Ford Government’s 6.5 Years in Office Gets an “F” Grade on its Handling of its Duty to Lead Ontario to Become Accessible to 2.9 Million Ontarians with Disabilities

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

 

Ford Government’s 6.5 Years in Office Gets an “F” Grade on its Handling of its Duty to Lead Ontario to Become Accessible to 2.9 Million Ontarians with Disabilities

 

January 27, 2025

 

SUMMARY

 

Last Friday, Premier Ford announced that this Wednesday, he will call an early election. This election comes a year and a half before Ontario’s next election was scheduled by law to be held.

 

We reflect back on the Ford Government’s six and a half years in power since June 2018, to provide an assessment of how well the Ford Government has discharged its responsibility under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (“AODA”). The Government has been required to lead this province to become accessible to 2.9 million Ontarians with disabilities. The Ford Government has been in power for one third of the 20 years that the AODA gave the Government to lead Ontario to become disability accessible. It has had one cabinet minister, Raymond Cho, in charge of this file for that entire period. Minister Cho is the longest-serving minister of the eight ministers who have held this responsibility since the AODA was enacted in 2005.

 

Our conclusion in this report card is that the Ford Government sadly deserves an “F” grade. Its performance on this issue has been abysmal. It has done some things, but far, far less than was required to live up to its duties under the AODA. In important ways, it has made things worse for people with disabilities in Ontario.

 

The AODA Alliance has repeatedly offered the Ford Government constructive and practical recommendations on how to effectively fulfil its responsibilities under the AODA just days after it first took power in 2018. It has also received the expert advice of two successive Government-appointed AODA Independent Reviews, and six Government-appointed Standards Development Committees. The Government disregarded the vast majority of all these recommendations and this advice. Premier Ford never agreed to meet with AODA Alliance representatives over the two thirds of a decade that he has served in that office.

 

In providing this assessment, the AODA Alliance strictly adheres to its commitment to non-partisanship. We would give the same grade to any political party who had performed this way on this issue over the past 6.5 years. Where any government does well on our issues, we commend and applaud them. Where they do poorly, it is incumbent on the AODA Alliance to accurately evaluate this.

 

In the upcoming election, we are inviting all political parties to let us know what they will do, if elected, to lead Ontario to become accessible to people with disabilities. Voters with disabilities and indeed all voters can and should evaluate their commitments on this issue. We have called on all Ontario political parties to make the AODA Alliance’s 10-point Accessible Ontario Pledge  to lead Ontario to become disability-accessible as soon as possible after the AODA’s January 1, 2025 deadline which the Government has failed to meet.

In summary, we base this F grade on the following:

 

  1. The Ford Government has enacted no new accessibility standards under the AODA and strengthened none of the existing accessibility standards.

 

  1. The Government unnecessarily delayed the process for developing accessibility standards that the AODA establishes.

 

  1. The Ford Government has done a very poor job of discharging its duty to enforce the AODA.

 

  1. The Ford Government has let the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario become virtually dysfunctional.

 

  1. The Ford Government has used public money to create new disability barriers, making Ontario even less accessible for people with disabilities.

 

  1. The Ford Government’s emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic failed to effectively address the urgent needs of vulnerable people with disabilities.

 

  1. The Government has not effectively used other levers of power readily available to it to tear down disability barriers.

 

  1. The Ford Government has not acknowledged the severity of Ontario’s inaccessibility problem and instead spreads serious falsehoods about the accessibility of Ontario.

 

  1. The Ford Government has tried in some important ways to marginalize the AODA Alliance.

 

A comprehensive time line of our efforts and the Ford Government’s responses can be found on the What’s New page of the AODA Alliance website, with the most recent events at the top of that page.

 

A Closer Look – The AODA Alliance’s Assessment of the Ford Government’s Record on Achieving an Accessible Ontario for People with Disabilities

 

Here are key points leading to the Ford Government receiving an “F” grade for its handling of accessibility for people with disabilities.

 

1. The Ford Government has enacted no new accessibility standards under the AODA and strengthened none of the existing accessibility standards

 

Under the AODA, a key responsibility of the Government is to enact all the accessibility standards needed to ensure that Ontario became accessible to people with disabilities by the start of 2025. The Ford Government has not enacted any AODA accessibility standards at all in its 6.5 years in office. It has not revised and strengthened any of the existing AODA accessibility standards. The last new AODA accessibility standard in Ontario was enacted in 2012, two premiers ago.

 

The Ford Government has not enacted an Education Accessibility Standard to tear down the barriers impeding students with disabilities in Ontario. It received detailed recommendations of what Ontario’s students with disabilities need the Education Accessibility Standard to include for three years. These were submitted by Government-appointed experts who sat on the K-12 Education Standards Development Committee and the Post-Secondary Education Standards Development Committee. Very shortly after the Government received those recommendations, Ontario’s Accessibility Minister Raymond Cho wrote this in an email to the Chair of the K-12 Education Standards Development Committee, which was forwarded to all members of that committee on March 2, 2022:

 

On February 14, 2022, I wrote to you thanking you and the committee for all the hard work and dedication you and your committee members have shown in developing your K-12 Education Standards Development Committee’s Final Recommendations Report. I also noted at that time that I had instructed ministry staff to commence the work and analysis necessary for me to determine whether the proposed accessibility standards require any changes or modifications in order to bring them forward for broader government consideration. This includes taking the time necessary to research the full impact of any proposed change and to coordinate with other ministries and experts where necessary.

 

I am pleased to provide you with an update on the work of the ministry at this time. In order to determine how to implement the recommendations, ministry staff have started to undertake the necessary policy work to classify all of the recommendations into legislative, regulatory and program proposals. They will also be consulting with the Ministry of Education and other impacted ministries on potential amendments to the IASR. While it is still too early for me to confirm which of the proposals can be recommended to the Lieutenant Governor in Council (LGIC) for adoption into regulation, I can advise that I intend to recommend that the LGIC adopt into regulation specific requirements for the education sector either within the existing IASR accessibility standards or as an education standard for grades Kindergarten to 12, as appropriate, based upon the Education Standards Development Committee’s Final Recommendations Report.

 

Our government remains committed to removing barriers for students in Ontario’s K-12 education system and we will keep you updated on our progress.

 

Sincerely,

Raymond Cho Minister

 

The Ford Government has not enacted a Health Care Accessibility Standard to tear down the many barriers in Ontario’s health care system that obstruct patients with disabilities. Three years ago, the Government received excellent recommendations on what the Health Care Accessibility Standard should include from the panel of experts whom the Government appointed to the Health Care Standards Development Committee.

 

The Government has done nothing to strengthen the 2011 Transportation Accessibility Standard. The Ontario Government received recommendations to strengthen it from the Transportation Standards Development Committee 7 years ago, months before the Ford Government took office.

 

The Ford Government has not strengthened the 2011 Information and Communication Accessibility Standard. The Government received recommendations on needed improvements to it from the Information and Communication Standards Development Committee 4 years ago.

The Government has not strengthened the 2011 Employment Accessibility Standard. It received recommendations on needed improvements from the Employment Standards Development Committee 4 years ago.

 

The Government has enacted nothing under the AODA to remove or prevent rampant disability barriers in the built environment.

 

2. The Government unnecessarily delayed the process for developing accessibility standards that the AODA establishes

 

When it first took office, the Ford Government left the ongoing work of six Standards Development Committees frozen for months. The AODA Alliance had to divert energy to campaigning tenaciously to get their work resumed. This delay added to Ontario’s being behind schedule for becoming accessible.

 

The Ford Government violated the AODA by delaying the appointment of a Standards Development Committee to review the 2012 Design of Public Spaces Accessibility Standard for over four years after the legislated deadline. It also violated the AODA by delaying the appointment of a Standards Development Committee to review the Customer Service Accessibility Standard for two years after the legal deadline for doing so.

 

3. The Ford Government has done a very poor job of discharging its duty to enforce the AODA

 

The AODA gives the Government extensive enforcement powers. The Ford Government has made far too little use of them. In a statement to CBC broadcast on January 6, 2025, The Ford Government’s Accessibility Minister, Raymond Cho, largely abdicated the Government’s responsibility for effectively enforcing the Act, stating that the Government believes in education.

 

The Government-appointed AODA Independent Reviews by former Lieutenant Governor David Onley in 2019 and Rich Donovan in 2023, both found that AODA enforcement has been inadequate. If obligated organizations don’t believe there are any consequences for breaking the law, they are far less likely to obey the law.

 

4. The Ford Government has let the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario become virtually dysfunctional

 

With AODA enforcement so deficient, people with disabilities must rely on the Ontario Human Rights Code to battle the disability barriers they face. Yet, human rights complainants have to wait a half-decade or longer to get a hearing on their actual complaint, if they ever do get one.

 

5. The Ford Government has used public money to create new disability barriers, making Ontario even less accessible for people with disabilities

 

The AODA’s purpose, the Ontario Human Rights Code and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms all require that the Government not use public money to create new disability barriers. New accessibility barriers make things even worse for people with disabilities. Yet, the Ford Government did so on several fronts, using public money.

 

The Government announced many new infrastructure programs without requiring them to be fully accessible to people with disabilities. As one glaring example, it spent almost a billion dollars on a new criminal courthouse in the heart of downtown Toronto that is replete with preventable disability barriers about which we and others forewarned the Government. We documented these in a widely viewed online video about this billion dollar accessibility bungle.

 

The Government announced well over one billion dollars in funding for new school construction without requiring these new schools to be fully accessible. The K-12 Education Standards Development Committee’s final report included 20 pages of detailed recommendations on the accessibility requirements that the Government should require for school construction. The Ford Government appears to have ignored these.

 

The Ford Government has allowed municipalities and Metrolinx to design and build dangerous new bike paths on top of sidewalks. These endanger pedestrians with disabilities such as blind people, as an AODA Alliance video depicts. The Ford Government refused to include restrictions on this in its new legislation that regulates bike path construction, despite our requests for it to enact such restrictions.

 

As well, the Ford Government unleashed the silent menace of e-scooters on Ontarians at the behest of e-scooter corporate lobbyists, and over the strong objection of Ontarians with disabilities. It included no safeguards to require any protections for vulnerable seniors and pedestrians with disabilities, despite our requests for such. This is documented on the AODA Alliance website’s e-scooters page.

 

6. The Ford Government’s emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic failed to effectively address the urgent needs of vulnerable people with disabilities

 

Starting in March 2020, the Ontarians turned to the Ontario Government to lead the emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic. People with disabilities were disproportionately prone to contract COVID-19, to suffer its worst affects, and to die from it. Yet, the Ford Government’s one-size-fits-all COVID-19 strategies, especially in the health care system and the education system, failed to effectively address the urgent needs of vulnerable people with disabilities.

 

The AODA Alliance and other disability advocates repeatedly tried to get the Government to effectively address these needs. Perhaps the worst illustration of this is the Government’s critical care triage protocol. It was sent to all hospitals in case there was not enough room in intensive care wards for all patients who needed it. The Ontario critical care triage protocol was replete with disability discrimination. While the Government never formally invoked this protocol, its discriminatory approach to patients with disabilities has been left to fester in the health care system. This is all documented on the AODA Alliance website’s COVID-19 page and its critical care triage page.

 

7. The Government has not effectively used other levers of power readily available to it to tear down disability barriers

 

The Ontario Government has many levers of power which it can use at little or no cost to tear down disability barriers. The Ford Government has not effectively used these, beyond its failure to ensure that its new infrastructure projects are fully accessible.

 

For example, the Ford Government has not announced that it would ensure that when it spends billions of public dollars on procuring goods and services for the Government and the public, that these would be disability accessible.

 

It has used levers of power to harm the cause of accessibility. Early in its mandate, it actively promoted the severely flawed Rick Hansen Foundation private accessibility certification program. It even wasted 1.3 million dollars on that scheme. The AODA Alliance website’s RHF page documents the serious deficiencies with that program. We recommend against anyone using it.

 

 

8. The Ford Government has not acknowledged the severity of Ontario’s inaccessibility problem, and instead spreads serious falsehoods about the accessibility of Ontario

 

The Government has received detailed expert advice that Ontario has not been making enough progress on accessibility. The AODA Alliance has told the Government this time and time again. In 2019, the 3rd AODA Independent Review conducted by David Onley concluded that progress on accessibility is “glacial” and “barely-detectable.” In 2023, the Government-appointed 4th AODA Independent Review conducted by Rich Donovan declared that Ontario is in an “accessibility crisis.”

 

Even though Accessibility Minister Raymond Cho publicly stated in 2019 that David Onley did a “marvelous job,” the Government never publicly recognized the severity of the problem. It has never admitted that Ontario is in an accessibility crisis. Instead, it unjustifiably withheld the 2023 Rich Donovan final report from the public for six months. The AODA required that it be made public.

 

Recently, Accessibility Minister Raymond Cho made seriously bogus claims about progress on accessibility. He claimed among other things that 88% of people think Ontario is accessible. We document these claims in the January 17, 2025 AODA Alliance Update. When January 1, 2025, arrived with Ontario still full of disability barriers, the Ford Government announced no plan of action.

 

9. The Ford Government has tried in some important ways to marginalize the AODA Alliance

 

The AODA Alliance has three decades of experience and expertise in the area of removing and preventing disability barriers through legislation. Ontario’s last two premiers met several times with our leadership for advice and feedback, as did its several successive ministers responsible in this area.

 

In contrast, the AODA Alliance has for the most part gotten, at best, only lip service from the Ford Government. Premier Ford is the only Ontario premier in two decades who refused to meet with us. In the 2022 Ontario election, Premier Ford did not answer the AODA Alliances request for election commitments on disability accessibility issues.

 

The Accessibility Minister, Raymond Cho, had several meetings with the AODA Alliance Chair, David Lepofsky, early in his mandate. However, for the most recent three years, his Minister’s Office does not even answer our emails.

 

The Ford Government excluded the AODA Alliance from membership on the two AODA Standards Development Committees that it has appointed in its 6.5 years in office. These are the Design of Public Spaces Standards Development Committee and the Customer Service Standards Development Committee. The Government knew the AODA Alliance eagerly wanted to have a representative on each of those Standards Development Committees.