AODA Alliance Chair’s Monthly Column in the Toronto Star’s Metroland Publications and Two Other Recent Media Reports Address Canadians with Disabilities’ Urgent Issues in This Election

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

Twitter: @aodaalliance

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/aodaalliance

 

AODA Alliance Chair’s Monthly Column in the Toronto Star’s Metroland Publications and Two Other Recent Media Reports Address Canadians with Disabilities’ Urgent Issues in This Election

 

April 18, 2025

 

SUMMARY

 

Here are three recent published news articles that address our efforts to raise disability issues in the current federal election that are vital for millions of voters with disabilities, and which most major media have not covered. Below you can read:

 

  • AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky ‘s monthly column for April 2025 in the Toronto Star’s Metroland publications around Ontario. It summarizes key issues that were raised at the April 8, 2025 Candidates Debate on Disability Issues held at CNIB Toronto, which was organized by 13 disability organizations including the AODA Alliance.
  • The April 16, 2025 CBC online report.
  • The April 17, 2025 opinion piece in The Hub, an online publication, by its editor.

 

The CBC online April 16, 2025 report is especially significant for our blitz during this election. During this election, CBC has been inviting members of the public to write them and tell them what election issues matter to them. This is CBC’s laudable Ask CBC News initiative. You can write CBC for this at ask@cbc.ca

 

CBC approached the AODA Alliance last week to request an interview on disability issues. The CBC report, set out below, includes quotations from that interview, which took place on Friday, April 11, 2025. During that interview, CBC told the AODA Alliance that it received a lot of feedback from their audience indicating the importance of disability issues in response to its Ask CBC News activity. This further proves that there is a huge gap between what the public wants to hear from the media and what the media has been covering. We applaud CBC for acting on this public feedback, in so far as this current report and the unprecedented April 13, 2025 report on CBC TV’s “The National” are concerned.

 

As a clarification, the CBC report incorrectly states that the AODA Alliance hosted the April 8, 2025 Candidates Debate on Disability Issues. In fact, the AODA Alliance was one member of the team that organized the event, which included 13 disability organizations.

 

The April 17, 2025 opinion piece in The Hub uses the Tories’ failure to send a candidate to the April 8, 2025 Candidates Debate on Disability Issues as a starting point to address a broader pattern of some Tory candidates not attending local candidates debates at all.

 

We emphasize yet again that the non-partisan AODA Alliance does not support, endorse or oppose any party or candidate. We aim to get all parties to make the strongest commitments we can get on disability issues.

 

With only 9 days left until April 28, voting day, only the Green Party has made the Accessible Canada Pledge that over two dozen disability organizations have called on all party leaders to make.

 

Advance polls open today. Be sure to vote early, in case you encounter disability barriers in the voting process and need to take action to try to overcome those barriers.

 

How You Can Help

 

  • Email or tweet these two new articles to candidates. You can find the email addresses and Twitter handles for as many candidates as we could find on the online candidates list posted on the AODA Alliance website.
  • Send these articles to your friends and family. Invite them to share them with others. Blitz them to others on social media.
  • Send these articles link to other news organizations.
  • Write letters to the editor of other media. Tell them their audience deserves to know about this election’s disability issues that are important for over 8 million people with disabilities in Canada.

 

For background, check out:

 

 

MORE DETAILS

 

Simcoe Today April 17, 2025

 

 

Originally posted at https://www.simcoe.com/opinion/columnists/housing-poverty-and-maid-among-urgent-issues-for-candidates-raised-by-those-living-with-disabilities/article_c065a7e9-c9ac-5666-9d55-59f3023007a3.html

 

Housing, poverty and MAID among urgent issues for candidates raised by those living with disabilities

Yes, tariffs are important, but it is not the only issue in this election, advocate writes.

 

By David Lepofsky

David Lepofsky is chair of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance.

 

What issues did 350 in-person and online attendees raise at the April 8 candidates’ debate on federal disability issues, organized by 13 major disability organizations and held at CNIB in Toronto?

 

This debate offered extraordinary insight into important issues for eight million people living with disabilities and those who will acquire disabilities later.

 

The parties were invited to send any candidate they wished. Liberals, NDP and Greens sent a candidate. The Conservatives and Bloc, which has no candidates in Ontario, sent no one.

 

We’re non-partisan. We want to hear what all parties will do for us. Voters will size up what it means when a party doesn’t show up.

 

It is a disrespectful disservice to Canadians with disabilities that no Conservative candidate came. They have lots of candidates around Toronto.

 

I left a voice mail for Karen Stintz, my riding’s Tory candidate, urging her to attend. She’s the head of Variety Village. Her website says it serves children with disabilities.

 

I got no response.

 

The core message to candidates was this: Trump’s outrageous tariff war is a very important issue, but it isn’t the only one. The next federal government must also deal with other issues, including the urgent needs of millions with disabilities.

 

You can watch a recording of the debate at AODA Alliance’s YouTube feed. Sadly, the audio at points could be better. Here are just some issues raised. We didn’t have time for most of the hundreds of questions that attendees wanted to ask.

 

The media reports that party leaders have said lots on the campaign trail about increasing affordable housing. Yet, we’ve heard nothing about what will be done to substantially increase the supply of accessible housing. Canada has a shortage of accessible housing. This crisis gets worse as society ages.

 

The paltry $200 per month Canada Disability Benefit maximum that the federal government starts paying in July to some people with disabilities who are living in poverty, as a top-up to their provincial benefits like ODSP, is grossly insufficient to lift many people with disabilities out of poverty. Much more is needed.

 

The federal government’s weak implementation of the 2019 Accessible Canada Act has not improved life for people with disabilities. We are behind schedule for becoming accessible by 2040, that act’s deadline.

 

The National Building Code’s weak accessibility provisions must be drastically strengthened. For example, they don’t ensure that visual fire alarms are always installed in all places where they’re needed to warn deaf people when there is a fire.

 

Canada’s massive liberalization of doctor-assisted suicide (Medical Assistance in Dying, MAID) lacks desperately needed safeguards. It seriously endangers vulnerable people with disabilities. For example, people shouldn’t resort to it because society has not provided the supports they need to live with a disability.

 

Our government should provide needed supports, instead of making it easier to get a doctor to help them die by suicide.

 

How did Green, Liberal and NDP candidates respond? The Greens announced they would make the three-plank Accessible Canada Pledge we have requested to tear down disability barriers, raise the Canada Disability Benefit and end the horrible mistreatment of air passengers with disabilities by Canadian airlines. The Liberal and NDP candidates expressed personal support for people with disabilities on all the issues raised.

 

In many cases, they could not give commitments on behalf of their parties. The Liberals’ platform had not yet been announced.

 

The NDP said they’d double the Canada Disability Benefit, raising the rate from $200 to $400. Every dollar helps, but it still leaves a great many people with disabilities languishing in poverty.

 

There’s still time for parties to make commitments on our issues.

 

Over the election’s final days, it’s important to press all parties and candidates to do more for people with disabilities. This is when politicians are most willing to pay attention.

 

David Lepofsky is a retired lawyer who chairs the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance, and is a visiting professor of disability rights at the law schools at Western and the University of Ottawa.

 

CBC News April 16, 2025

 

Originally posted at https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/elections-disabilities-vote-1.7511654

 

 

What people with disabilities want to hear from party leaders in this election | CBC News Loaded

Ask CBC News

 

What people with disabilities want to hear from party leaders in this election

Activists call for changes to disability amount, qualification process from parties

 

Mouhamad Rachini CBC News

 

As the federal election campaign enters the final stretch, advocates are urging the next government to improve the Canada Disability Benefit not only by increasing the payments but also by ensuring that provinces don’t claw money back.

 

Election day is less than two weeks away, but Rowena Edwards is still unsure who she should vote for.

 

“Honestly, I don’t like any candidates,” the 63-year-old told CBC News through an email interview.

 

Edwards is one of more than eight million Canadians living with a disability. She says she spends around 20 hours a day in a hospital bed at home in Sherwood Park, Alta. — by herself and unable to work.

 

She says she feels forgotten by Canada’s federal party leaders.

 

“Our leaders don’t even think about us,” she said. “I have no faith that things will change for us.”

 

She’s not the only person who feels that way. Disability activist and retired lawyer David Lepofsky, who is blind, says people with disabilities are victims of a “vicious cycle that muzzles their voice.”

 

Two yellow signs that say “Vote Here”

Activists are calling on federal parties to remember people with disabilities in the final weeks ahead of the April 28 election. (CBC)

Lepofsky says Canada is “miles behind” other countries when it comes to disability support programs and accessibility. And while U.S. tariffs are an important issue in this year’s election, he says it’s not the only one.

 

“The next government that takes power after this election in Ottawa is gonna be mandated to govern for four years,” he said. “Not just about tariff barriers, but about all barriers, including those which impede people with disabilities from equal opportunity in our society.”

 

“There’s no good reason why our politicians shouldn’t be answering what they would do to tear those barriers down,” said Lepofsky, who is also chair of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) Alliance.

 

More disability benefits

Last week, Lepofsky hosted a debate to hear what the federal parties were promising in this election.

 

Candidates from the Liberal, New Democratic and Green parties — but not the Conservatives — attended.

 

“We’re looking for real concrete commitments from all the politicians and all the parties on key issues that matter to over eight million people with disabilities and everyone else in Canada who’s gonna get a disability later in life,” he said.

 

I wish each candidate had to live our lives for one week, only then do I believe things would change​​​​​

-Rowena Edwards

Part of that includes improving on the Canada Disability Benefit (CDB) Act, which came into effect in 2024. The act established the CDB, which gives working-age, low-income people with disabilities up to $200 a month if they qualify — a “paltry” amount, according to Lepofsky.

 

“People with disabilities don’t just have the cost of living that everybody else has,” he said. “There are added costs associated with living with a disability, possibly getting supports or expensive technology or services.”

 

Even if you factor in provincial support plans, Lepofsky says people with disabilities are going to be “languishing in poverty.”

 

David Lepofsky, of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance, says the aides that school boards provide to students with disabilities are a right not a privilege.

Retired lawyer David Lepofsky, who is blind, is calling on all parties to make the Accessible Canada Pledge, which he says would tackle a significant number of barriers impacting Canadians with disabilities. (Mike Smee/CBC)

“For example, a person with a disability in Ontario, if they’re living in poverty, can qualify for the Ontario Disability Support Plan,” he said. “It will give an individual a maximum of… under $1,400 a month. The poverty line is over $2,000 a month.”

 

“The paltry $200 a month maximum [of the new CDB]… is not going to lift the vast majority of impoverished people with disabilities.”

 

This is a greater challenge for people with disabilities who can’t work, such as Edwards.

 

She says her disability income for 2024 was just over $22,000. She mainly uses it on rising grocery costs and hired labour. Edwards says she often has to keep her meals between a dollar or two, and set her thermostat to just 14 C on winter days because she “can’t afford the heating bills.”

 

“It’s been years since I bought a steak, even though I dream about having one, but I can’t justify spending the money,” she said.

 

That’s why some advocates are calling for an increase in benefit payments, by “$1,000 to $2,000 a month, at least,” said the Disability Justice Network of Ontario’s Brad Evoy.

 

“An extra thousand [dollars] a month would be life-changing,” Edwards said. “Maybe I could have my heat at 16 next winter, what a luxury that would be.”

 

Furthermore, most disability benefits have an end date at age 65, including the CDB and Canada Pension Plan disability benefits.

 

Some benefits may kick in at that stage, like the Old Age Security (OAS) pension. OAS eligibility isn’t determined by employment history, but it is determined by how long a person has lived in Canada after the age of 18.

 

Still, some people are worried about losing CBD and provincial benefits when they turn 65.

 

“Don’t kick us off of disability when we reach 65,” she said. “We are still disabled. This is extremely important and this part of the system has definitely failed us.”

 

Streamlining applications

Disability activists also want to see politicians streamline the benefit application process.

 

Since she first started having disability difficulties in 2011, Edwards has moved from Alberta to British Columbia and then back to Alberta.

 

She said it took her four to five years to get an official diagnosis due to the difficulty of the application process.

 

And even when she got on B.C.’s provincial benefits, she had to start the whole process again when applying for federal benefits.

 

A button people who use wheelchairs can push to open doors.

Rowena Edwards says she has little faith in things changing for the better for people with disabilities post-election. (Michael Wilson/CBC)

“Once you are on provincial disability, you must apply for federal disability and start the whole process over, with it again being very difficult to get accepted,” she said.

 

“And what needs to change is there is no interprovincial acceptance. So when I moved back to Alberta in 2022, I had to apply for a third time on [the Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped program].”

 

Lepofsky says he predicted this problem when the CDB was before the House of Commons in 2024. He said disability organizations asked that “anyone who qualifies for disability benefits should automatically qualify for the federal top-up to those benefits.”

 

“That’s not what Parliament did. Instead, they restricted the Canada Disability Benefit to the very problematic qualifications and bureaucratic way to qualify for the narrow Canada Disability Tax Credit,” he said.

 

“So they’ve set up a legal barrier to people who are in poverty, who need the Canada Disability Benefit, and a process that costs money potentially to even apply for it. It’s a catch-22.”

 

Taking the pledge

Lepofsky is calling on all parties to make the Accessible Canada Pledge, which he says would tackle a significant number of barriers impacting Canadians with disabilities.

 

“So far, the only party that’s answered us and commendably made the Accessible Canada Pledge is the Green Party,” he said. “It’s time for the other four candidates for prime minister to step up to the plate and to show us that people with disabilities in Canada matter too.”

 

But Edwards says she has little faith in things improving for people with disabilities post-election.

 

“I wish each candidate had to live our lives for one week, only then do I believe things would change,” she said.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

 

Mouhamad Rachini

Journalist

 

Mouhamad Rachini is a Canadian Lebanese writer and producer for CBC Radio’s digital team. He’s worked for CBC Radio shows including Day 6 and Cross Country Checkup. He’s particularly passionate about telling stories from Muslim and Middle Eastern communities. He also writes about soccer on his website Between the Sticks. You can reach him at mouhamad.rachini@cbc.ca.

 

With files from Ali Chiasson

 

The Hub April 17, 2025

 

Originally posted at https://thehub.ca/2025/04/17/harrison-lowman-its-time-for-conservatives-to-grow-up-and-show-up-at-local-debates/

 

Harrison Lowman: It’s time for Conservatives to grow up and show up at local debates

Commentary

Last week, a group of 13 major disability organizations held their only all-candidates debate. It was an attempt to bring attention to the needs of the most vulnerable members of Canadian society, who rely on government support the most. The Liberals, NDP, and Greens sent a candidate. The Conservatives were no-shows. They didn’t even bother returning the organizer’s phone calls.

 

“The Tories never answered us,” longtime disability rights activist David Lepofsky told me.

 

This week, when Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre takes part in the national leaders’ debates, he will be one of the only candidates in his party across the country stepping up onto a debate stage during the election.

 

In doing so, the Conservatives will continue a long (un)proud tradition of unofficially forbidding candidates from participating in debates in their ridings. It’s a mistake that I believe is objectionable, electorally harmful, and flies in the face of a new conservative movement not afraid to fight on the battlefield of ideas.

 

It’s also cowardly. If you want to prove you can and should end 10 years of Liberal rule, the least you could do is show up to tell voters how you plan to do it.

 

Years of flying under the radar

I’m not sure when the custom first began. It used to be an expectation that candidates would attend at least one all-candidates debate in their riding; it was embarrassing if you didn’t. But it appears just over a decade ago, both the federal Conservatives and their provincial Progressive Conservative (PC) cousins began to shy away from church basements and community centres during the writ period.

 

 

During the last Ontario provincial election, a PC source told The Trillium, it was “against party policy” for candidates to participate in local debates. Yesterday, a former senior member of the Conservative Party of Canada told me it was “unofficial doctrine” that their candidates do not attend debates.

 

Ironically, when I repeatedly questioned the party about whether they had formally barred candidates from attending debates this election, they didn’t show up to that conversation either.

 

If they were speaking frankly with me, I’m sure they’d say that debates are one of the riskiest events a candidate can attend. They are the opposite of campaign control. One embarrassing flub and your candidate can be clipped into oblivion on social media. Not to mention they can be a huge time suck during a short election where every moment matters. Debates mean lengthy candidate prep around niche issues with limited returns. Often, the debates themselves feature left-leaning parties and moderators ganging up on the Tory, attended by folks who have probably made up their minds. They’d tell me it’s far more efficient and rewarding to door knock or post a few more slogans on Instagram.

 

Time to show up

But not attending debates also means Conservatives are avoiding scrutiny from their opponents, and, more importantly, the constituents they’re hoping to serve.

 

 

Conservative thinkers like Burke and Hayek taught us that society reforms and improves itself by letting ideas compete in the public square. Debate thus serves as a proving ground, where good ideas are tested and refined, and bad ones are exposed. Preaching to the converted at raucous rallies feels great, but persuading voters who are on the fence—the very voters the Conservatives could use right now—could prove far more beneficial to the party.

 

Debate is also the gateway drug that has brought many young people, especially young men, into the conservative movement. Today, an unprecedented 45 percent of voters aged 18 to 34 are planning to vote blue. These young Canadians were raised on an online diet of conservative personalities who dared to go behind enemy lines onto hostile university campuses armed only with a poster that said “Change My Mind,” inviting swarms of people with opposing viewpoints to debate them. Young conservatives crave courageous politicians who can publicly defend what they believe in. It’s hard to “own the libs” if you refuse to share a debate stage with the libs.

 

Finally, during our 51st state bout with the Americans, it would help if we distinguished ourselves from them. By banning Conservatives from debates in their constituencies, the party is telling voters they don’t need to get to know their local candidates. They’re telling voters that when they mark their ballots, they should only be thinking about the leader—almost as if we were an American-style republic with an elected president. But we are Canadians. We don’t vote for prime ministers. We vote for MPs who we believe will best represent us in Ottawa.

 

Practice debating locally could even mean that if they do make it to Ottawa, candidates might gain enough oratorical skills to not have to read off a sheet of paper when arguing with their new opponents in Question Period.

 

Conservatives should stop hiding. It’s time to break their unspoken rule. It’s time for Conservatives to buck up and show up for debates in their communities.

 

 

Harrison Lowman

Harrison Lowman is The Hub’s Managing Editor. He has worked for more than a decade in journalism, including at TVO’s The Agenda.