The Executive Director of the Coalition of Persons with Disabilities is bringing to light difficulties she recently encountered accessing the Public Gallery in the people’s house, the House of Assembly.

Nancy Reid received an invitation to attend the budget speech in the Public Gallery earlier this month but was surprised to learn when she arrived that there was no space in the gallery for a wheelchair.

Instead, she was offered a space at the far end of the gallery, separated from others— and she calls that unacceptable. She sent a letter to government last week outlining her concerns.

She refused to sit there, segregated from her peers. “I won’t accept that as an accommodation,” she told VOCM Open Line with Paddy Daly.