Outlook 2022-01-17 - Discrimination In Shared Accommodations, A Call to Action with Ben Fulton

He was our final live, in-studio interview in February of 2020, right before the whole world changed with this pandemic. We had him on to discuss the guide dog discrimination he’d experienced at a gas station in western Canada while on a road trip to celebrate becoming qualified as a lawyer. Ben Fulton is back with us on Outlook, at the start of 2022, to discuss the human rights case he’s bringing to the Ontario Human Rights Commission on the grounds that he was discriminated against, while looking for student shared accommodations, after showing up to meet landlords. Once they saw his white cane or learned he is blind, suddenly their rooms were no longer available or they were worried it would be a liability to rent the room to a blind person outright. We, as blind people, are constantly having to prove we are not liabilities, that we don’t all constantly fall down stairs. There is currently a housing affordability crisis in Canada and minorities, students, they are the most vulnerable in such situations. This stuff happens far too often and though Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects minority groups such as those with disabilities, some landlords have found a loophole when it comes to shared housing accommodations where a kitchen and other facilities are being shared. Ben is working with the Canadian Federation of the Blind (CFB) to put out a call to action, to collect the stories from anyone who has been discriminated against, from any marginalized group whether that’s disabilities like blindness or race, religion, gender, etc. Fulton is a lawyer who specializes in human rights (a key part of what we advocate for on this podcast). He works with clients, in criminal and civil cases, to deal with minor offences which have baring on both jobs and travel. He works on alternative justice instead of the out-of-date punitive model and, with his own situation, he’s fighting for legislation change for greater access for all. So tune in to hear his story, to learn from a qualified legal expert what the