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Americas

Ottawa

Big bottoms: Two Canadian airlines announced this week that they would allow obese people to purchase two seats for the price of one, but only with a doctor’s note. The Supreme Court of Canada recently ruled that the obese have to be treated equally by airlines. But Air Canada and WestJet say they shouldn’t be required to give out extra seats to fat people who are merely uncomfortable in a single seat but are not truly “disabled.” So they have devised a form that asks doctors to measure a potential passenger’s posterior. Obesity activists say the requirement is degrading, while the Canadian Medical Association says it “shows a disregard for the use of scarce medical resources.”

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