2.9 Million Ontarians with Disabilities are Hurt by Gradual Encroachments on Democracy in Ontario

Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance Update

United for a Barrier-Free Ontario for All People with Disabilities

Twitter: @aodaalliance

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2.9 Million Ontarians with Disabilities are Hurt by Gradual Encroachments on Democracy in Ontario

December 12, 2025

News reports from around the world increasingly warn about gradual and creeping encroachments on democracy. Sadly, we have witnessed some of these threats very close to home that weaken the voice of people with disabilities and the broad disability community. Here are illustrations:

The AODA Alliance and other disability advocates, as well as all others interested in the public education system, were frozen out of any legislative debates over the recently passed Bill 33. The Ford Government allowed no public hearings on that bill. The AODA Alliance had applied to make a presentation at public hearings on that bill.

As earlier AODA Alliance Updates have highlighted, the Ford Government has ordered the six school boards over which it seized control to stop live streaming meetings of their Special Education Advisory Committees. This makes it much harder for parents and guardians of students with disabilities/special education needs and their associations to reach the public when they try to press senior school board officials for new action to tear down the many disability barriers in the publicly funded school system.

By ousting the democratically elected school board trustees in those six school boards, Premier Ford eliminated local democratic oversight and took away an important recourse for parents and guardians of students with disabilities/special education needs, namely reaching out to elected trustees or appearing before public meetings of the school board’s trustees.

The Ford Government recently held pre-budget hearings. The AODA Alliance applied to make a presentation at those hearings. We were not allowed to do so.

Last winter, the Ford Government decided to call a snap election that was held on February 27, 2025, in the midst of a very snowy winter. An election was not then mandatory or even needed. The Ford Government won a four-year term in the June 2022 Ontario general election. It did not need to go to the polls until June 2026, over a year after the February 27, 2025 election date. Elections Ontario has publicly reported that this snap election confronted it with greater difficulties in finding accessible polling locations for all voters with disabilities under shorter timelines than it had expected. Elections Ontario also stated that the snap election call created other difficulties regarding its staffing of polling stations and training poll workers. This has significant adverse implications for voters with disabilities. Moreover, holding an election in the dead of winter that had more than its share of major blizzards created snowy barriers that voters with disabilities would never face in a regularly scheduled June election.

This fall, the Ford Government also fast-tracked Bill 68 without holding public hearings. Among other things, that bill ended fixed-date provincial elections in Ontario. That means that the problems Elections Ontario said it faced this past February are going to be a regular feature of Ontario elections from now on. That too works to the detriment of voters with disabilities who already face too many disability barriers in the election process.

Adding to all of this, Premier Doug Ford is the only Ontario premier in over two decades who has refused to meet with any representatives of the AODA Alliance. In sharp contrast, the two previous premiers, Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne, each agreed to several meetings. Premier Ford has now been in office for seven and a half years. His only contact with the AODA Alliance has been to decline our meeting requests, to refer any of our inquiries to the Minister of Accessibility Raymond Cho, and to send requests to donate to his political party.

How You Can Help

Contact your member of the Ontario Legislature. Tell them to pressure Premier Ford to break this creeping undermining of the democratic process.