Lee Fairclough is First Ontario Liberal Leadership Candidate to Make Commitments on accessibility for 2.9 Million Ontarians with Disabilities

ACCESSIBILITY FOR ONTARIANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT ALLIANCE

NEWS RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

 

Lee Fairclough is First Ontario Liberal Leadership Candidate to Make Commitments on accessibility for 2.9 Million Ontarians with Disabilities

 

November 4, 2026 Toronto: Ontario Liberal Party leadership candidate Lee Fairclough is the first to positively respond to the AODA Alliances request for commitments to effectively implement the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act. Her October 30, 2026 letter to the AODA Alliance is set out below which includes her commitments to lead Ontario to become accessible to 2.9 million Ontarians with disabilities.

 

On September 2, 2026, the AODA Alliance wrote the candidates for leadership of the Ontario Liberal party. Candidates were asked to make 13 specific commitments to lead Ontario to become accessible for people with disabilities, including to:

 

  • Meet with and work together with the AODA Alliance.
  • Make removing and preventing disability barriers a priority.
  • Make written election commitments in Ontario elections on disability accessibility.
  • Maintain and not weaken the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act and its implementation.
  • Show strong new leadership on accessibility and revitalize the AODA’s implementation.
  • Include directions on disability accessibility in their mandate letters to their cabinet ministers.
  • Create a comprehensive multi-year action plan to get Ontario to the AODA’s required goal of an accessible province.
  • Enact an effective Education Accessibility Standard and Health Care Accessibility Standard under the AODA.
  • Reform Ontario’s education system to remove disability barriers facing students with disabilities and reform the funding formula for educating students with disabilities.
  • Not use public money to create or perpetuate barriers against people with disabilities.
  • Tear down disability barriers in provincial and municipal elections and
  • Reform the delayed and dysfunctional process for bringing a discrimination claim under the Ontario Human Rights Code.

 

The AODA Alliance will press the other three leadership candidates for commitments, Stephanie Bowman, Navdeep Bains and Dylan Marando. As a non-partisan grass roots coalition, we will not endorse, support or oppose any candidate. Our non-partisan goal is to get strong commitments from all leadership candidates, whatever be their party.

 

Between November 9 and 20, 2026, members of the Ontario Liberal Party will vote for their party’s next leader. The winner will be announced on November 21, 2026.

 

The AODA Alliance has done this in the last three races for leadership of the Ontario Liberal Party, and in the last two leadership races within Ontario’s Progressive Conservative Party. In the last Liberal races, most if not all candidates made accessibility commitments. In the last two Tory leadership races, none of the candidates made any accessibility pledges.

 

 

Contact: AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky, aodafeedback@gmail.com

Twitter: @aodaalliance

 

October 30, 2026 Letter from Ontario Liberal Party Leadership Candidate Lee Fairclough to the AODA Alliance

 

Reply to Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance

 

To: David Lepofsky: Chair, AODA Alliance

 

Dear Mr. Lepofsky,

 

It is a pleasure to provide this response through you to the members of the AODA Alliance. I hope this is the first of many times we will connect and discuss these issues together. As Liberal Leader, and Premier, I am going to need AODA members to support me to lead a party and a government that doesn’t just say the right things and check the right boxes, but that implements meaningful change that makes Ontario accessible. I can’t do it alone – but I can fight, and I can take your guidance and your pressure as fuel.

 

The responses below are deliberately succinct. I could expand upon a range of policies to which I have committed as Liberal Leadership contestant (these policies can be found at https://www.leefairclough.ca/policy). I could rail against the many failures, scandals and disappointments of Doug Ford’s government. I could also embrace platitudes and value statements that say all the right things but offer no concrete assurances or commitments. I wanted to provide you and AODA Alliance members with clarity and directness.

 

I believe Doug Ford’s government has failed Ontarians in many ways, on many policies. He is failing Ontarians living with disabilities. If I have the honour of becoming Premier of Ontario, and Leader of the Ontario Liberal Party, I want to work with Ontarians living with disabilities.

 

As someone who worked in health care for 27 years before I was elected, I have seen directly why accessibility in our public institutions matters.

 

Thank you for the opportunity to provide these replies to you and to get on the record about where I stand. I look forward to working with you and your members to make Ontario inclusive and accessible.

 

Sincerely,

 

Lee Fairclough

 

 

 

  1. We welcomed face-to-face meetings with Premiers Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne to discuss accessibility issues (in addition to face-to-face meetings with different cabinet ministers, successive Secretaries of Cabinet, and other senior government officials). We regret that Premier Ford has never agreed to meet with us. His Accessibility Minister has not met with us in years. If you become your Party’s leader, will you maintain your party’s past practice of personally meeting with us to discuss accessibility issues, in addition to our meetings with your appropriate caucus members? As part of this, will you meet with us within 90 days of becoming your party’s leader, so that we can brief you on these issues? If your Party is elected to form the Government, will you as Premier agree to periodically meet with us, in addition to our meeting with appropriate cabinet ministers?

 

Yes, I will.

  1. Under your leadership, will your Party make it a priority to press the current Government to keep its commitments and fulfil its duties on accessibility for Ontarians with disabilities?

Yes. I have already been doing this as an MPP. The first issue that I raised after being sworn in was sending a letter to the Minister of Transportation about the lack of accessibility at Mimico GO station. It is appalling that if someone arrives at that station in a wheelchair, they can’t get down from the platform. I have raised it several times in the legislature, I have worked with the community to table petitions and champion the issue. As leader, you will see the same level of commitment.

  1. Will you continue your party’s practice in every Ontario election since 1995 of making written election commitments to us on the issue of achieving an accessible province for persons with disabilities?

Yes.

  1. Under your leadership, will the Liberal Party fully maintain the implementation of the AODA and not weaken or reduce any AODA provisions, AODA regulations or Government policies that implement the AODA’s goals?

Yes.

  1. Four Government-appointed mandatory AODA Independent Reviews have examined the Government’s implementation of the AODA (in 2009-2010 by Charles Beer, in 2013-2014 by Mayo Moran, in 2018-2019 by former Lieutenant Governor David Onley and in 2022-2023 by Rich Donovan). Each called on the Government to revitalize and breathe new life into the implementation of the AODA, and to show strong new leadership on this issue. The Moran, Onley, and Donovan Reports each identified the pressing need for Ontario’s Premier to show strong new leadership on accessibility. If you become Ontario’s Premier, will you show new, strong leadership on accessibility for people with disabilities and breathe new life into and revitalize the Government’s implementation and enforcement of the AODA?

Yes.

  1. Each premier sends Mandate Letters to their cabinet ministers, assigning their priorities. In your Mandate Letters, will you direct cabinet ministers, the Secretary of Cabinet and other senior public officials to implement your Government’s duties and commitments on disability accessibility?

Yes. I will also direct the Secretary of the Cabinet to make this a priority for the Ontario Public Service and to ensure Deputy Ministers fully understand their commitments and responsibilities.

  1. Ontario missed the 2025 deadline to become accessible to people with disabilities. If you become Ontario’s premier, will you commit to work with us and the disability community to establish a comprehensive multi-year plan of action and to institute measures that will ensure that Ontario becomes accessible as soon as possible?

Yes, I will work with the AODA and others to establish a comprehensive multi-year plan of action to guide Ontario in becoming accessible as soon as possible, and to take action to implement the plan when it is complete.

  1. Will you commit not to re-open the AODA. We ask that its provisions be treated as sacrosanct. In very troubling ways, the Ford Government has created new barriers facing Ontarians with disabilities. Will your multi-year comprehensive plan of action include measures to remove new disability barriers that the Ford Government has created?

I have no intention of weakening or undermining the legislative provisions of the AODA to promote and protect accessibility in Ontario. Yes, I will work to undo and reverse negative changes Doug Ford has pursued as Premier.

  1. Students with disabilities continue to face serious disability barriers in Ontario’s K-12 and post-secondary education systems. Patients with disabilities continue to face serious disability barriers in Ontario’s health care system. The previous Liberal Ontario Government promised to enact a Health Care Accessibility Standard and an Education Accessibility Standard under the AODA to eliminate those barriers. The Ford Government has not implemented the 2022 final reports of the Health Care Standards Development Committee, the K-12 Education Standards Development Committee or the Post-Secondary Education Standards Development Committee. If you become Ontario’s Premier, will your Government enact an effective Health Care Accessibility Standard and an effective Education Accessibility Standard under the AODA?

Yes. As Premier, I will work with the AODA Alliance and others to develop and implement an effective Health Care Accessibility Standard and an effective Education Accessibility Standard under the AODA.

  1. Students with disabilities face too many barriers in the education system. You cannot get a good job without a good education. The K-12 Education Standards Development Committee’s final report demonstrated a pressing need for major reform to Ontario’s education system beyond enacting a strong AODA Education Accessibility Standard. If you become Ontario Premier, will your Government undertake a comprehensive reform of Ontario’s education system as it relates to students with disabilities to remove disability barriers in the education system? Will this include reforming the funding formula for students with disabilities in order to ensure that it meets their needs and that funding is based on the actual number of students with disabilities in a school board?

As Premier I will address this commitment through the multi-year plan of action as well as through mandate letters for the Education Minister and others, as well as through development of an effective Education Accessibility Standard. I will make Ontario publicly funded schools accessible for all students.

  1. The Moran and Onley reports expressed a concern that public money has been used to create new accessibility barriers against people with disabilities. Will you commit that under your leadership, public money will not be used to create or perpetuate barriers against people with disabilities?

I will commit to taking action to reverse and prevent these actions. I will also bolster clear expectations in any transfer payment agreements to strengthen commitments from recipients to upholding commitments and expectations regarding accessibility.

  1. Ontario voters and candidates with disabilities still face too many barriers in provincial and municipal elections. Under you as premier, will the Government bring forward new measures, including new legislation, to ensure that provincial and municipal elections in Ontario are fully accessible to voters and candidates with disabilities?

Yes, I agree with this principle and to including this within the scope of the multi-year plan of action.

  1. When people with disabilities suffer unlawful discrimination, the dysfunctional, backlogged process for filing a human rights complaint and getting a hearing at the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario can take 5 years or more. The entire system is broken and replete with unfair barriers. It needs substantial reform. If you become Ontario Premier, will you reform the process for enforcing the Ontario Human Rights Code to make it fair, effective and faster?

Yes. I will reform the process for enforcing the Ontario Human rights Code to make it fair, effective and faster for all Ontarians.