AODA Alliance
Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance Update
United for a Barrier-Free Ontario for All People with Disabilities
Website: www.aodaalliance.org
Email: aodafeedback@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aodaalliance
Twitter: @aodaalliance
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/aodaalliance
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AODA Alliance Calls on the Ford Government to at Long Last Strengthen the ‘Ontario Building Codes Grossly Inadequate Accessibility Requirements
August 19, 2026
SUMMARY
When builders, architects and others want to know what legal requirements they must fulfill when designing a new building in Ontario, they instantly think of the Ontario Building Code. That may be the only law they think of, when it comes to accessible design requirements for people with disabilities
Yet the Ontario Building Code is not the final legal word on the topic. Unbeknownst by too many of those designing buildings, there is also the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, the Ontario Human Rights Code and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In fact, a building that is designed to fully comply with the Ontario Building Code risks being full of disability barriers, because the Ontario Building Code’s accessibility provisions are terribly inadequate. An organization cannot excuse a violation of those other stronger laws on the ground that the building complies with the feeble Ontario Building Code.
We have been advocating for decades for this legal mess to be fixed! Successive Ontario Governments have given these concerns short shrift. The current Ontario Government of Premier Doug Ford is just the most recent one to fail to fix this situation.
As happens every few years, the Ontario Government is now holding a public consultation on the Ontario Building Code. On August 14, 2026, the AODA Alliance submitted a brief to that Review. You can read our brief on the AODA Alliance website. It resubmits the comprehensive September 13, 2024 AODA Alliance brief to the Government-appointed Design of Public Spaces Standards Development Committee.
To illustrate how long we have been pressing for reforms in this area, we also resubmitted the February 27, 2002 Ontarians with Disabilities Act Committee brief to the Ontario Government on the same subject. The Ontarians with Disabilities Act Committee was the AODA Alliances predecessor coalition.
For a most recent illustration of how the Ontario Government has failed to ensure an accessible built environment, contrary to the very purposes of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, take 5 minutes to watch the ‘AODA Alliances “Stupidest Ramp in the World” video that has garnered so much attention!
How You Can Help
- Email the Ontario Government at advisorybody@ontario.ca to tell them that you support the August 14, 2026 AODA Alliance brief to the Government’s review of the Ontario Building Code.
- Get others to learn more about the AODA Alliance’s advocacy for an accessible built environment by posting a link on social media to the AODA Alliance website’s built environment page.