I am grateful that the handicap license plate on our car allows us to park in those reserved spots that are usually (although not always) closer to the door.
The number of such parking spaces is directly proportional to the size of the establishment -- a small restaurant might have two, whereas a large discount department store might have ten times that many. At peak times of the day, we often cannot find an unoccupied handicap spot, something that is especially true at grocery stores on weekends and at restaurants around lunch or supper time any day of the week.
Our recent trip to New England took us through Ontario and Quebec to Maine. Wherever we went in Canada, we found the usual number of handicap parking places when we wanted to stop, but not once did we find all of them occupied. Often, in fact, there were no cars at all parked in those reserved spaces.
I doubt there are, per capita, fewer disabled Canadians than Americans, so only two possible explanations for this phenomenon come to mind: either handicapped Canadians don't go out much, or it is harder to get a handicap parking permit in Canada than it is here.
Although, they are a hardy lot, those Canucks.
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