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After you experience a stroke, you are diagnosed with a condition that affects your peripheral vision. Over time, you learn several adaptations, including wearing special glasses, which help compensate for this loss of peripheral vision. When you learn that your driver’s license has been cancelled, you want to show that your adaptations and the special glasses would allow you to drive safely. You are told that the Province of B.C. denies everyone with your condition a driver’s license. They explain that people with this condition cannot meet the minimum safety standards set by the Province for peripheral vision. You explain that you have learned special skills to compensate for your condition and can drive safely by using some adaptations and your special glasses. You ask if you can take a vision test to show that you can drive safely. They refuse to let you take the test and tell you that it is unsafe for anyone with your condition to drive. You say that they are discriminating against you because of your disability.

  • Yes, you are experiencing discrimination under the Code on the basis of your disability.

    Under B.C.’s Human Rights Code, service providers can justify discrimination if they are able to show that they had a legitimate service-related reason for the discrimination. To do this, the service provider would need to show that they honestly believe the discrimination is necessary for the service. In this case, the Province of B.C. must set provincial safety standards for driving, and this includes minimum safety standards for acquiring a driver’s license. In this case, it is clear that the Province set the safety standards in good faith to achieve their goal of road safety in B.C.

    To justify the discrimination the service provider also needs to show that they explored changes or accommodations for people who may be affected by the discrimination. In addition, they would need to show that they could not provide the accommodations they identified without experiencing undue hardship. In this case, the refusal to provide you with a vision test means that you were denied an accommodation. Also, the service provider did not show how providing you with this accommodation would result in undue hardship. This means that the service provider could not show that the discrimination against you was justified.

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