P.E.I. government challenges discrimination ruling

The P.E.I. government has filed for a judicial review of a recent Human Rights Commission finding that the province discriminatedagainst a womanwith mental illness.

Last month, a human rights panel ruled in favour of a mother who argued the province discriminated against her 24-year-old daughter, who has schizophrenia, by denying her access to the Disability Support Program.

• P.E.I. Human Rights Commission rules province discriminates against Islanders with mental illness

The human rights panel ordered the province to stop excluding those with mental illness from the program.

Premier Wade MacLauchlan, who is also the province's attorney general, said the jurisdiction of the commission has to be clarified.

"This is not fighting against disability support and, as members will know, we have a commitment to expand our disability support program," he said.

"In this case, it is really to clarify an important precedent involved in this case when you have the human rights commission in effect overturning government policy and it's very important to know and to clarify exactly what the implications are of that precedent."

Opposition MLA Sidney MacEwen questioned whether the judicial review was just the government trying to avoid paying that support.

"We recognize and accept that some developmental conditions are disabling," MacEwen said. "A person with challenge or disabled mental health should be no different than any other person with an accessibility issue. That's what this is, an accessibility issue."

The Disability Support Program is worth $13 million in the current budget, but that could increase significantly if government expands the programs to include people with mental illness.

The Human Rights Commission ruling is now on hold until the judicial review winds through the courts. The case has already been three years getting through the Human Rights Commission.

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