How people with disabilities saved Nova Scotia

There is a thing called ONENS that is meant to be the follow-on to the Ivany Report of 2014.  

ONENS' dashboard acknowledges that no progress is being made on 7 of their 19 goals.  Although the Ivany Report says quite specifically that people with disabilities are "key contributors to local economic development, entrepreneurship and workforce renewal." we do not rate a mention in any of the 19 goals.

The province is fond of saying plaintively that 30% of Nova Scotians have a disability.  The province spends $300 million on its Disability Support Program (2016) to support 4,308 people.  Any serious businessperson or government representative ought to be thinking "....hmmm, here's an underutilized investment.  Let's think about engaging the problem by diversifying the portfolio."

But no, the government of Nova Scotia is so busy discriminating against people with disabilities that it overlooks the economic opportunity they present.  

This is the reason the province sees people with disabilities as liabilities.  

We are assets!

I admit to not having read all the details about ONENS' 19 goals, but the obvious one is "Labour Force Participation Rate", which carries no mention of people with disabilities.  In keeping with pervasive disenfranchisement, I venture that no one with a disability is included among the 16 or so organizations currently assembled by NSCC President Don Bureaux as the "Collective."  I'd love to be wrong.

Let's follow the Ivany Report and start thinking about Goal 20, a complete upending of approach, where self reliance is the goal and ownership is the vehicle.  Where people with disabilities are allowed to create wealth like anyone else. 

A combination of RDSP savings, more equitable use of the Disability Tax Credit, taxpayer savings, investments, and creative business practices would make it possible.  But we need to get over the liability lie.

Here are fruitful and profitable elements of Goal 20

New Revenue	Example	Benefitting
Income tax	$2,250 for each new $30,000 job	Province
Investment from RDSP	Allow RDSP to serve as housing down payments	RDSP owners, real estate business, construction industry
Spending multiplier	10 times disposable income	Entire economy
Refundable DTC	currently the full $8.000 is only available to the wealthy	Low Income DTC holders
HST	Provincial share of consumption taxes	Province
Profit	30% of spending	Retailers
Tourism	Tourists with disabilities in the US spend $17.3 billion annually, and in the past two years alone, more than 26 million adults with disabilities traveled for pleasure and/or business, taking 73 million trips.
Discontinued supports	some portion of Community Services spending	Province

Covid has taught us that part-time work from home is do-able, and telemedicine is the future.  People can stay in their communities, participating and contributing.

There's something here and it needs to be explored.  Maybe some real economist can help.  But not thinking about it is irresponsible and against the public interest.

Some details:

This is a shocking response I got in 2015 when I was blogging about Sheltered Workshops:

I believe that our workshop still does packaging and assembly work for (a local company). I have no idea what the compensation is, but the productivity of the clients far surpasses that of the regular employees at (the local company).

People in sheltered workshops don't make minimum wage, and the fruits of their labour go into the common account.  This is shamefully unfair.  

We have a very slowly increasing population, a working-age cohort around 60%, a declining under 18 population, a dramatic increase in numbers age 65 and over. Three decades ago, there were 20 workers entering the region’s labour market for every ten retiring.  Now there are only seven.  In 2031, with just over a million Nova Scotians,  60% will be working and 25% over age 65.

"Simply put, population aging will contribute to a large increase in future levels of government spending. When combined, projected government spending increases related to health care and Elderly Benefits are expected to be 5.3 percentage points of GDP higher in 2045 compared to 2017." - Canada’s Aging Population and Implications for Government Finances, Fraser Institute, 2017

That's probably realistic.  Sounds expensive.

Most of Goal 20 is amply elucidated in principle in Choice, Equality and Good Lives in Inclusive Communities:  A Roadmap for Transforming the Nova Scotia Services to Persons withDisabilities Program.  This visionary 2013 document makes the moral and ethical case for a complete reassessment of the situation of people with disabilities.  It doesn't explore an economic case.  After some initial enthusiasm, implementation of the roadmap ground to a halt.  The last newsletter is December, 2017.

The Roadshow, as they called it, unveiled in 2016 gave some hard-to-find numbers:

Program	Numbers	Waitlisted
Flex	1300	0
Independent living	745	271
Alternative family Support	172	38
Small Option Home	589	491
Group Home	592	287
Residential Care Facility	450	19
Adult Residential Centres	375	32
Regional Rehabilitation Centres	85	42
TOTAL	4308	1180

Community Services Disability Support Program is responsible for 4300 people at varying levels of support.  It cost $303 million in 2016.  The total expenditures in DCS were $929 million, so about a third,  It's almost entirely in the form of direct grants to community groups or individuals.  That's $70,000 for each person, a ridiculous amount of money (no DCS staff included).  

The 1300 (?) Independent Care Management clients were paid $244,464,233.40

So why is it so expensive?

                            

There are many disincentives at work - a large, well-funded bureaucracy, charitable institutions with old-fashioned ideas, the inevitable effect of working in silos, and what Gerry Post calls the Disability Industrial Complex.  

People are always complaining about taxes,  When the alternatives are universally bad, we should remind ourselves what a privilege it is to wake up in the calm safety of Canada.  Especially considering what's happening to our south.  But who's going to cough up the extra for the increasing elder/disability cohort?

Income taxes in Nova Scotia work like this:

This chart is made from census data for those over 15 and tax rates from a simple calculator.   It's not a perfect illustration of progressive tax, but it goes in the right direction.  The large jump at $70k is a mystery, but it wouldn't surprise me if it had something to do with the Public Service.

In 2021, Provincial sources of  revenue are about $7.5 Billion

Nothing really approaches Income Tax and HST, so let's see how we could rejigger to add another 5% - $375 million.  

40% of Nova Scotians earn less than minimum wage.  If they earned minimum wage, they'd pay $1500 each in taxes.  Let's make it a goal to move 10,000 people into employment.  That's $15,000,000 in taxes plus savings in various supports ($35 million(?)).  There are plenty of emerging employment opportunities - contact tracing, remote monitoring of health, 211 enterprises.

The Disability Tax Credit makes one eligible for a Registered Disability Savings Program.  Buried deep in a 2015 report on RDSPs are some revealing numbers:In Nova Scotia

• 3,332 have RDSPs
• Average value $17,644
• 19,040 Eligible
• 17.5% uptake

Let's make sure every client of DCS has a RDSP - starting value $11,000 = $50,000,000 + annual contribution + return on investment.

Let's start a real estate investment fund for the RDSP and spend the $50 million, so participants become owners and employers.  The province can fund the initial offering and sell its shares at a profit.  Older, discontinued provincial properties can be recycled.  Retrofitting old buildings is in line with climate change policies.  Small towns that are emptying out can become viable again.

Since the DTC is much more favourable to those with high incomes, let's lobby our MPs to make the DTC refundable - say half of DTC holders * $8000 =  $80 million annually.

Minimum wage earners spend most disposable income on HST eligible purchases - say $10,000 *.15 * 10,000 new employees = $15 million.

So there's around $30 million in new taxes, $50 million in investment, $80 million in transfers.  DSP clients get a chance to be everything we say Canadians should be.

Tourism will be a major source of revenue after Covid (we'll have to say goodbye to cruise ships for many years) and conventions may never recover.  It was a $2.6 billion sector in 2019.  We are within a days drive of 13 million retired New Englanders who are used to all the amenities of travel brought by the Americans with Disabilities Act.  Yet our system of ratings is meaningless, trip planning is impossible.   Now is the exact moment to become the destination with no barriers.  I suggested a change back in 2015 netting $43 million in HST.

Only people with disabilities have their entitlements given to third parties.  Unemployment checks go to the unemployed.  Old age pensions go to the old.  But disability supports go by default to shadow charities.  I call that discrimination, prejudgement, bias, bigotry and intolerance.  And taxpayers are paying for it. 

It is folly to bypass consumers and give grants to suppliers.  Basic capitalism puts decisions in the hands of consumers to encourage competition.  By granting directly to charities, Community Services encourage bloat.  Better to increase the already generous charitable deductions to give the best value to donors, and better to give supports directly to clients for spending on good value.

Other things to consider:

• The rate of charitable deductions and the role of charities
• Making some tax credits automatic

My instincts say this is not crazy, but it needs to have serious discussion and professional support.  Now that you've made it to the end, what do you say?  

GOAL 20!

Envisioning the Elephant

Our Act sets out the Province’s own aspiration for human rights in a statement of the purpose. The purpose of the Act is to recognize the inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family, to recognize that human rights must be protected by the rule of law, and to recognize that the government and all public agencies have the responsibility to ensure that every individual in the Province is afforded an equal opportunity to enjoy a full and productive life. These purposes have informed my decision. It may, however, cost tens of millions a year to fulfill these aspirations for the disabled. That is for the next phase of this proceeding, but I finish this first step with a caution; one should not be glib about what witness Wendy Lill described as the elephant in the room during the Roadmap discussions of services for the disabled - cost.

Walter Thompson, QC

Human Rights Decision 2019

So, oft in theologic wars
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean;
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!

Blind Men and the Elephant - John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887)

I'm no economist, but I have expectations that government, having read their own Human Rights Act, will take steps to ensure that every individual in the Province is afforded an equal opportunity to enjoy a full and productive life.  Government has no higher calling.  They have an obligation to examine the elephant from every angle.

One person can get rich by Chasing the Ace, but anyone can get comfortable by working hard, saving money and being thrifty.  In Nova Scotia, we live beyond our means and are prisoners of conventional thinking.  We see people with disabilities as a mystery and a liability, when they should be neighbours and assets.  It's easy to raise the specter of the elephant, but the elephant is a hallucination, a bogeyman, a creature of failed imagination, born from acceptance of inequality and intellectual laziness.

Let's examine costs - Thompson's elephant - through an accessibility lens, not accessibility through a cost lens.  Putting people to work, valuing them as part of the community, treating them as assets, not liabilities, fashioning a Nova Scotia solution to a Nova Scotia problem - that's where our priorities should be.  

Here are ten ways to rethink our approach  to disability: (ten year returns in red - rough guess)

• Allow people to work
• There are 7,243 Nova Scotians in the Disability Support program of the Department of Community Services.  That program costs $333 million.  Moving one person from dependence to employment means saving $46,021.  People with jobs pay taxes - even a minimum wage earner pays $894 provincial income tax, so getting a person a job saves the province $47,000/year.  Forever.
• It's a tough problem.  DCS rules make it hard to become un-disabled.  We need to show a better way.
• If DCS moved one percent of its "clients" into the workplace, taxpayers would save $3.4 million a year.
• $34 million for 1% of "clients"
• Help them get their RDSP
• Many of those 7,243 people have not filed for their Registered Disability Savings Program.  These unclaimed federal grants easily top $50 million
• $50 million + $50 mullion
• Stop the Access-a-Bus approach
• Don't accept second best for some of your neighbors.  Whether it's an inferior transportation system or unequal application of public health standards, taxpayers pay the bill.  Access-a-Bus costs HRM $6 million per year.  Lax public health standards mean expensive hospital visits.
• $22 x 110,000 trips x 10 years = $24.2 million 
• Stop institutionalizing people
• As shown in the recent Emerald Hall Human Rights case, the province spends $180,000 per year to incarcerate people because it can't find $60,000 to house them in the community.
• $1.2 million/person 
• Count people properly.  
• Both the province and Dalhousie take a census of employees through a self identification process fraught with perverse incentives and subtle judgements:
• For the purposes of this survey, persons with a disability are people who have a long term or recurring physical, sensory, mental, psychiatric or learning impairment and includes people whose functional limitations due to their impairment have been accommodated in their current job or workplace (e.g., by the use of technical aids, changes to equipment or other working arrangements) - 
• Dalhousie
• Impairment is is a nasty word - a judgement.  Many people think their conditions are gifts.  Condition is a better word.  But conditions only become disabilities when they meet obstacles.  Disabilities reside in the environment, not in the person.  Disabilities are outputs, not inputs.  
• Dal's numbers show an improbable increase of 254% in the number of disabled employees from 2010 to 2017.  377% in students.   They say 8% of law students are disabled.  That would be 40 students, when the number 2 is reliably reported.  This report is an exercise in how to lie with statistics.
• no payoff, just injecting a little truth
• Paper
• Government has at least seven forms, each requiring a medical practitioner's signature, to demonstrate the need for transportation, parking. tax credits, loans, housing and accommodations.  
• 10,000 forms * $50 *10 = $5 million
• Grants and incentives are money makers
• When structured imaginatively, they produce revenue, affect the labour market,  enhance communities and provide other benefits.  Conventionally, they are giveaways for pigs at the trough.
• zero cost
• Pay attention to tourists
• We live next door to a huge concentration of tourists with disabilities, yet our facilities are primitive and spotty.
• unknown, huge potential
• A living wage
• Don't discriminate against people with intellectual disabilities by paying sub-minimum wage.  It's human trafficking all dressed up.
• the right thing
• Creative use of CEDIFs
• We must allow people with disabilities to participate in the economic life of the province.  Problems such as affordable housing, transportation, and end of life care should be made better by encouraging savings and ownership.  CEDIFs may be the vehicle.

So 75 job placements, one less incarceration, support for a faltering taxi industry and a single form nets $164 million over ten years.  Just a drop in the bucket, but a seismic shift in approach.  People become investments, not burdens.  Government is an enabler, not a caretaker.  Individuals are independent and self-reliant.  That shift in priorities will benefit all Nova Scotians and lead to a more prosperous and equal province.

Gus Reed

Older is gooder

What is the lifetime cost to provincial government of a person?

Here is a stab at figuring that out for a Nova Scotia born and educated engineer.  My assumptions (using readily findable numbers) are:

Public School	12 yrs at	$15,000
Bachelor's Degree	5 years at	$9,000
health	birth	$11,000
	1-14 yrs at	$1,500
	15-64 yrs at	$2,700
	65+ at	$12,000
salary	start age 24	$50,000
	end age 64	$100,000
pension	80%, 3% COLA
NS income tax	15%

All in today's dollars and ignoring unknowables like HST,  Federal, and property taxes.

It's probably too simple, but you get the drift.  The province's investment is front end loaded and there is no return until the first job starts generating tax revenue.  Then there is gradual catch up and the province finally starts seeing returns at age 57.  After that, it's all gravy, even with high health care costs, and if our engineer has an average lifespan of 85 years, the province is $200,000 to the good.  I'd like to know what I'm missing.

It would be interesting to do this for others.

• A minimum wage worker
• A person receiving provincial supports

Ideas?

StatsCan't II

From the NS Accessibility Directorate

If you don't see the chart above, go to the webpage

Nova Scotia always comes out on top in the Canadian Survey on Disability.  In this 5 year survey, the target group is composed of all persons aged 15 and over (as of May 10th 2016, Census Day), and who reported having difficulty "Sometimes", "Often" or "Always" to one of the Activities of Daily Living questions on the 2016 Census of Population long form.

To  some of us, this is an opportunity unfolding.  Nova Scotia has an Accessibility Act which will ensure the complete integration of this large cohort into the life of the province.  Others won't see it that way.  You can almost hear the alarms going off:  "How can we possibly afford to support such a steep rise in the number who may not be able to work?"

This is an irrelevant argument, and forgets to account for all the economic and social benefits of increased access.  

Is there anything that will accurately reflect the dimensions of employment?  Here is a more detailed look at employment - a slightly different age group, settled in employment but from the same dataset:

According to StatsCan, the number of people with disabilities not in the workforce is less than the same number for those without disabilities.  It's a bigger proportion, but slightly smaller in absolute terms.

When those not in the workforce are eliminated for both groups, the unemployment percentage is very similar (10.9%, 6.8%):

In sum, people with disabilities are employed, pay taxes, go to restaurants when possible and are generally hard to distinguish from other Nova Scotians. 

BUT

The 'self-reported' angle got me wondering how this survey accounts for people with developmental disabilities.  It turns out that the survey uses one question to identify this category:

1. Has a doctor, psychologist or other health care professional ever said that you had a developmental disability or disorder? This may include Down syndrome, autism, Asperger syndrome, mental impairment due to lack of oxygen at birth, etc.

So does StatsCan call up residents of the Developmental “3” Group Home at CACL in Antigonish and ask this question?

Nope, StatsCan does not survey those living collectively and the survey, with dozens of questions in 45 categories is not geared to those with intellectual disabilities.

Persons living on a First Nations reserve were not included, nor were those living in collective dwellings, such as institutional residences...

This apparently includes many living in homes indirectly financed by Nova Scotia's Department of Community Services like DirectioNS member agencies and l'Arche.  Certainly many hundreds of our most vulnerable Nova Scotians. Adding them to the data might change profiles dramatically.

Although they are theoretically in programs to demonstrate the dignity of work (and they provide employment to staff and administrators), they aren't accorded the dignity of being counted as workers, and we know nothing about their demographics, health, education, work, or income.

Through DCS we spend a lot to help and support these folks.  A survey that doesn't account for such an important cohort is incomplete.  We need to know more, not less

Food Safety: The Road Ahead

Some have suggested that I have been too critical of the Department of Justice's press release about the course they will take in the decision by a Human Rights Board of Inquiry. Here is the order from the Board of Inquiry:

... that the Respondent interpret, administer and enforce the words "washroom facilities for the public available in a convenient location" in s.20(1) of the Food Safety Regulations as requiring those washroom facilities to be accessible to members of the public who use wheelchairs;

the press release from the Justice Department says:

"The province will not appeal the Sept. 6 decision of a human rights board of inquiry.

The Department of Environment was ordered to require restaurants to have accessible washrooms in order to comply with the food safety regulations, unless that requirement can be shown to cause undue hardship.

The province will fast track an action plan that will ensure the human rights decision is implemented in a timely fashion. This plan will be developed in collaboration with stakeholders, including the disability community and the restaurant industry."

The order does not mention "undue hardship", but directs the Department of the Environment to enforce a regulation in effect since 2005. It does not call for collaboration, a plan, or permit any delay.

In a press release, the plaintiffs (advised by their lawyer) anticipated that the Province's press release would outline a "wrongheaded and unacceptable response".

The decision not to appeal seems inevitable:

• The Board of Inquiry rejected every argument the Province made
• Defending the charge cost the province an estimated $80,000
• From beginning to end, the Human Rights process took over two years
• For this my fellow plaintiffs and I each were awarded $1000, (which is evidently not part of the fast track plan).

We are not the enemy of the restaurants, although their industry association has been pretty insulting. Their brief to the Board of Inquiry said:

"In our sector when we refer to the term “public” we are speaking about the general good for the largest number of people. This unfortunately does not include all people. There are many that we can’t serve for a variety of reasons, including certain disabilities"

The province makes twice as much in HST on every meal than restauranteurs do in profit. Three times if you count the Federal portion. Restauranteurs can make a compelling case for the province to pay for accessibility upgrades. since the province reaps a hefty reward.

There's a lengthy section about "undue hardship' in Council of Canadians with Disabilities v. Via Rail Canada Inc., 2007 SCC 15 (CanLII), issued on March 23, 2007 which includes this paragraph where the majority says:

The threshold of “undue hardship” is not mere efficiency. It goes without saying that in weighing the competing interests on a balance sheet, the costs of restructuring or retrofitting are financially calculable, while the benefits of eliminating discrimination tend not to be. What monetary value can be assigned to dignity, to be weighed against the measurable cost of an accessible environment? It will always seem demonstrably cheaper to maintain the status quo and not eliminate a discriminatory barrier.

I don't think the province or the restaurant industry, should venture down the "undue hardship" road. Equality and dignity clearly can be used to offset financial considerations. And, when a workplace is inaccessible, there is always the problem of people using wheelchairs facing discrimination in opportunities for employment.

Here is a fast track I could accept:

• Now - begin 2 year moratorium on enforcement
• April 2019 - no permits for patios without accessible washrooms
• June 2019 - financing agreement between province and restaurants
• October 2020 - end of moratorium on enforcement.

I learn from an article in The Star from Friday the 12th:

Gerry Post, executive director of the Accessibility Directorate, said while it’s difficult to put a timeline on getting something done, he wants to see action as soon as possible. “People talk that it will take until 2022, well that’s not the case,” Post said. “It may get a little complex to get to a resolution on this and to move forward, but I’m optimistic we can do it within the next year.”

"Within the year" is promising, and Post is as good as his word. He's already accomplished a great deal, so let's hope the Department of the Environment pays attention.

Gus Reed

Undue Hardship

In Nova Scotia, the single reference on the Human Rights webpage to "Undue Hardship" is in the context of employment:

Duty to Accommodate

Employers must not discriminate against employees based on protected characteristics, such as disability or gender. In fact, an employer has what is called a “duty to accommodate." This means they must do what is reasonable to allow a person to get, or keep, a job.

Accommodating a person may mean allowing shorter work hours, changing job duties, or providing equipment that will let a person continue to work. All employers must try to accommodate the needs of their employees up to the point of undue hardship. Where this point is depends on several things, including the size of the organization and the role of the employee within the organization. For example, the larger the organization, the greater is the ability to accommodate. Accommodation does not have to be perfect, but it should be reasonable.

Those of us on the receiving end of ''accommodation" are accustomed to hearing "undue hardship" used in the context of physical barriers.

• "We don't provide level access to our business because a ramp isn't feasible and a lift is too expensive"
• "Our doorways are 800mm wide and it would be an undue hardship to renovate them to 1000mm"
• "Our washroom is downstairs and it would cost a fortune to move it"

There's a lengthy section in in Council of Canadians with Disabilities v. Via Rail Canada Inc., 2007 SCC 15 (CanLII), released on March 23, 2007 which includes this interesting paragraph:

225 The threshold of “undue hardship” is not mere efficiency. It goes without saying that in weighing the competing interests on a balance sheet, the costs of restructuring or retrofitting are financially calculable, while the benefits of eliminating discrimination tend not to be. What monetary value can be assigned to dignity, to be weighed against the measurable cost of an accessible environment? It will always seem demonstrably cheaper to maintain the status quo and not eliminate a discriminatory barrier.

To me this introduces the important idea that it's not just the undue hardship of a business or process that counts, but also the undue hardship of the user or patron and the undue hardship of the community.  So instead of just:

The cost to accommodate is unreasonable.

it becomes

The cost to accommodate + the cost to the individual + the cost to the community is unreasonable.

As an example, consider situation of a newly-minted social worker who is deaf.  A complete accounting of "undue hardship" might start with the cost of having an ASL interpreter at meetings and some technology, but should include the fact that we all have quite an investment in her education and that we collectively stand to benefit from her employment.  So it the cost to accommodate is

ASL Interpreter + fancy voice recognition device

- what we spent on her education

- the benefit of having a social worker 

I would feel better if the new Accessibility Standards had this a a principle - that accommodation has benefits as well as costs.  They can be harder to quantify, but the effort must be made.

Buried in Paper

If you don't see images or tables, click the title to view in your browser.....

In Nova Scotia one of the most pernicious barriers for people with disabilities is simple paperwork.

Buried in the 121 pages of a manual of the Department of Community Services called Disability Support Program Policy is:

6.5 Medical Assessment

6.5.1 An applicant must provide a medical report from an attending physician or nurse practitioner who is familiar with them and their medical history when applying to the DSP. 

6.5.2 Applicants are responsible for any costs and fees associated with the medical assessment.  

I don't know how serious Community Services is about this requirement and whether they will sometimes pay the doctor's fee.  I do know that doctors charge for filling out the form and that the fee is not set.  Many walk-in clinics do not do forms, so if, like thousands of Nova Scotians, you don't have a family physician, you're outa luck.  People take these forms to the emergency room in hopes they can get them completed.

A quick search of likely places yields the following government services requiring a medical assessment form - all different.  The list is probably not exhaustive:

Level	Department	Form	Pages	Link
Provincial	DCS	DSP Medical	2	Form
Provincial	Service NS	Accessible Parking	1	Form
Federal	CRA	Tax Credit	6	Form
Municipal	HRM	Access-a-Bus	8	Form
Provincial	LAE	Student Loan Medical Assessment	8	Form
Provincial	Finance	Claim	1	Form
Federal	Service Canada	CPP Disability	4	Form

Imagine you are severely injured at work.  You wake up in the hospital and to get your life back in order you need to file pretty much all these forms.  If your doctor charges $100 a pop, that's a tidy sum.

Most people in low or no wage jobs don't have the $50 or $100 it would take to get the Tax Credit form filled out, so they can't access the Registered Disability Savings Plan.  That means they can't take advantage of the generous contributions from the Federal Government.  That means the province of Nova Scotia is short about $200 million in assets.  That's what you call shortsighted.

The good people at Independent Living Nova Scotia have a new program to encourage use of the Registered Disability Savings Plan.  To be fair, Community Services is sponsoring.  But of all the ways government might help, simplifying the forms industry is the easiest and most effective.

It's clear that a doctor had a hand in designing each of these forms.  They ask similar questions in slightly different ways.  

• Is there an important difference between the Primary Diagnosis box on the DCS form and the comprehensive checklist on the CRA form?  
• Does Access-a-Bus really need to know if you can walk 175 meters, or is it enough to know that a person meets the detailed definition of 'markedly restricted in walking' on the CRA form?

The Federal Tax Credit form is beyond the control of the province.  But it's useful, comprehensive and detailed, so why not accept it for all provincial purposes?

Administrative streamlining is not one of the many initiatives  in the Government of Nova Scotia's Accessibility Plan for 2018-2021 but it should be.

Want to help?  Click here to start this email to the Minister of Justice

Dear Minister Furey,
I am concerned that government requirements for many similar medical certificates is a real barrier to people with disabilities.  Please take action to simplify and rationalize this unnecessary bureaucratic hurdle.
Respectfully,

Feel free to edit and add your own comments.  Don't forget to sign!

Thanks!

Why Restaurants Fail

If you're viewing this in email and don't see tables or graphics, click on the title to view the page in your browser.

In a nutshell, restaurants in Canada exist on razor thin margins - around 4% according to the Globe and Mail.  80% of restaurants fail within 5 years, so it's fair to say that restauranteurs make lousy businesspeople.  As a result, owners are sensitive to regulation and often opposed to upgrading washrooms to meet public health requirements.

Witness the recent Human Rights Board of Inquiry, where the Restaurant Association of Nova Scotia (RANS) made their best case for driving away customers.  RANS said in their memo in support of the province's curious position that public health protection doesn't extend to people who use wheelchairs:

"In our sector when we refer to the term “public” we are speaking about the general good for the largest number of people. This unfortunately does not include all people. There are many that we can’t serve for a variety of reasons, including certain disabilities"

Just to demonstrate that both restauranteurs and the province have a great capacity to act against their own interest, here's a little exercise.  I added up the cost of the 770 day Human Rights extravaganza:



*from https://ivyglobal.ca/lsat/law_salaries.asp
otherwise actual salary + 30% overhead

I suspect I am way conservative in my estimates, like omitting facilities and stenography charges.  So the whole Human Rights process cost at least $82,511.  How shall we think of that?

First, that it was a waste of taxpayer money.  A government that is in thrall to business isn't motivated to look for creative solutions and, above all, won't rock the boat. "We'll be driven out of business!", says RANS, and that's all government hears.  (Just by the way, government makes about twice the amount as restaurant owners on each meal.)

Instead of throwing $82,511 down the nearest inaccessible toilet, government could simply have given RANS the $82,511 - that would buy a few washrooms.  Or they could have given the complainants $82,511 instead of $5,000.  That sounds fair......

But there are lots of alternatives: tax rebates, differential assessments.  The one I like best is forgivable subsidized loans.

Suppose an inaccessible restaurant is offered a 5 year $25,000 loan at 0% interest to be used for accessibility.  A bank provides the capital and the province guarantees the interest.

• The monthly payment would be $417
• That is the profit on 209 $50 meals.  7 meals per day.
• The cost to the province is $4701 total for 5 years or $78/month.
• The number of such loans covered by the cost of the Board of Inquiry is 88.

Look no further than today's Washington Post for evidence of why a restaurant might want a shiny new bathroom on the main floor.

In the optimum case, the restaurant has at least 7 more patrons a day to pay the $417 loan.  $350 in sales makes $35 in provincial HST. or $1,043/month .

WAIT! you say, so the province is actually making money on this deal - $1,043 HST income and just $78 loan interest - a 1,235% profit!  Not bad.



For the cost of the doomed human rights inquiry, the province could have subsidized 88 loans and made a tidy profit.  $984 a month for 5 years is $59,040

Or government could say to RANS "We'll loan restaurants up to $25,000 and just forgive the whole amount if your increased business generates enough HST to cover the cost of borrowing"

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When to forgive the Loan
New business required over 5 years	in $50 meal increments	per day
$297,010	5,940	4
$356,420	7,128	5
$415,830	8,317	6
$475,220	9,504	6
$534,630	10,693	7
$594,030	11,881	8

Government has the HST data from previous years.  If a restaurant shows enough increase in receipts to cover the province's cost of borrowing, the loan is forgiven.  In such a scheme, everyone wins.  Customers get convenient washrooms, the restaurant gets more customers and the province gets future revenue.  Most importantly, the province gets to obey its own rules.

It is typical of the of the provincial authorities not to exercise any creative economic thinking.  Accessibility calls for new approaches and less whining!