AODA Alliance
ACCESSIBILITY FOR ONTARIANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT ALLIANCE
NEWS RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Ford Government’s Bill 17 “Building Faster and Smarter Act” is Harmful to Ontarians with Disabilities Who are Plagued by Crisis Shortage of Affordable Accessible Housing
May 29, 2025 Toronto: The Ford Government’s Bill 17, the “Protect Ontario by Building Faster and Smarter Act,” threatens to undermine the constitutional rights of Ontarians with disabilities, according to a disability coalition’s letter to Housing Minister Rob Flack (set out below). The bill takes away from municipalities the power to pass bylaws “respecting the construction… of buildings.”
“Many people incorrectly think that our outdated and inadequate Ontario Building Code requires all new buildings in Ontario to be designed to be fully accessible to people with disabilities, but sadly it falls far short. Some municipalities have commendably tried to fill the gap by promoting higher accessibility requirements,” said built environment expert and critic Thea Kurdi. “Ontario must not continue to leave seniors and people with disabilities out in the cold as they try to find places they can live.”
A jaw-dropping illustration of the problem is the Ontario Government’s new billion-dollar criminal courthouse in Toronto. A widely viewed AODA Alliance video reveals that it was built with a series of accessibility blunders. Some Ontario municipalities commendably have passed bylaws imposing stronger accessibility requirements, but Bill 17 purports to forbid municipalities from doing this.
“We need the Ford Government to spearhead the creation of substantially more homes and apartments that are accessible and to strengthen the Ontario Building Code’s weak accessibility provisions. Ontario’s accessible housing shortage is a crisis,” said David Lepofsky, Chair of the non-partisan grassroots AODA Alliance which campaigns to tear down disability barriers in society. “But Bill 17 makes things worse, not better for us. It’s a crushing irony that the Ford Government voted to approve this bill on Second Reading in the Legislature during the current National AccessAbility Week!”
The AODA Alliance has called on the Ford Government to make a simple amendment to Bill 17 to ensure that the bill does not reduce or limit the power of any municipality to enact bylaws or take other action respecting the construction of any building that promotes the accessibility of buildings to people with disabilities.” It calls for the Government to hold public hearings on Bill 17 and for Housing Minister Flack to agree to meet with AODA Alliance representatives.
“Two years ago, the Ford Government was told that Ontario is in an accessibility crisis that requires an emergency response led by the Premier. It received this advice from the expert whom the Government hand-picked to conduct an Independent Review of the Disabilities Act,” said Lepofsky. “Earlier this year, the Government failed to meet the Legislature’s 2025 deadline for leading Ontario to become accessible to people with disabilities.”
Contact: AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky, aodafeedback@gmail.com
Twitter: @aodaalliance
Text of AODA Alliance Letter to Housing Minister
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
May 29, 2025
To: The Hon Rob Flack, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing
Via email: minister.mah@ontario.ca rob.flack@ontario.ca
Dear Minister,
Re Bill 17 Threatens Fundamental Rights of Ontarians with Disabilities,
I write regarding Bill 17, the “Protect Ontario by Building Faster and Smarter Act.” This bill, as now written, would create a very troubling new legal disability barrier to effectively tackling the crisis-level shortage of accessible housing for people with disabilities in Ontario.
I write on behalf of the AODA Alliance. We are a widely recognized non-partisan grassroots coalition that advocates to tear down the many barriers in Ontario that impede over 2.9 million people with disabilities. All the political parties in the Legislature have recognized our expertise in the area of accessibility for Ontarians with disabilities.
We here identify a serious problem in one schedule of Bill 17. We provide a simple solution. We ask your help to implement this solution. Our solution does not contradict the bill’s aims. We do not take a position on the bill’s other contents.
We agree that it is important to increase the supply of affordable housing in Ontario. To be effective, any government strategy must effectively address the crisis shortage of accessible housing for purchase or rent. Otherwise, this crisis will only get worse as our population grows and continues to age. Aging is the biggest cause of disabilities. As people get older, they want to be able to stay in their home, wherever it is. This is widely known as “aging in place.”
Schedule 1 of Bill 17 includes this provision:
“4 Section 35 of the Act is amended by adding the following subsection:
Same
(1.1) For greater certainty, sections 9, 10 and 11 of the Municipal Act, 2001 and sections 7 and 8 of the City of Toronto Act, 2006 do not authorize a municipality to pass by-laws respecting the construction or demolition of buildings.”
At present the Ontario Building Code is widely recognized, especially by disability accessibility experts, as setting accessibility requirements for new and substantially renovated buildings in Ontario that are seriously inadequate. A new building can be built to comply with the Ontario Building Code’s accessibility requirements and yet be replete with disability barriers.
A powerful example of this is the new Toronto Courthouse on Armoury Street, which opened two years ago at a cost of almost one billion dollars. A widely viewed video that the AODA Alliance created shows that that building has every serious disability barriers. Visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6XNVMoUmB8
Enforceable accessibility standards enacted to date under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act do not fill this gap. This is so even though the AODA’s legislative purpose is to have led Ontario to become accessible to people with disabilities by 2025. This includes the accessibility of buildings.
To their credit, some Ontario municipalities have filled the gap by adopting and implementing strategies that set higher accessibility requirements than the Ontario Building Code. We need municipalities to be as free as possible to do this and indeed to expand these efforts.
Yet Bill 17 goes in the opposite direction. It prohibits municipalities from making bylaws respecting the construction of buildings.
It is bad enough that Bill 17 doesn’t help us tackle the crisis shortage in accessible housing. Bill 17 fires a strong shot across the bows of municipalities, deterring them from any effort at addressing the construction of buildings.
The risk is harmful enough that some or all municipalities would interpret Bill 17 as we do. We need the bill clarified to ensure that it does not cause harm to people with disabilities.
In October 2023, your Government received the draft report of the Design of Public Spaces Standards Development Committee, which the Government appointed under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act. It found among other things, the following:
“Among the areas of the Ontario Building Code that the committee felt needed most improvement were the requirements for residential accessibility. The committee discussed the immediate need for a greater supply of accessible housing in multi-unit residential buildings as well as specific regulatory changes to ensure a fully barrier-free experience in these units.”
This bill received Second Reading during National AccessAbility Week. It is terrible public policy and goes against the core messages in the guarantees of equality to people with disabilities in Section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Ontario Human Rights code, and the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act.
You can easily fix this. As a first step, please agree now to amend Bill 17 by adding a provision that provides:
“Notwithstanding anything in this statute, such as Section 4 of Schedule 1, nothing in this statute reduces or limits the power of any municipality to enact bylaws or take any other action respecting the construction of any building that promotes the accessibility of buildings to people with disabilities.”
Second, we ask for this bill to go to public hearings and for us and other disability advocates to be afforded a chance to testify before a Standing Committee of the Legislature. We also urgently ask for a meeting with you to discuss this issue. It is exceedingly difficult to decode this abstruse and complicated bill to screen it for other possible accessibility issues.
Sincerely,
David Lepofsky CM, O. Ont.,
Chair AODA Alliance
cc: The Hon Premier Doug Ford Email premier@ontario.ca
Raymond Cho, Minister for Seniors and Accessibility Raymond.cho@ontario.ca
Martha Greenberg, Deputy Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing martha.greenberg@ontario.ca
Peter Kaftarian Interim Deputy Minister for Seniors and Accessibility peter.kaftarian@ontario.ca