Welcome
What's New in Our Campaign for the Strong, Effective Implementation of the AODA
Learn About the 2007 Ontario Election's Disability Accessibility Issues
Ontario Human rights Reform - A call to Action
A new organization is being established to coincide with the winding up of the Ontarians with Disabilities Act Committee. Upon learning of David Lepofsky's intention to announce that the ODA Committee would formally cease to exist on August 31, 2005, and that he personally would bow out of his leadership role at that time, a transitional working group has been meeting over the summer to develop plans for a successor organization. The group decided that it would be called the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance, or AODA Alliance for short.
The role of the AODA Alliance will be quite different from that of the ODA Committee. The ODA Committee was focussed on getting strong and effective legislation. The AODA Alliance will concentrate its efforts on ensuring that the statute that has now been passed into law will be clearly understood by the disability community, and that citizens who care about the removal of barriers are encouraged to participate in the standards development process.
It will, of course, also have a role in communicating with the government, both at the political and the staff level, to make sure the legislation is implemented in ways that will bring about the changes that it was intended for.
The transitional working group is being co-chaired by Kelly Duffin, President and CEO of The Canadian Hearing Society, and Orville Endicott, Legal Counsel for Community Living Ontario. Other participants represent a range of other disability related organizations. Additional planning meetings are scheduled for September and October, with a target of having the AODA Alliance fully established by the beginning of November. Two subcommittees will meet more frequently in the interim. One is developing plans for creating new websites - one as an ODA Committee historical archive, and another for the new AODA Alliance. Another subcommittee will put together proposals for defining membership, structure and leadership for the new organization.
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Join the AODA Alliance email update list
Join the AODA Alliance's email update list and learn more about our campaign for a barrier-free Ontario for all persons with disabilities. If you want to get regular email updates, send a request to be added to our distribution list to:
We won't add a person unless the request comes directly from the person asking to be added to our distribution list. Also, we are not able to respond to any inquiries sent to that email address. Because we are volunteers, our time is unfortunately very limited. Updates are emailed from time to time, at no fixed interval!
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