B.C. discriminates against disabled hunters: tribunal

VANCOUVER — The B.C. Environment Ministry discriminates against handicapped hunters by not allowing them to have a designated "hunting companion" with them in their vehicles, the BC Human Rights Tribunal ruled Monday.

The ruling followed a complaint by Larry Hall, who has been hunting for 55 years. Hall has Guillian-Barre Syndrome, a disease that causes nerve damage, leaving him able to walk only short distances.

The southern B.C. hunter filed his first complaint in November 2004, and another in 2007 on behalf of the Canadian Outdoor Disabled Alliance.

Hall — one of the 100 or so hunters who is eligible for the disabled hunter special access permit — said the regulation discriminated against disabled hunters because it does not allow them to bring companions along in their vehicles to track and kill wounded animals.

Disabled hunters are only allowed to carry "non-hunting" companions in their vehicles and these people were not permitted to kill wounded animals. A non-hunting companion could only be used to retrieve killed game.

Hall said the regulation put him in a "Catch-22" in that if he shoots an animal, but due to his disability he's unable to kill it, he contravenes section 35 of the Wildlife Act.

In a complex 75-page decision, tribunal member Judy Parrack found the ministry had contravened the Human Rights Code by failing to consider fully "the impact that the absence of a hunting companion would have on Mr. Hall and when it failed to take reasonable steps to accommodate Mr. Hall and other disabled hunters in the Kootenay Region."