Have fun May 5 and help the CFB at the same time!
Admission to the event is $25.00 per person, and will be collected at the door. Cheques should be made payable to the Victoria Imperial Lions Club.
Dear Mr. Bernd Walter,
Re: The Tribunal’s Misuse of Power
As the Chair of the BC Human Rights Tribunal and one who was directly involved in Case 12930, I am sending this open letter after experiencing your and your staff’s use of power to directly undermine guide dog users’ access rights. The Human Rights Tribunal appears unable or unwilling to act ethically when guide dog owners reach out for protection from prejudice.
The Tribunal’s retreat from its duty to address systemic discrimination has permitted anyone to act illegally, putting blind customers at the service provider’s mercy. You have deviated from the official main purpose of the Tribunal, sending a huge red flag to the disabled. “Balancing rights” is an oxymoron, as a right is paramount and not a ratio to be calibrated. There is no evidence that guide dogs cause problems in public places or conveyances. Many unproven barriers have been used to permit discrimination and this is unscrupulous and fraudulent.
Please come and meet our guide dog owners and their companions this Thursday, at 1:30 p.m. outside the Ministry of Justice, 1001 Douglas Street, Victoria, British Columbia and learn the news that will change lives.
Canadian Federation of the Blind will demand the end to discrimination spearheaded by those whose responsibility it is to protect the disabled.
“Taxi drivers use phony dog allergy claims to deny service to people who use guide dogs. Unbelievably the BC Human Rights Tribunal has bought into this sham,” said Mary Ellen Gabias, President of Canadian Federation of the Blind.
Evidence shows no driver allergies exist in any of the published British Columbia human rights cases. Blind people and their trusted guides now have no remedy when drivers discriminate against them. The Human Rights Tribunal is ignoring the facts and destroying guide dog owners’ access rights on a taxi driver’s whim.
Without your immediate help, three quarters of a century’s work establishing the access rights of guide dog teams may be casually swept away in British Columbia!
Discrimination by the taxi industry is just fine, no more than a minor inconvenience, according to Jacqueline Beltgens of the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal.
(A letter to The Vancouver Sun by Doris Belusic,)
Re: Taxis can snub service animals, Oct. 20
Jacqueline Beltgens of B.C. Human Rights Tribunal says Graeme McCreath was only “inconvenienced,” when a Victoria Taxi driver denied him service and called a second cab to pick him up. Was Rosa Parks only “inconvenienced” by being shunted to the back of the bus, even though it would arrive at her destination the same time as the front? McCreath was discriminated against, plain and simple.
(A letter to the editor of The Victoria Times Colonist by Frederick Driver.)
Re: “Tribunal dismisses blind man’s complaint against taxi,” Oct. 27. B.C. Human Rights Tribunal member Jacqueline Beltgens has erred in ruling against guide-dog user Graeme McCreath. McCreath was not seeking a special “accommodation,” but rather the protection of his lawful rights.
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“On 15th October, 2015, MS Jacqueline Beltgens, a BC Human Rights Tribunal Member, set blind people’s access rights back 40 years,” says Oriano Belusic, First Vice President of the Canadian Federation of the Blind.
Although conceding Mr. McCreath was clearly a victim of discrimination under section 8 of the human rights code, MS Beltgens found, despite a lack of evidence, that Victoria Taxi’s policy of permitting drivers to deny access was not a violation of the human rights code. Beltgens accepted hearsay comments from the Victoria Taxi manager and dismissed the case.
In the past, to be blind was to live in shame; considered a punishment for sins in a past life. The idea that being ‘legally’ blind and it’s middle age origin is almost criminal, and yet, as beggars had to prove their disability to find the favour of charity, we live in a day and age where Anne has to present an ID, from a charity, to prove that she is different. Anne challenges all of our views of legal blindness.
Anne Malone is a writer, speaker, and creator who envisions and advocates freedom from disability for people who are blind.
By Doris Belusic
Success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal or ideal.”
~ Earl Nightingale
On Friday, July 17, 2015, Victoria members of the Canadian Federation of the Blind (CFB), a grass-roots advocacy organization of blind people, along with B.C. Transit personnel, rode around town on a bus equipped with the latest GPS Trekker Breeze. It is being trialled by B.C. Transit as an automated annunciation system. It will call out streets travelled, all cross streets and be modified to call out points of interest, such as Craigdarroch Castle or Mayfair and Hillside Malls. In August, B.C. Transit plans to install it on 25 Victoria buses. If the trial period is successful, it will be rolled out onto the rest of Victoria’s fleet in September; then later in B.C.’s smaller communities.
Bill 17 as currently written would shift the focus from protecting access rights for people using guide dogs to catching impostors at the expense of law-abiding blind individuals, according to the Canadian Federation of the Blind.
“Taxis often won’t take us,” says Graeme McCreath of Victoria, who has frequently been refused service because he is accompanied by his guide dog Adrienne. “We wanted the province to clarify and strengthen enforcement of our access rights. Instead, they’re forcing us to jump through more bureaucratic hoops and creating the false presumption that we are perpetrating fraud until we prove otherwise.
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