AODA Alliance Writes Prime Minister Carney – and – More Media Coverage of the Elimination of the Federal Disabilities Minister

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 Writes Prime Minister Carney – and – More Media Coverage of the Elimination of the Federal Disabilities Minister Portfolio

 

May 20, 2025

 

SUMMARY

 

On May 19, 2025, the AODA Alliance wrote Prime Minister Mark Carney. We asked him to restore the Cabinet post of Minister for Disability Inclusion which he has eliminated from the federal Cabinet. Read that letter below.

 

We also include in this Update an excellent article with CBC News posted on May 18, 2025 on the same issue. Some of the CBC radio stations that interviewed AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky on this issue last Friday are expected to air that interview today.

 

All the feedback we have received on this issue has been supportive of our position.

 

How You Can Help

 

• We again ask you to email Prime Minister Carney to ask him to restore the Cabinet post of Minister for Disability Issues, which he eliminated. His email address is pm@pm.gc.ca

 

• Urge your local media to cover this topic. For example, if your local CBC morning radio program did not cover it, tell them it’s not too late. If it is newsworthy enough for CBC in Toronto, Quebec City, Fredericton, Sudbury, Moncton, Edmonton, Saint John, Prince George/Prince Rupert, Vancouver, White Horse, Victoria, Kelowna, and Kitchener-Waterloo, it’s newsworthy in your community too!

 

• Let us know what you are told in response. Contact us at aodafeedback@gmail.com

 

MORE DETAILS

 

Text of the May 19,2025 Letter from the AODA Alliance to Prime Minister Mark Carney

Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance

1929 Bayview Avenue,

Toronto, Ontario M4G 3E8

Email aodafeedback@gmail.com Twitter: @aodaalliance www.aodaalliance.org

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

 

May 19, 2025

 

To:

The Right Honourable Prime Minister Mark Carney

Via email: pm@pm.gc.ca

Office of the Prime Minister of Canada

80 Wellington Street

Ottawa, ON K1A 0A2

Twitter: MarkJCarney

 

Dear Prime Minister Carney,

 

Please accept our congratulations on your election to govern Canada. We are a well-recognized non-partisan grassroots disability coalition based in Ontario that advocates for accessibility for people with disabilities.

 

We welcome any opportunity to assist your Government with candid, reliable advice on what needs to be done to tear down the many accessibility barriers that continue to plague over 8 million people with disabilities in Canada. We have welcomed past invitations to provide input to any minister and Parliamentary Committee in this area.

 

We write to voice a serious concern that in last week’s Cabinet announcement, you have eliminated the Cabinet portfolio of Minister for Disability Inclusion. You have appointed portfolios for women’s issues, seniors’ issues, two for Indigenous Issues, and even a minister for sports, but you have cut the disability Cabinet post. This amounts to “equality for some.” Yet, “equality for some” is actually equality for none. In Canada, people with disabilities are a widely recognized, highly vulnerable, disadvantaged part of our society. We have had to battle for such basics as getting equality for people with disabilities included in the Charter of Rights in 1980 and winning the enactment of the Accessible Canada Act in 2019 and the Canada Disability Benefit Act in 2023. Even then, the commendable goals of those enactments are far from being realized.

 

People with disabilities desperately need a watchdog at the Cabinet table at all times, someone who is vigilant to help your Cabinet ensure that whatever measures it considers will fully include and benefit people with disabilities and will not create new disability barriers. Our Charter of Rights entitles people with disabilities to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law. That includes all federal programs and policies implemented under law.

 

There would be widespread public support for your designating one of your 28 Cabinet ministers as also having the portfolio of Minister for Disability Inclusion. There is no constituency in society who would oppose this. After all, everyone is bound to eventually get a disability as they age. We are the minority of everyone!

 

The Federal Government has commendably had a Disabilities Minister now for a decade. No one opposed it. Your elimination of it now sends a strong and harmful message both to 8 million people with disabilities in Canada and to the Federal Public service at all levels that tearing down disability barriers within federal responsibility is just not a significant priority for you and your new Government. That is the kind of “trickle-down” effect that can cause a great deal of damage, waste, and lost opportunity.

 

This Cabinet post is especially essential given your Government’s priorities, such as expanding affordable housing, building new infrastructure, restructuring the Federal Government and making needed transitions in the Canadian economy given the current trade conflict. From ample past experience, there is a serious risk that new disability barriers will be inadvertently created unless you have a Disabilities Minister at the Cabinet table at all times to be a watchdog on these issues. For example, if your housing strategy does not effectively tackle the growing crisis shortage in accessible housing, we risk the problem of inaccessible housing getting even worse for the growing number of people with disabilities in Canada who are struggling to find an accessible home to rent or buy.

 

Having a Disabilities Minister is not a guarantee that all our problems will magically be solved. However, eliminating this portfolio is a virtual guarantee that things will get worse.

 

It would not be sufficient for the Government to announce that disability issues are a priority. We’ve heard such statements for decades from politicians, parties and governments of all political stripes. We need action, not words.

 

We emphasize that what people with disabilities need now is a Cabinet minister with this responsibility. It should not be downgraded to the inferior post of Secretary of State. We need a Minister at the Cabinet table at all meetings. A Secretary of State, we understand, is not entitled to that opportunity.

 

You can solve this at the stroke of your pen. Please do so. Canada will welcome it.

 

Sincerely,

 

David Lepofsky CM, O. Ont Chair, Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance

CBC News May 18, 2025

 

Originally posted at https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/disability-ministry-removed-from-pm-s-cabinet-1.7537406

 

 

 

Advocates call absence of disability ministry in PM’s new cabinet ‘a real slap in the face’

Canadians with disabilities worried about what omission means for policy moving forward

Courtney Dickson

 

A man in a puffy jacket stands on the sidewalk with a walking stick in his hand.

 

 

David Lepofsky says a cabinet minister must take on disabilities as part of their portfolio. (

Paul Smith/CBC)

 

When Prime Minister Mark Carney unveiled his new cabinet this week, one notable position was omitted from the roster: the minister of diversity, inclusion and persons with disabilities. Pre-election, the position was held by Kamal Khera, who lost her Brampton West seat to the Conservative Party’s Amarjeet Gill.

 

Instead of naming a new minister, the position was, in effect, abolished. Now, people with disabilities and those supporting them are raising concerns about what this will mean for federal policy moving forward.

 

“For the prime minister to do this is a real slap in the face to eight million people with disabilities in Canada,” said disability rights professor David Lepofsky. He said the move signals to people with disabilities that they are not a priority.

 

According to Statistics Canada, about 27 per cent of Canadians 15 and over identify as having one or more disabilities. Lepofsky said that number will only increase as the population ages.

 

Carissa Thorpe, who suffers from chronic pain, said she worries the omission will set people with disabilities back.

“It feels dangerous to me because people with disabilities are the most vulnerable in society, and we are already very far behind most of the rest of society,” she told CBC’s The Early Edition host Stephen Quinn.

 

“Nobody’s going to be thinking of us.”

 

A group of people sit together for a photo.

Prime Minister Mark Carney, fifth from left, poses with members of the newly sworn-in Liberal cabinet following a ceremony at Rideau Hall in Ottawa on Tuesday, May 13, 2025. (Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press)

 

‘No watchdog’

Lepofsky, who is blind, said not having a minister dedicated to this work means that issues that go before cabinet, often behind closed doors, won’t be viewed through the lens of someone who is focused on ensuring people with disabilities are included in everything.

 

“There’s no watchdog there anymore to pipe up and say, ‘Hey, what are you doing to make sure you’re not creating new barriers with this initiative, or why did you leave people with disabilities out?'”

 

For example, he said, the affordable housing crisis requires consideration of those who require accessible housing, too. “There’s no one at the cabinet table to ensure that when they come forward with this kind of new strategy that the accessible housing crisis is effectively included in it and addressed by it.”

 

That housing component especially rings true for Thorpe. She said the last stable housing she had was a small converted shed in someone’s backyard, with no running water and stairs that she fell down several times.

 

The $1,552 she gets in disability payments each month has made it difficult for her to find both accessible and affordable housing that is also safe.

 

Having no cabinet minister responsible for disability doesn’t just impact future policy, said Yat Li, a B.C.-based advocate who is hard of hearing, “it threatens to unravel years of hard-won progress led by former ministers who took over this portfolio, specifically advancing accessibility and disability in Canada,” he said.

 

A man with short black hair and glasses sits with his back to a computer desk. He’s wearing a blue vest over a grey long-sleeve shirt.

 

Yat Li worries that not having a minister advocating for Canadians with disabilities will undo the work that’s been done in recent years. (Ryan McLeod/CBC)

 

“We cannot let this recent news take us a step backwards. Even though the cabinet ministry doesn’t include a minister of disability, we need to continue to have a collective voice, continue to urge and ensure that a cabinet minister is explicitly tasked with the responsibility of advancing disability rights in Canada.”

Add disability to another portfolio, Lepofsky suggests

Lepofsky is also the chair of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance, which is calling on Canadians to email the prime minister’s office to express their thoughts on the lack of a disability minister.

 

He said the group would be happy if disability were added to one of the existing portfolios, but doesn’t want to see the issue given to a secretary of state.

 

“They are not full cabinet members. They don’t go to all cabinet meetings. We need a watchdog in every cabinet meeting.”

 

CBC News requested a response from the prime minister’s office, but did not receive one by deadline.