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Third reading of Bill 46 - The Court Practice and Administration Act

On Thursday May 20, I spoke at third reading on Bill 46 – The Court Practice  and Administration Act.  My comments (from  Hansard) are below.

Bill 46–The Court Practice and Administration Act
(Various Acts Amended)

Hon. Jon Gerrard (River Heights): With regard to this bill, I will start by saying that we will be supporting this legislation. We agree with some of the changes to jury remuneration and some of the other changes.

      One of the major concerns that we have is with regard to the accommodation with persons with disabilities. We've seen far too many instances where even though there is a duty to accommodate individ­uals with disabilities, this duty is too easily dismissed and people with disabilities of various natures are not given the accommodation that they should be re­ceiving in order to fully participate.

Mr. Dennis Smook, Acting Speaker, in the Chair

      And so, although there is a general duty to accommodate, historically it's been very easy to dis­miss that ability. And so that–even though the hope is that there will be more participation with indi­viduals with disabilities, this remains to be seen whether this actually will happen. And we want to emphasize the importance of courts doing what is possible in terms of accommodating people with dis­abilities, and we think that it's very important that people with disabilities are actually asked what they need to be accommodated and so that accommodation can be made.

      With those few comments, I will, in the interest of time, let us move on to other subject matter. As I said, we are supporting this in spite of some concerns.

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