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Amy Jane Brown, or A.J. as she prefers to be called, is an accomplished artist, once a teenage ballerina, an advocate and a poster girl for the amazing abilities of those members of the community we categorize as “people with disabilities.”

That categorization is just a self-serving way of soft-soaping discrimination by providing an identifying label — although A.J. defies labels.

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A.J. was born in Vancouver 50 years ago. She lives with the consequences of a birth accident which rendered her deaf. She has cerebral palsy, a condition which has left her progressively more fatigued. She lives with the lingering after-effects of recurring surgeries to correct an idiopathic scoliosis, which is a lateral curvature of the spine.

These differences, she says, mean she’s treated differently by the very people who profess to want to treat her like every other citizen.

In spite of astonishing accomplishments, she subsists on a tiny income that’s made even smaller by provincial government clawbacks of federal benefits. The benefits are supposed to make life easier for people coping with disabilities that ensure little prospect they will ever enjoy incomes most of us take for granted.