community needed in order to fulfil the rights of all disabled people. It is important in the way it reminded the government that they had obligations of providing everyone the access of services no matter what state or disability they may have. It has helped present disabled patients, who are the most populated in hospitals, as they have gained the opportunity of accessing services to ensure equal chances of recovery and comfort in the hospital.

Person A (Christina Tang)
Hydro-Québec v. Syndicat des employé-e-s de techniques professionnelles et de bureau d'Hydro-Québec, section locale 2000 (SCFP-FTQ) (2008), 63 C.H.R.R. D/301, 2008 SCC 43
The plaintiff in this case is an employee of Hydro- Quebec who had many physical and mental problems, including tendinitis, epicondylitis and bursitis.

This employee was required to undergo numerous surgical procedures, take medication, and suffered from mixed personality disorders. This caused her to miss 960 days of work between January 1994 to July 2001 when she was employed at Hydro-Quebec. Because of her disabilities and conditions, her employer was obligated to adjust her working conditions and provide her with light tasks but she was eventually dismissed from her job in July 2001, due to being absent since February of that year. During those months, her medical doctor recommended that she stop working for an indefinite period, which allowed her employer to dismiss her on the grounds that she unable to work on a regular basis and that no improvements of her attendance was possible. The grievor filed a complaint to the Quebec Court of Appeal as she alleged that her dismissal was unjustifiable, but her case was dismissed as the Court ruled that an employer can terminate an employee if their contract was violated. The employee appealed her case at The Supreme Court of

Canada.
The issues of this case is whether the termination of the disabled employee was justifiable, whether the conditions of her returning to work constituted in undue hardship, and whether it was impossible for the employer to accommodate further for the employee. The employer of the workplace has the duty to arrange accommodations for disabled employees to do their work, but will the changes made constitute undue hardship? The Court must also decide whether the dismissal of the employee was a decision made at the time the employee was unable to work, or if it was during a reasonable foreseeable future of her not being able to work.
The final decision was that the appeal was allowed and the judgement of the Quebec Court of Appeal be set aside. Because it is a general labour law to accommodate for employees, the employee could not have been terminated only if she was no longer able to fulfil the basic obligations of the employment in the foreseeable future. Although the employee’s doctor guaranteed that her attendance will not improve, the employer cannot use her past to assess undue hardship.
This case is significant because it protected people with disabilities from losing their jobs before proper accommodations were made and ensured that terminations had to be justifiable. Because people with disabilities have their own rights too, employers must remember that they have a duty to accommodate for their employees until they’re able to work safely. If unjustifiable terminations were made, many disabled people would become unemployed because of the lack of accommodations made for them; depriving their opportunity of equal employment. This case had set an example for many other disability rights cases relating to employment because it outlined to what point of accommodation for an employee, constituted in undue hardship.