Despite ambitious accessibility law, N.S. acknowledges it will not be barrier-free by 2030

Victoria Levack remembers how she felt the day Nova Scotia passed the Accessibility Act seven years ago: hopeful. 

"I thought, oh good, they'll finally do something," she said in a recent interview about the provincial legislation designed to remove barriers by 2030 for people with disabilities.

"It'll be slow, because government's always slow, but this means they'll actually do stuff," she said.  

Now, CBC News has learned the province of Nova Scotia intends to have standards and enforcement in place by 2030, but acknowledges it will not meet its goal to be barrier-free. 

It's a major shift in the messaging from the province, which until recently has often used language about its "commitment to create an accessible province for persons with disabilities by 2030." 

Levack is a disability rights advocate who uses a wheelchair. Her feelings about the progress toward 2030 have changed over the years. 

To Levack, it feels like the province has moved the goalposts. 

"They realized they're not going to reach the goal that they set in 2017," she said Thursday. 

"Instead of saying, 'Oh, we didn't reach our goal,' which sounds bad and like breaking a promise, they've chosen to move that goal so they can actually accomplish it."

The province's commitment comes from the Accessibility Act, a law passed in 2017 with support from all three major parties. Then justice minister Diana Whalen told the legislature the 2030 date was added to strengthen the bill. 

"That is only, believe it or not, just 13 years away," Whalen said, adding the law intentionally used the word "achieve." 

"We want to achieve the goals, not just approach them," Whalen said. "We've used that stronger word 'achieve,' rather than the aspirational 'improve.'" 

The province laid out a plan called Access by Design 2030, which identified six areas for new "standards." The province's accessibility website lists these as: 

The standards will be written with input from people with disabilities, and will provide rules against which people or organizations can be measured for compliance.