Quote:
Originally Posted by timun
No person shall
(a) deny to any person or class of persons any goods, services, accommodation or facilities that are customarily available to the public, or (b) discriminate against any person or class of persons with respect to any goods, services, accommodation or facilities that are customarily available to the public, because of the race, religious beliefs, colour, gender, gender identity, gender expression, physical disability, mental disability, age, ancestry, place of origin, marital status, source of income, family status or sexual orientation of that person or class of persons or of any other person or class of persons. ( Alberta Human Rights Act, section 4)
Reducing a person's accessibility to public transit because we did a cost-benefit analysis and decided "it's not worth the money" is precisely why we have this in the Human Rights Act... |
But this puts us into perverse situations. Like, say we don't have money for a station (perhaps centre street in the beltline if it's at grade). A low floor train could just stop there. That's it. And yeah, maybe people in wheelchair couldn't get on and off. So instead of having a stop that able-bodied people can use, we get no stop, because having the train stop would be "discrimination". That's silly and against net public benefit. It's BS. I don't care if it's the law. The law can be wrong and need revision.
Like here's a
case out of BC where I find the outcome unfair. A four unit strata has build a hillside tram for a disabled senior, costing $130K ($35K each charged to the other owners). Like, instead, how about a disabled senior doesn't actually need to live on top of a hill? I agree that we need accessible places, but do all places need to be accessible? My apartment isn't accessible. If it no longer suited my needs, perhaps I should just find a place that is.
Imagine a treatment that could save a person's life at $1 trillion. Compare that to all the good $1 trillion could do. There's a point where we have to draw a line - it should not be blanketly off-limits to consider.
And we do make exceptions. You see them at amusement parks all the time.
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.