Law school graduate with reduced mobility optimistic about Accessibility for Manitobans Act
Andrew Fenwick is a wheelchair user who is accompanied by a support worker whenever he travels. This support worker is only required to pay the tax for their plane ticket instead of paying full price.
This is the airline's effort to accommodate people disabled by barriers and enable them to travel as freely as others.
“Organizations have to accommodate a person disabled by a barrier to the point of undue hardship,” said Fenwick, an articling law student at a firm that handles many disability litigation cases.
But what constitutes “undue hardship” for a person with a disability? Do snow clogged sidewalks fulfill that definition? Fenwick is optimistic that one day clearing snow from sidewalks will fall under the built environment standards in the Accessibility for Manitobans Act (AMA).
The AMA seeks to set out an agenda for “a systematic and proactive approach to ensuring accessibility for Manitobans,” Monika Bonsor, an Accessibility Compliance Officer with the Province of Manitoba wrote in an e-mail.
According to the Accessibility Compliance Framework on the Province of Manitoba’s website, “the AMA is not complaints-based legislation. As such, the Accessibility Compliance Secretariat does not investigate or mediate individual complaints.”
The Accessibility For All Manitobans 2022 Mid-term Report Card sent to the province on January 13, 2023 by Barrier Free Manitoba gave the province a barely passible grade for its implementation and enforcement of the AMA
According to Fenwick, the AMA is different than the Human Rights Code in that it is an aspirational piece of legislation whereas the Human Rights Code is the enforcement mechanism.
Fenwick doesn't see the need to enforce the act. Instead, he sees it as a proactive approach to requiring accessibility in everyday life. The act forms the second pillar of accessibility rights in Manitoba, the first being the Human Rights Code.
The two pieces of legislation are meant to work in tandem according to Fenwick. The AMA lays out the goals institutions and employers should achieve for accessibility while the Human Rights Code is the enforcement mechanism.
Both pieces of legislation exist to protect disabled people and ensure they are treated fairly. What mechanism exists for these pieces of legislation to work in tandem as they are meant to? Is a third mechanism needed to monitor when guidelines are not being followed?
Is it fair to expect a disabled person to be responsible to inform the Human Rights Commission when guidelines aren't being followed?