Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2021

Publication Title

Supreme Court Law Review (2d)

Volume

103

First Page

197

Keywords

disability, social justice, perceived limitations

Last Page

249

Abstract

Disability occupies a complex position in social justice politics and discourse. It is widely understood as a locus of inequality. Yet ableist language and norms are often subject to more lenient treatment due to the unique challenge they pose to the liberal order—specifically, due to the ways in which our theoretical aspirations for equality are tested by those who are constructed as genuinely unequal (under ableist standards) or those for whom inclusion comes at too great a cost (under ableist priorities).

This is a chapter about those “perceived limitations”—specifically, about how the enshrining of disability rights has not fundamentally altered the posture of pity our society holds towards disabled people,3 nor has it translated into meaningful inclusion of people with mental disabilities under Canadian law.4 These two sites of disability discourse—law and society—are co-constitutive, which Justice Gascon’s story and jurisprudence highlight.

Justice Gascon has two disability justice legacies at the Supreme Court of Canada. One legacy is embodied in his personal narrative of disability. Another legacy is jurisprudential and seen in his legal reasoning. Those two legacies are discussed separately, but politically imbricated. Specifically, Justice Gascon’s disability narrative pertains to societal attitudes on disability. And those attitudes are, in turn, reified through law by jurists who subscribe to them.

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