Yesterday, a friend came to visit. We were talking casually when she mentioned a neighbor.
A man with a French name.
A man with a mental disability.
A man who represented himself.
A man who won a landmark case against the University of Waterloo.
She said his name.
Roch Longueépée.
And instantly, I remembered.
I had read his story years ago. In the paper.
What are the odds?
đ§ Not a Legend. Not an Insider. Just Someone Who Refused to Disappear.
Roch LongueĂ©pĂ©e wasnât a lawyer.
He wasnât backed by an advocacy group.
He wasnât polished, strategic, or institutionally fluent.
He was a disabled person who reached a point where the system told him – explicitly or implicitly – that he didnât belong.
And instead of accepting that verdict, he challenged it.
Thatâs how landmark cases are actually born.
Not from power- but from proximity to harm.
âïž The Pattern the System Pretends Not to See
Disabled litigants who represent themselves are rarely treated as credible while their cases are unfolding.
They are:
- Characterized as difficult
- Reduced to tone and demeanor
- Framed as emotional rather than factual
- Quietly expected to give up
Only after they win does the narrative change.
Then suddenly:
- The case is âimportantâ
- The reasoning is âclarifyingâ
- The litigant is âremarkableâ
But during the fight?
They are treated as noise.
Roch Longueépée forced the courts to say, clearly and on the record, that institutions cannot sidestep their duty to accommodate by hiding behind rigid processes.
That didnât happen because the system was generous.
It happened because someone ordinary was relentless.
đȘ Why This Story Hit So Close to Home
Hearing his name didnât feel inspirational in a glossy way.
It felt grounding.
Because it confirmed something Iâve come to understand deeply:
Change is rarely driven by professionals. Itâs driven by people who cannot afford to let the injustice stand.
People who donât have the option of walking away.
People whose lives are shaped by the consequences of decisions made in boardrooms and courtrooms they were never meant to enter.
đ± How Difference Is Actually Made
Roch LongueĂ©pĂ©e didnât just win his appeal.
He widened the path -quietly, precisely – for those who would come after him.
For other disabled people.
For other self-represented litigants.
For other âordinaryâ individuals told, politely or not, that the system isnât built for them.
So yes- he had a French name.
And an ordinary life.
And the resolve to keep going when stopping would have been easier.
And sometimes, years later, his story resurfaces – through a friend, over a casual conversation – just to remind me:
This is how the law moves forward.
Not loudly.
Not comfortably.
But because ordinary people refuse to disappear.
Life isnât just noise. Patterns emerge when youâre standing in the same current.
What actually happened is simpler and more unsettling:
I brushed up against the same fault line.
People like Roch LongueĂ©pĂ©e donât appear often, but they appear where systems overreach and underestimate. When youâre fighting in that same space, their stories surface – not as omens, not as destiny, but as confirmation.
Itâs not fate.
Itâs alignment.
The odds arenât that I heard the story.
The odds are that I am the kind of person who would recognize why it matters.
Thatâs the part institutions never calculate.
