At 10 a.m. Queen’s Park News Conference Today, Furious Disability Advocates Will Call on Party Leaders to Commit to a 10-Point Action Plan after the Government Violated Disabilities Act’s Requirement to Make Ontario Accessible by 2025

ACCESSIBILITY FOR ONTARIANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT ALLIANCE

NEWS RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

At 10 a.m. Queen’s Park News Conference Today, Furious Disability Advocates Will Call on Party Leaders to Commit to a 10-Point Action Plan after the Government Violated Disabilities Act’s Requirement to Make Ontario Accessible by 2025

 

January 6, 2025, Toronto: They’re furious! They’re tenacious! They’re coming to Queen’s Park on Monday, January 6, 2025, to hold a news conference in the Queen’s Park Media Studio at 10 a.m., just after the Legislative Assembly building opens for the first time this year. They will demand bold new Government action for over 2.9 million Ontarians with disabilities.

 

Two decades ago, the Ontario Legislature unanimously promised that by January 1, 2025, the Ontario Government would lead this province to become accessible to people with all kinds of disabilities when it passed the historic Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA), Canada’s first comprehensive disability accessibility law. MPPs gave that historic achievement a resounding standing ovation. Watch it on video.

 

Yet that solemn legislative promise has now been categorically broken. Ontarians awoke on New year’s Day 2025 to a province that is still brimming with many preventable and soul-crushing disability barriers when people with disabilities try to get a job, ride public transit, get health care services, go to school or university, or simply walk on public sidewalks. This includes barriers that the Ontario Government itself created using public money, such as Toronto’s new Armoury Street courthouse.

 

For over 15 years, disability advocates, including the non-partisan AODA Alliance and Government-appointed experts, repeatedly forewarned Government after Government and minister after minister that this promise would be broken by 2025 unless successive Governments ramped up this issue as a priority and effectively implemented the AODA.

 

“With the real possibility of a spring election, we are more determined than ever to get the accessible Ontario that we were legislatively promised 20 years ago,” said David Lepofsky, Chair of the grassroots AODA Alliance. “Today we’re unveiling the “Accessible Ontario Pledge,” which we sent to Ontario’s party leaders this morning and which we’re pressing them to make to lead this province to become accessible as soon as possible.” (Letter to party leaders set out below)

 

The Disabilities Act has brought about some progress, but far less than Ontario could have achieved in the two decades since 2005. Unfair recurring barriers that too often victimize Ontarians with disabilities were documented time and again in Government-appointed independent reviews of the AODA in 2015, 2019, and 2023. Most of the recommendations made in these reviews were never implemented.

 

On November 25, 2024, individuals with disabilities gave wrenching accounts of disability barriers to Ontario’s four political parties at community public hearings at Queen’s Park organized by the AODA Alliance. Please view those public hearings online.

 

“Over the past thirty years, each party turned to our movement to share its expertise on achieving an accessible Ontario when the AODA was being written and afterwards when it was being implemented,” said Lepofsky. “Our predecessor coalition led the fight from 1994 to 2005 to get the Disabilities Act passed. For the past 20 years, we’ve led the uphill battle to get the AODA effectively implemented. We know how to fix this mess.”

 

For over 20 years, all parties have endorsed the AODA’s purposes. The AODA did not vanish last week on New year’s Day.

 

The AODA Alliance drew on years of experience with accessibility to formulate today’s new Accessible Ontario Pledge, including its comprehensive 10-point plan and specific deadlines to put in place all the accessibility standards needed to achieve the accessible province that people with disabilities have been legislatively promised. It is carefully crafted to ensure the AODA’s effective enforcement, to provide obligated organizations with free technical assistance on needed accessibility, and to effectively deploy other levers of government power.

 

After the Government failed to meet the 2025 deadline for an accessible Ontario, the media has asked us “What comes next?” At this news conference, we will give a comprehensive, practical answer to fulfil the Disabilities Act’s purpose and duties, drawing on mountains of feedback from the disability community. This news conference will be streamed live on the Ontario Legislature website’s Media Studio feed at https://www.ola.org/en/legislative-business/video if no committees of the Legislature are meeting at that time. It will also be available on the AODA Alliance’s YouTube channel as soon as possible after the news conference.

 

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

Twitter: @aodaalliance

 

For more background

  • A timeline of major events over the past 30 years in the grassroots campaign for accessibility in Ontario.
  • The Legislature’s historic May 10, 2005, vote to pass the AODA and the Queen’s Park news conference right after that vote.
  • The AODA Alliance’s captioned online video series of the major news conferences and other key events in the 30-year campaign for accessibility for people with disabilities.
  • For the AODA Alliance’s work from 2005 to the present, visit aodaalliance.org

 

 

 

January 6, 2025, Letter from the AODA Alliance to Ontario’s Party Leaders

Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance

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

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

 

January 6, 2025

 

To: Hon. Premier Doug Ford

Via Email: doug.ford@ontariopc.com premier@ontario.ca

Room 281, Legislative Building Queen’s Park, Toronto, ON M7A 1A1

 

Marit Stiles, Leader of the Official Opposition

Via Email: MStiles-QP@ndp.on.ca

Room 113, Legislative Building Queen’s Park, Toronto, ON M7A 1A5

 

Mike Schreiner, Leader of the Green Party of Ontario

Via Email: leader@gpo.ca

Room 451 Legislative Building Queen’s Park, Toronto, ON M7A 1A2

 

Bonnie Crombie, Leader of the Ontario Liberal Party

Via Email: bonnie@ontarioliberal.ca

Suite 306, 344 Bloor St. W., Toronto, ON M5S 3A7

 

Dear Party Leaders,

 

For 2.9 million Ontarians with disabilities, their families and friends, New Year’s Day 2025 was not a day for celebration. In 2005, the Legislature proclaimed in law that January 1, 2025, was the date by which the Government must have led this province to become accessible to Ontarians with disabilities. People with disabilities had tenaciously fought for a decade to win the passage in 2005 of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA).

 

Yet on this New Year’s Day, people with disabilities continued to live in a province full of unfair disability barriers. Ontario is far from accessible. Nineteen months ago, the Government-appointed 4th Independent Review of the AODA, conducted by Rich Donovan, declared that Ontario is in an accessibility crisis. On November 25, 2024, individuals with disabilities shared wrenching accounts of these disability barriers with the political parties at community public hearings at Queen’s Park, organized by the AODA Alliance. View that online.

 

The AODA did not vanish on New Year’s Day. The Government remains duty-bound to lead this province to become accessible to people with disabilities as soon as possible after the legislated deadline.

 

It is widely reported that a spring election is likely. We ask your parties to now make specific, clear and strong commitments on what they will do if elected to fulfil the AODA. Set out below, we call this the “Accessible Ontario Pledge.”

 

Our request does not depend on whether an election is called this year. Even if there is no election in 2025, we ask the Government to commit to the Accessible Ontario Pledge. We ask the opposition parties to commit to press the Government to implement the Accessible Ontario Pledge and to implement it if they form the next Ontario Government.

 

All parties strongly supported the AODA when it was passed in 2005. The AODA’s initial implementation got off to a promising start in 2005. So why didn’t Ontario meet the AODA’s 2025 deadline for an accessible Ontario?

 

First, accessibility for people with disabilities gradually dropped as a Government priority. Premier after Premier failed to show the strong leadership called for on this issue by the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Government-appointed Independent Reviews of the AODA.

 

Second, the AODA accessibility standards regulations enacted to date, while helpful, are not strong enough. They do not even remove or prevent a majority of the recurring barriers that people with disabilities face.

 

Third, AODA enforcement has been ineffective.

 

Fourth, the Government did not effectively use other levers of power conveniently available to it to promote accessibility.

 

Fifth, Ontario has never announced a comprehensive multi-year plan with targeted deadlines to ensure that the province would reach the legislated goal of an accessible Ontario by 2025, or ever.

 

Over two decades, successive Governments were told about the need to strengthen and speed up the AODA’s implementation. Ontario’s disability community and four successive mandatory Government-appointed AODA Independent Reviews gave the Government practical recommendations.

 

We present the Accessible Ontario Pledge to you in a spirit of non-partisanship. We aim for strong commitments from all parties. We never seek to elect or defeat any party or candidate.

 

In each Ontario election since 1995, some or all parties made election commitments on disability accessibility. They have always done so in letters to the AODA Alliance or, before 2005, to our predecessor, the Ontarians with Disabilities Act Committee.

 

We do not ask you to set a new final deadline for Ontario to become accessible. The AODA has set the deadline. It must remain. The comprehensive action plan that Ontario needs should bring each sector of the economy to the goal of accessibility as soon as that sector can achieve this. Only through a detailed public plan of action with clear timelines will Ontario succeed.

 

Please make the Accessible Ontario Pledge. We will make public your response to this request. Every Ontarian needs all parties to make the Accessible Ontario Pledge. Everyone has a disability now or gets one later in life.

 

Sincerely,

 

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

 

Accessible Ontario Pledge

 

1.     Foster and Strengthen Our Relationship with Your Party

 

We are recognized in the legislature, the media and the public for our advocacy and expertise in disability accessibility.

 

  1. As Premier, will you periodically meet with the AODA Alliance to discuss issues concerning persons with disabilities and accessibility, including within the first four months? If your Party does not form the Government, will you meet with us periodically? Will your Party raise our concerns in the Legislature, including in Question Period?

 

2.     Ensure Strong Leadership on Accessibility

 

Four successive Government-appointed Independent Reviews of the AODA determined that Ontario needs strong new Ontario Government leadership on disability accessibility.

 

  1. As Premier, will you show strong leadership on the issue of accessibility for people with disabilities? Will you substantially strengthen and accelerate the AODA’s implementation?

 

  1. Will you commit to leading Ontario to the goal of becoming accessible to people with disabilities as soon as possible after the AODA-legislated deadline? Within four months, will you announce a comprehensive multi-year action plan to achieve this with targeted deadlines for action?

 

  1. Will you assign a stand-alone minister responsible for disability issues who will periodically meet with us? Will other ministers having responsibilities bearing on our issues also periodically meet with us?

 

3.     Prevent Backsliding on Accessibility

 

  1. Will your Government comply with the AODA?

 

  1. Will you ensure that no amendments to the AODA will be made and that the AODA will not be opened up in the Legislature for possible amendments? Will you commit that any provisions or protections in the AODA, its regulations, or in Government policies or programs that promote its objectives, or any rights of persons with disabilities under the Ontario Human Rights Code will not be reduced?

 

4.     Develop and Enact Needed New Accessibility Standards Under the AODA

 

The AODA requires the Government to enact all the enforceable accessibility standards needed to achieve the AODA’s purpose. Properly designed accessibility standards help business and public sector organizations know what to do, helping their profitability and success.

 

Ontario has enacted five accessibility standards–for customer service, employment, information and communication, transportation, and a few built environment barriers in “public spaces,” mostly outside buildings. These need to be strengthened. People with disabilities still face many barriers when they try to get a job, ride public transit, use customer services, get into and around buildings, or try to get access to information and communication available to the public. AODA Accessibility standards in these areas, while somewhat helpful, have not achieved accessibility.

 

  1. Within 12 months, will you strengthen the existing AODA accessibility standards addressing customer service, the built environment, transportation, employment, and information and communication in order to make them strong and effective?

 

The AODA requires the Government to ensure that the built environment becomes accessible to people with disabilities. Yet the Government has largely left this to the woefully inadequate Ontario Building Code.

 

  1. Will you enact a comprehensive Built Environment Accessibility Standard under the AODA and revamp the Ontario Building Code as it addresses disability accessibility so that it aligns with the rights of people with disabilities under the Ontario Human Rights Code?

 

Ontario also needs new AODA accessibility standards. For example, students with disabilities face too many disability barriers in Ontario Kindergarten to Grade 12 (K-12) schools, colleges and universities. No Education Accessibility Standard has been enacted. All political parties have agreed that an AODA Education Accessibility Standard should be enacted. In early 2022, the Government received detailed proposals of what the Education Accessibility Standard should include from the K-12 Education Standards Development Committee and from the Post-Secondary Education Standards Development Committee. A strong public consensus supports their recommendations.

 

  1. Within 6 months, will you enact an AODA Education Accessibility Standard that accords with the recommendations in the K-12 Education Standards Development Committee’s 2022 final report and the Post-Secondary Education Standards Development Committee’s 2022 final report?

 

All political parties have agreed that Ontario needs an AODA Health Care Accessibility Standard to tear down disability barriers that impede patients with disabilities in Ontario’s health care system. In early 2022, the Government received the Health Care Standards Development Committee’s final report. It shows why Ontario needs a strong Health Care Accessibility Standard, and what that standard should include.

 

  1. Within 6 months, will you enact a comprehensive AODA Health Care Accessibility Standard under the AODA to remove and prevent the disability barriers across Ontario’s health care system that accords with the Health Care Standards Development Committee’s 2022 final report?

 

Ontario has a crisis shortage of accessible housing where people with disabilities can live. This crisis will get worse as society ages. Ontario has no comprehensive effective Government strategy for ensuring that Ontario will have a sufficient supply of accessible housing.

 

  1. Will you enact an AODA Residential Housing Accessibility Standard under the AODA? Will you also announce a comprehensive multi-year accessible housing strategy within 6 months to increase the supply of accessible housing in Ontario, including supportive housing?

 

  1. Within 6 months, will you consult the public, including the disability community, on all additional economic sectors that other accessibility standards need to address? Will you announce decisions on the economic sectors to be addressed in additional standards within three months after that, and appoint Standards Development Committees to address them four months after that announcement?

 

5.     Speed Up the Extremely Long Process for Developing AODA Accessibility Standards

 

The Government has taken far too long to develop an accessibility standard. It took over six years just to decide to create an Education Accessibility Standard. Eight years after that decision, none has been created. It took six years to decide to create a Health Care Accessibility Standard. A decade later, none has been enacted.

 

  1. Will you speed up and de-bureaucratize the development of accessibility standards under the AODA, in consultation with us and the public?

 

6.     Substantially Strengthen AODA Enforcement

 

On October 29, 1998, all parties voted for a unanimous landmark resolution in the Legislature that required the Disabilities Act to have teeth. In 2005, all parties unanimously voted to include in the AODA important enforcement powers, like audits, inspections, compliance orders, and stiff monetary penalties.

 

Yet AODA enforcement has been paltry and weak. The Government has known for years of rampant AODA violations. Three successive Government-appointed AODA Independent Reviews over the past decade called for AODA enforcement to be substantially strengthened.

 

  1. Will you substantially strengthen AODA enforcement, effectively using all AODA available powers to enforce all AODA requirements?

 

  1. Will you assign operational AODA enforcement to a new arms-length public agency, and significantly increase the number of inspectors and directors appointed with AODA enforcement powers? Will you give inspectors and investigators under other legislation a mandate to enforce the AODA when they inspect or investigate an organization under other legislation?

 

  1. Will the Ontario Government publicly release and post detailed information on AODA enforcement actions at least every three months? It should include such measures as the number of notices of proposed orders and penalties, the total final orders and penalties imposed, and the number of appeals from orders and their outcomes.

 

  1. Will the Government ensure on-site inspection of a range of obligated organizations on the actual accessibility of their workplace, goods, services and facilities?

 

  1. Will you establish and widely publicize an effective toll-free line for the public to report AODA violations? Will you provide and widely publicize other online avenues to report AODA violations, including Twitter, Facebook and a web page? Will you publicly report quarterly on complaints received and the specific enforcement action taken as a result?

 

  1. Will you create ways for crowd-sourced AODA monitoring/enforcement, such as the Government publicly posting all online AODA compliance reports from obligated organizations in a publicly accessible, searchable data base, and by requiring each obligated organization to post its AODA compliance report on its own website if it has one?

 

  1. Will you require that to get a building permit and/or site plan approval for a construction project, the provincial or municipal approving authority must be satisfied that the project, on completion, will meet all accessibility requirements of the Ontario Building Code and the AODA accessibility standards? Will you require that post-project completion inspections include compliance with accessibility requirements in the Ontario Building Code and the AODA?

 

7.     Effectively Deploy Other Levers of Government Power to Achieve Accessibility

 

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.

 

  1. Will you undertake a comprehensive reform of Ontario’s education system as it relates to students with disabilities including its 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?

 

At present, design professionals, such as architects, do not need to be effectively trained in designing accessible buildings and other built environment to get or to keep their license.

 

  1. Will you make it mandatory for professional bodies that regulate or license architects and other design professionals to require adequate training on accessible design? This should not use the seriously flawed Rick Hansen Foundation training for accessibility assessors. Will you require as a condition of funding a college or university that trains professions (such as architects) that their curriculum include sufficient mandatory training on meeting disability accessibility needs?

 

Ontario continues to build new infrastructure projects replete with disability barriers. For example, the Government built Toronto’s new billion-dollar Armoury Street courthouse replete with serious disability barriers, as an AODA Alliance video revealed.

 

  1. Will you enact, enforce, publicize and report on compliance with standards and create a comprehensive strategy to ensure that public money is never used to create or perpetuate barriers against people with disabilities, for example, in capital or infrastructure spending, through procurement of goods, services or facilities, through business development grants or loans, or research grants? Will you reform the way public sector infrastructure projects are managed and overseen in Ontario, including a major reform of Infrastructure Ontario to ensure that accessibility is addressed far earlier and more effectively in the project?

 

  1. Will you require that when public money is used to create public housing that housing will include universal design?

 

Government-appointed AODA Independent Reviews recommended that the Ontario Government should provide far better technical advice and support for obligated organizations who want to take action on accessibility but who don’t know what to do.

 

  1. Will you establish a publicly funded centre arms-length from the Ontario Government to provide free expert detailed technical accessibility advice to the public, including obligated organizations and people with disabilities?

 

The Ontario Public Service too often deals poorly with accessibility in isolated silos. It has not implemented reforms recommended by Government-appointed AODA Independent Reviews.

 

  1. After consulting with people with disabilities within the Ontario Public Service and in the general public for four months, will you announce and implement a plan to re-engineer and strengthen how the Ontario Public Service ensures that its services, facilities and workplaces are accessible? This should include periodically auditing the accessibility of its services and facilities and making public the audit results.

 

  1. In Mandate Letters, will you direct the appropriate cabinet ministers and senior public officials to implement the Government’s accessibility obligations and commitments, and make these letters public?

 

  1. Will you establish a full-time Ontario Government Chief Accessibility Officer at the level of a deputy minister who is responsible for ensuring the accessibility of Ontario Government services, facilities, and workplaces? Will you ensure that each Ontario Ministry and the Cabinet Office has a full-time “Accessibility Lead” directly reporting to their deputy minister?

 

  1. Will you require that each ministry senior manager’s annual performance review include specific commitments relating to their mandate on accessibility for people with disabilities?

 

  1. Within 6 months, will you announce a detailed plan for lawyers at the Ministry of the Attorney General to undertake a review of all Ontario laws for disability accessibility barriers, and for ensuring that new legislation and regulations will be screened in advance to ensure that they do not authorize, create or perpetuate barriers against people with disabilities, with the review to be completed and its results made public within four years?

8.     Make Provincial and Municipal Elections Accessible to Voters with Disabilities

 

Voters with disabilities still face too many barriers in provincial and municipal elections.

 

  1. Will you consult with voters with disabilities within one year and then introduce in the Legislature within 9 months after that a bill and an action plan to comprehensively and effectively address accessibility needs of voters and candidates with disabilities in provincial and municipal elections?

 

  1. Will you commit that your candidates will not take part in any all-candidates’ debate in the next general election campaign if the location is not accessible to voters with disabilities?

 

9.     Remove Recently Created New Disability Barriers Traceable to the Ontario Government

 

The Government has made Ontario less accessible to people with disabilities.

 

  1. Within six months, will you appoint an independent inquiry to investigate and report on the effectiveness of the Ontario Government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic as it relates to the needs of people with disabilities, including in terms of such things as healthcare services, education services, developmental services, and income supports?

 

Last fall, over strong objections from the disability community, the Ontario Government extended for a second 5-year period its pilot with electric scooters. E-scooters are a silent menace that endanger vulnerable pedestrians with disabilities, seniors and others.

 

  1. Will you pass legislation or regulations to provide for effective enforcement of the ban on riding e-scooters in public places where it is prohibited, with strong penalties? Will you ban the sale of e-scooters for use in Ontario, with strong penalties?

 

  1. Will you suspend the recent extension of the Ontario e-scooters pilot project until the Ontario Government effectively gathers information on the impact of e-scooters on vulnerable pedestrians with disabilities, seniors and others during the first 5-year pilot (which the Government never collected) and holds an open consultation with people with disabilities?

 

10.  Reform the Dysfunctional Process for Enforcing Human Rights at the Human Rights Tribunal

 

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 system is broken. It needs substantial reform.

 

  1. Within 3 months, will you appoint an independent judicial review of the entire process for filing a human rights complaint and having a hearing at the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, including all aspects of the Tribunal, the Ontario Human Rights Commission and the Ontario Human Rights Legal Support Centre, to recommend reforming the system and making it effective and timely?