Persons with Disabilities Resources: Rights & Legislation

The Accessibility Act was passed in 2017 and provides the legislative framework for NS government actions and initiatives.

Under the Accessibility Act, Nova Scotia’s universities and the Nova Scotia Community College (NSCC) were prescribed as public sector bodies, effective April 1, 2020. The Post-Secondary Accessibility Framework establishes a shared vision and commitments for accessibility in Nova Scotia’s post-secondary sector, and informs the development of institutional accessibility plans.

First passed in 1963, the NS Human Rights Act prohibits actions that discriminate against people based on a protected characteristic in combination with a prohibited area. If was most recently revised in 2016.

The purpose of this Act is to benefit all persons, especially persons with disabilities, through the realization, within the purview of matters coming within the legislative authority of Parliament, of a Canada without barriers, on or before January 1, 2040, particularly by the identification and removal of barriers, and the prevention of new barriers.

Adopted on 13 December 2006 at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, the Convention "is intended as a human rights instrument with an explicit, social development dimension. It adopts a broad categorization of persons with disabilities and reaffirms that all persons with all types of disabilities must enjoy all human rights and fundamental freedoms. It clarifies and qualifies how all categories of rights apply to persons with disabilities and identifies areas where adaptations have to be made for persons with disabilities to effectively exercise their rights and areas where their rights have been violated, and where protection of rights must be reinforced." Canada ratified the UN CRPD in 2010.