Disability Advocates Call on Ford Government to Scrap or Amend Bill 101, But Will the Ford Government Let Them Speak at Next Monday’s Hearings on the Bill?

Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance

NEWS RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

 

Disability Advocates Call on Ford Government to Scrap or Amend Bill 101, But Will the Ford Government Let Them Speak at Next Monday’s Hearings on the Bill?

 

  • April 23, 2026 Toronto: The non-partisan AODA Alliance calls for the Ford Government’s Bill 101 to be withdrawn or amended. Bill 101 is called the “Putting Student Achievement First Act,” but it promises nothing good for students, according to a comprehensive brief just filed with the Legislature’s Standing Committee on Social Policy. The brief is available online. A summary of its damning findings and eight constructive recommendations is set out below.
  • “Bill 101 creates no new rights, educational programs, services or supports for students. It will make things worse for chronically disadvantaged and vulnerable students with disabilities,” said AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky. “It creates the biggest injection of enormous burdensome new red tape and bureaucracy into the school system in generations, draining money from classrooms.”
  • To raise the serious concerns of parents of students with disabilities, the AODA Alliance, the Ontario Autism Coalition, and the Ontario Parents for Education Support will hold a news conference in the Queen’s Park Media Studio at 9:30 AM this Monday, April 27, 2026. The news conference will take place just before the Legislature’s Standing Committee on Social Policy holds its only day of public hearings on Bill 101 that the Ford Government will allow. All three community groups applied to appear before the Standing Committee. They don’t know if the Ford Government will let them give evidence at those hearings.
  • Much of the media coverage of Bill 101 has understandably focused on the reactions to the bill from school board trustees. However, the impact of this bill on over 300,000 students with disabilities across Ontario and their parents is equally important information for the public to receive.
  • A disturbing glimpse into what’s in store for these students if the Ford Government largely takes over micromanagement of classrooms across this province can be obtained by watching the online video of the April 13, 2026 Public Forum for parents of students with disabilities/special education needs that the TDSB Special Education Advisory Committee (SEAC) held. AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky also chairs TDSB’s SEAC. For almost three hours, parent after parent gave gut-wrenching stories of hardships facing their children at school. TDSB has been under provincial supervision since the end of last June.

Contact: David Lepofsky aodafeedback@gmail.com

Summary of Findings and Recommendations in the April 23, 2026 AODA Alliance Brief on Bill 101 to the Ontario Legislature’s Standing Committee on Social Policy

We summarize our concerns with Bill 101 as follows:

 

  • Despite its name, this bill has nothing to do with student achievement
  • Bill 101 doesn’t help vulnerable students with disabilities but instead makes things worse for them
  • Bill 101 is a massive unnecessary and counterproductive provincial power grab creating costly red tape but with no plan of action
  • Bill 101 creates enormous burdensome new red tape and bureaucracy, draining money from classrooms
  • The Ford government announced no public and comprehensive plan of action for all of the bill’s many new provincial powers
  • Bill 101 doesn’t spell out what powers are left for elected trustees to exercise
  • Bill 101 reduces much-needed local democratic oversight of unelected senior school board officials
  • Bill 101 lacks proper safeguards to limit sweeping powers it gives the education minister and cabinet
  • Bill 101 seriously reduces assistance to parents of students who have unresolved problems with school officials
  • Bill 101 makes it less likely that people would want to run for the position of trustee
  • Bill 101 creates harmful secrecy around school budgets
  • The minister’s plan for student absenteeism under the bill ignores needs of students with disabilities
  • Bill 101 improperly targets the Ontario public school boards association, seemingly attempting to silence criticism of some provincial policies
  • Bill 101 and the government’s failure to properly consult the public on it is a slap in the face for parents, including parents of students with disabilities

 

We propose amendments to the bill to:

 

  • Specify that the bill does not go into effect (except regarding the duty to enact the promised education accessibility standard under the accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act) at least until 2030, and only after the auditor general has released a public costing of the bill and after the government has released draft regulations, guidelines, directions and orders needed to enable school boards to prepare for it.
  • List in clear and detailed terms the powers of school board trustees.
  • Require all new school construction to be accessible to people with disabilities, beyond the inadequate requirements of the Ontario Building Code.
  • Require the education minister to consult the public and key education stakeholders when developing any regulations guidelines, orders or directions provided for in the bill.
  • Require that before the government makes or amends any regulation, policy, guideline, direction or orders under the bill, it must publicly post a draft of it for public input.
  • Require that no regulation, guideline, order, policy or other direction under this bill may create or perpetuate disability barriers against students with disabilities.
  • Set clear benchmarks for deciding when any of the eight school boards now under provincial supervision is restored to local democratic self-government.
  • Require the restoration of those eight school boards to local democratic self-government by November 15, 2026 unless the minister orders no later than September 1, 2026 that a school board is to remain under provincial supervision.
  • Prescribe clear grounds for ordering that a school board remain under provincial supervision after November 15, 2026.
  • Not limit the power of any person to apply to the divisional court of Ontario for judicial review of a minister’s order stopping the restoration of local democratic governance of a school board now under provincial supervision.
  • Require that the government enact an education accessibility standard under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act by November 1, 2026 taking into account the recommendations it received in 2022 from the government-appointed K-12 education standards development committee.