‘I believe any person who has a just cause, irrespective of their bank account, should be able to hold the government accountable’
RICHMOND HILL, Ont. — In small claims court, where cases supposedly matter the least, Dorsa Zarrabian sent a security officer into a tizzy on a recent morning by opening a yogurt cup. As if she were defiling the portrait of the Queen rather than sneaking a missed breakfast, the officer rushed in and scolded her.
This all started in 2014 when Zarrabian, her husband and their child were eyeing the purchase of a mid-century house in a subdivision just north of Toronto. She again wondered how safe her house was and tested some of her paint. The paint on her kitchen windowsill revealed a level of 9,600 parts per million . The Canadian government limits the allowable amount of lead in house paint to just 90 ppm. She then sent more samples for testing. The paint in her kitchen cabinets was 1,400 ppm, above the 1,000 ppm considered hazardous waste.
She cobbled together paperwork alleging psychological and physical pain and suffering and economic loss. She would have preferred to have a lawyer argue the case on a bigger stage, maybe a class-action suit, but representing herself in small claims court was all she could manage, she said. In a letter to Zarrabian dated Oct. 24, 2018, Marcia Banfield, a paralegal with the Department of Justice, said the Attorney General’s position was that Zarrabian’s claim was “without merit.”“We will seek costs against you if you refuse to discontinue,” Banfield wrote, “you may be ordered to pay costs upwards of $1,500.”“It is precisely for the reasons stated in the government’s defense that Health Canada employees felt no legal duty to update their webpage on lead paint,” she wrote back.
“It is my firm belief, very firm belief, that the health of the people is the supreme law and that — if I may finish — I believe any person who has a just cause, irrespective of their bank account, should be able to hold the government accountable.
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