“How to Raise Disability Issues in This Ontario Election” Action Kit

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

 

“How to Raise Disability Issues in This Ontario Election” Action Kit

 

Ontarians with Disabilities Need You to Raise Disability Issues with Candidates and With Voters!

 

Disability issues are on the ballot in this Ontario election. Ontario is still full of disability barriers. These make it harder for 2.9 million Ontarians with disabilities when they try riding transit, getting equal education in schools, colleges and universities, making use of our health care system, getting competitive employment and using vital public services.

 

The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act promised a barrier-free province by January 1, 2025. That promise has been broken. Voters with disabilities and all voters deserve to know what Ontario’s next Government will do about it.

 

The AODA Alliance’s proposed Accessible Ontario Pledge calls on the next Ontario Government to show strong leadership on accessibility, starting at the top with Ontario’s premier. It asks for effective accessibility standards to be set in important areas like education and health care, to tear down disability barriers. It seeks to prevent public money from being used to create new disability barriers, as took place when Toronto’s new billion dollar Armoury Street criminal courthouse was built with preventable disability barriers. It seeks at long last to get the Disabilities Act effectively enforced and for the Government to be far more accountable to the public on these issues.

The Greens, NDP and Liberals have made detailed accessibility pledges which address most or all our issues. Only Doug Ford’s Tories have not answered.

 

Our goal in this election campaign is to get Doug Ford and his Tories to make the Accessible Ontario Pledge. We give you action tips that you can use right now! Please help our blitz.

 

Thanks to people like you swinging into action, we have had many successes over two decades on the road to a fully accessible Ontario, using action tips like these. Together we can do it again this time! Let us know what you do. Write us at aodafeedback@gmail.com

 

We are non-partisan. We don’t support or oppose any party. We aim to get all parties to make strong pledges on making Ontario accessible to people with disabilities.

 

What to Ask Tory Candidates

 

The Liberals, NDP and Greens have all made detailed pledges to lead Ontario to become accessible to Ontarians with disabilities. Doug Ford has not made any commitments. Ontario is now still full of disability barriers. The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act required the Government to lead this province to be fully accessible by the start of 2025.

 

  1. Will you pledge to lead Ontario to become accessible to people with disabilities? Will you ask Doug Ford to make the Accessible Ontario Pledge that the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance sent to all party leaders? Will you personally make the Accessible Ontario Pledge?

 

  1. Do you agree that the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act should be effectively enforced? Will you commit to urge Doug Ford to pledge to effectively enforce this law?

 

  1. Hundreds of thousands of students with disabilities face unfair barriers in Ontario schools, colleges and universities. Do you agree that Ontario must revamp the education system so that it provides an equal education to students with disabilities?

 

  1. The Ontario Government built a brand new courthouse in downtown Toronto. It cost the public a billion dollars. A video by the AODA Alliance shows that it is full of disability barriers. Do you pledge to never use public money to create new disability barriers?

 

Action Tip#1: Raise Our Disability Accessibility Issues Directly With the Candidates And Their Campaign Offices in Your Community

 

  • Please get our message directly to the Conservative candidate in your riding, at their offices or at your doorstep. Press them to make the Accessible Ontario Pledge. Email it to them. Ask them the questions we listed above. We have posted a list of the candidates of all parties, divided by party, for which we could find names, email addresses and/or Twitter handles.

 

  • If you have a smart phone, use it to record what you ask and what the candidates say. Post that video on YouTube or Facebook or wherever you can and share it with us and the world. You can be a citizen journalist, creating a record and sharing it with others!

 

Action Tip #2: Raise Our Issues at All Candidates Debates and Other Public Election Events in Your Community

 

  • Please go to all-candidates debates and other campaign events in your riding. Publicly ask Conservative candidates the questions we list earlier in this Action Kit. Ask them to lead their party leader, and not to just spout their party line!

 

  • If you have a smart phone, video or audio record your question and the candidates’ answers. Ask someone there to help by doing the recording while you are asking your question. Then, share your video or audio recording on social media like Facebook and Twitter. Post it on YouTube. Let us know what you recorded by emailing us at aodafeedback@gmail.com

 

This kind of citizen journalism gives you a fantastic chance to make a permanent record of what candidates say, and to spread the word. This means that we need not depend on the mainstream media for such exchanges to reach the public.

 

  • Search online to find the all-candidates debates in your riding, so you can arrange to attend them. Otherwise, call a campaign office for a candidate in your riding to find out when and where there will be candidates’ debates and other campaign events that you can attend.

 

 

  • If you hear that an All-Candidates Debate or other campaign event may be held in an inaccessible location, immediately raise it with the campaigns and with the media. Let us know about it. Email us immediately if this issue arises in your community, at aodafeedback@gmail.com

 

  • Either in person or online, plan to attend the February ###, 2025, All-Candidates Debate on Disability Issues that a consortium of disability organizations including the AODA Alliance is organizing. To register, go to ###

 

 

Action Tip #3: Tell Friends, Family and Strangers About This Election’s Disability Issues

 

Word of mouth can go a long, long way. Tell friends and anyone else you can about the election’s disability issues, and the parties’ positions. Tell them to press Tory candidates to make the Accessible Ontario Pledge to tear down disability barriers.

 

  • Get people to go to the AODA Alliance website and sign up for our Updates. That will keep them informed on our news as it breaks.

 

  • Email our AODA Alliance Updates to anyone you know. Tell them why disability issues matter to you and should matter to them. Post our Updates on social media. Follow @aodaalliance on Twitter and “like” our Facebook page. Urge people to share and retweet our social media posts.

 

Action Tip #4: Bring Our Issues to Your Local Media

 

  • Contact your local media. Urge them to cover this issue. Let them know about our grassroots election blitzes that many in the mainstream media often don’t sufficiently cover. Send them the links at the end of this Action Kit. Urge them to cover these election issues that concern over 2.9 million Ontarians with disabilities, as well as their families and friends. Remind them that the number of persons with disabilities in Ontario is growing as the population ages.

 

  • If you know any reporters, columnists or editors in your community, urge them to cover this.

 

  • Call in to phone-in radio shows. Bring our issue directly to the public. Educate the audience. This Action Kit gives you all you need.

 

  • If a candidate or party leader is on a phone-in program, call to raise these issues with them.

 

  • Write a guest column or letter to the editor on our issue for your local newspaper. Feel free to cut and paste as much as you want from this Action Kit, our AODA Alliance Updates, and our website.

 

Action Tip #5: Community Organizations — Spread The Word Through Your Networks!

 

  • If you are a staff member, volunteer or board member of a community organization, or are on a Municipal Accessibility Advisory Committee or school board’s Special Education Advisory Committee, please use their networks to spread the word on this election’s disability accessibility issues.

 

  • Get your organization to link its website to the AODA Alliance website. Your link might say, “Learn about the non-partisan grassroots campaign to make Ontario fully accessible for 1.9 million people with disabilities.”

 

  • Get your organization to broadcast our social media posts on their social media feeds.

 

Key Resources to Help You Join Our Election Campaign Blitz

 

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