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In January of this year, the Canadian Transportation Agency ruled that travellers with disabilities who need assistance with the tasks of daily living, such as eating and using a toilet, should be provided with a seat for an attendant at no extra charge.

The CTA also ruled that people who are morbidly obese and do not fit into a single seat should get a second seat at no extra charge.

The "one person, one fare" policy sparked a huge polemic.

Air Canada and WestJet challenged the aspect of the ruling related to the obese, but their appeal was rejected without comment late last month by the Supreme Court of Canada.

Well, here's a comment: The CTA policy is eminently reasonable and long overdue.

As a matter of principle (one enunciated in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and various other pieces of human rights legislation), people with severe disabilities should be accommodated.

The Supreme Court made that clear last year when it ruled that airlines, railways, bus companies and ferries must provide "accessible transportation" to the public under the terms of the Canada Transportation Act, and that failure to do so is a violation of human rights.

The Federal Court of Canada, for its part, ruled in 2007 that a person too obese to fit into a single airline seat should be classified as "disabled for the purposes of air travel."

The CTA ruling simply put into practice these rulings from the courts.

It doesn't matter if a disability is caused by a shattered spinal cord that leaves limbs paralyzed or by a metabolic disorder that leaves a person disabled by excess weight.

Yet the public discussion surrounding this issue has been nasty.

Newspaper editorials, columnists and letter writers had a field day, denouncing a policy of "robbing the slim to pay the portly," mocking the notion of special treatment for the "extra-wide," decrying "free seats for fatties" and suggesting, with faux compassion, that the ruling undermines the case for people with "real disabilities."

The underlying premise in all these attacks is that obesity is not a real illness, but the result of laziness, slothfulness and gluttony.

A person does not become disabled by obesity - meaning they may weigh 400 or 500 pounds or more - because they couldn't be bothered to hop on the treadmill, or because they're too weak-willed to push away from the table. There are invariably underlying genetic, medical and mental-health conditions that contribute to weight gain.

Regardless, since when did we begin to afford human-rights protection based on some moral litmus test?

If we are going to deny accessible transport to those who are morbidly obese, should we ensure that the quadriplegic boarding the plane with his attendant did not break his neck while driving impaired? Should we refuse to let a person with a portable oxygen tank board the bus if she was once a three-pack-a-day smoker? Or turn away a guide dog from the ferry because the person holding the leash is a diabetic who was unable to control his blood glucose levels owing to a drinking problem?

In the responses to the CTA and Supreme Court rulings, another oft-cited complaint was the cost of accommodation. Respecting the ruling will cost Air Canada an estimated $7.1-million in forgone fares on revenues of $8.1-billion, and WestJet $1.5-million on revenues of $1.4-billion.

This "onerous" cost is less than 1 per cent of revenues but, regardless, since when do we put a price tag on principles?

It's not enough to simply pay lip service to the notions of equality. By requiring people with severe disabilities - physical, mental or developmental - to pay for extra seats for attendants (and, in the case of the morbidly obese, themselves), the airlines were essentially taxing disability.

It was an offensive and untenable policy, one that existed for as long as it did because so many people with significant disabilities live a life of poverty and isolation, and have little political sway.

The final hurdle in implementing the "one person, one seat" policy is determining what criteria to apply. This is a bit of a thorny issue, but not an excuse for delaying implementation.

People with a disability cannot choose to travel with an attendant merely out of convenience; they must have a demonstrable need and a form filled out by a doctor. Similarly, an obese person must demonstrate that they are disabled by their size. Requiring a physician's note may be a reasonable criterion, but in most cases it is patently obvious when a person is too large for a single airline seat and hence disabled by obesity.

To suggest that people with disabilities - and those with disabling obesity in particular - are somehow getting a free ride in our society is laughable.

More than anything else, the current debate has revealed how little progress we have made in truly integrating people with disabilities into mainstream Canadian life, and how the obese are one of the last visible minorities in society that can be mocked and defamed with virtual impunity.