Read the draft AODA Alliance Brief to the Customer Service Standards Development Committee on Its October 2022 Initial Report to the Ontario Minister of Accessibility

DRAFT ONLY

 

AODA Alliance Brief to the Customer Service Standards Development Committee on Its October 2022 Initial Report to the Ontario Minister of Accessibility

 

 

 

December 19, 2024

 

 

 

1. Part I Introduction

 

1. Overview

 

This is the AODA Alliance’s brief to the Customer Service Standards Development Committee. In 2007, the Ontario Government enacted the Customer Service Accessibility Standard under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA). It sets accessibility requirements for some obligated organizations to address disability accessibility barriers in THE PROVISION OF GOODS, SERVICES AND/OR FACILITIES TO THE PUBLIC.

 

In 2007, the Ontario Government enacted the original Customer Service Accessibility Standard. The Government is mandated to enforce this regulation.  Within five years of the enactment of the Customer Service Accessibility Standard the Ontario Government was required to appoint a Standards Development Committee to review the sufficiency of that Standard, and to make recommendations on how to improve and strengthen it. In or around 2013, the Ontario Government appointed the Accessibility Standards Advisory Council (ASAC) to conduct the first five-year review of the Customer Service Accessibility Standard. We made detailed submissions to ASAC as part of its review. In 2016, the Ontario Government made some very minor revisions to the Customer Service Accessibility Standard in response to recommendations from ASAC. In 2016, the Customer Service Accessibility Standard was included as part of the Integrated Accessibility Standards Regulation.

 

 

By June 2021, the Ontario Government was required to again appoint a new Standards Development Committee to conduct a second five-year review of the sufficiency of the Customer Service Accessibility Standard, as revised in 2016. The Government did not appoint this new Standards Development Committee until some time in 2023, some two years after the statutory deadline.

 

The new Customer Service Standards Development Committee was required to develop a draft or initial report, setting out the recommendations it is to make to the Government for reform of the Customer Service Accessibility Standard. The Customer Service Standards Development Committee delivered its Initial Report to the Ontario Government in or around April 2024. Under the AODA, the Ontario Government was required to make that Initial Report public upon receiving it, so the public could give the Customer Service Standards Development Committee its feedback. In violation of the AODA, the Government did not make it public until October 2024, around a half year after it was received.

 

The public is entitled to give the Customer Service Standards Development Committee feedback on its Initial Report, including how the Initial Report could be improved, before it is finalized. This brief provides that feedback in written form. It draws on our extensive experience with the AODA, an endless stream of feedback over the years from our supporters about the barriers they face, and earlier briefs on this issue prepared by the AODA Alliance alone, or together with the ARCH Disability Law Centre.

 

Quite a number of the ideas in this brief emerge from close corroboration with the ARCH Disability Law Centre, for which we are deeply appreciative. We don’t footnote which passage or idea comes from whom. It’s a shared effort.

 

We thank the Customer Service Standards Development Committee for its work on preparing its Initial Report and for inviting public comment now on that report.

We welcomed the chance to meet virtually with the Customer Service Standards Development Committee at the start of this year. We now request a chance to again meet with the Standards Development Committee to discuss our recommendations in this brief.

 

2. Summary of this Brief

 

We agree with many of the Initial Report’s recommendations. There are a few with which we disagree. We offer ways that the Standards Development Committee’s specific recommendations can be fine-tuned to strengthen them.

 

However, even if all of the Initial Report’s recommendations were implemented customer service in Ontario would not thereby become accessible to people with disabilities at any time in the future. We therefore offer an additional series of recommendations to substantially strengthen the Customer Service Accessibility Standard, the weakest of all accessibility standards enacted to date under the AODA.

 

At the end of this brief is an appendix which lists of the AODA Alliance’s 66 Recommendations in this Brief.

 

3. Who is the AODA Alliance?

 

The AODA Alliance has extensive experience with the design, implementation and enforcement of accessibility legislation in Canada, including in the area of customer service. We were founded in 2005 shortly after the AODA was passed. We are a voluntary, non-partisan, grassroots coalition of individuals and community organizations. Our mission is:

 

“To contribute to the achievement of a barrier-free Ontario for all persons with disabilities, by promoting and supporting the timely, effective, and comprehensive implementation of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act.”

 

To learn about us, visit the AODA Alliance website. Our coalition is the successor to the non-partisan grassroots Ontarians with Disabilities Act (ODA) Committee. The ODA Committee advocated for more than ten years, from 1994 to 2005, for the enactment of strong, effective disability accessibility legislation. Our coalition builds on the ODA Committee’s work. We draw our supporters from the ODA Committee’s broad grassroots base. To learn about the ODA Committee’s history, visit the ODA Committee’s legacy website.

 

Our volunteer non-partisan coalition has within it the fullest institutional memory about the AODA available in Ontario. Our extensive advocacy efforts over the past decade and a half to get a strong and effective accessibility standard enacted to address barriers in customer service are documented on the AODA Alliance website’s customer service page. We have been quoted many times in the media in this area.

 

 

**Part II Preliminary Reflections on the Initial Report of the Customer Service Accessibility Standard

 

Before we address the details in the Initial Report’s recommendations, we offer preliminary reflections on the Customer Service Standards Development Committees overall approach.

 

The Standards Development Committee identified very good analytical steps that it took into account in developing its recommendations. This seems like a stronger and more appropriate focus than any previous Standards Development Committee has described in their reports as their principled guides for conducting their reviews of existing accessibility standards. For example, some of the earlier Standards Development Committees erroneously decided to ask themselves if the existing accessibility standard that they were reviewing was working “as intended.” That was a far too low bar for them to use.

 

In very positive contrast, the Initial Report commendably states:

“The committee considered the evolution of the customer service landscape since the time of the first review, and the resulting issues and potential gaps that have emerged since that time. This was particularly relevant in regard to the rapidly changing environment surrounding service animals and ride sharing.

As it developed its recommendations, the committee discussed the range of disabilities and barriers that exist, while also considering the technical and fiscal impacts that implementation may have on various sectors. The committee also gave substantial thought to the existing legislative and regulatory frameworks. In particular, the committee considered the procedural duty to accommodate under Ontario’s Human Rights Code (the Code) in its deliberation of proposed recommendations for customer service. Beyond this, the committee recognized the need for clear guidance, support and education to support obligated organizations in understanding their requirements, under the AODA, the IASR, and the Code.

External legal experts and disability rights advocates delivered presentations and provided perspectives that helped the committee as it developed its recommendations.

The director of the AODA Compliance Assurance Branch from the Ministry for Seniors and Accessibility presented on data gathered by the ministry and provided examples of areas where more clarity was required to assist organizations in understanding standards requirements. Ministry staff also presented on broader accessibility data and best practices from a variety of jurisdictions. This helped the committee consider both the current state of accessibility challenges, as well as desired outcomes in the future.”

 

However, we have some concerns about the Standards Development Committees overall approach. We describe them here, and urge the Standards Development Committee to modify its approach to its task accordingly. This should be easy for the Standards Development Committee to do.

 

First, in the Initial Report’s covering letter, the Chair of the Customer Service Standards Development Committee wrote:

 

“Over the course of these discussions, members underscored the importance of changing attitudes through training and education.”

 

Decades of experience, including two decades under the AODA, have proven that “changing attitudes through training and education” is a strategy that has predominated efforts on advancing the goal of accessibility for people with disabilities. It has failed to bring Ontario anywhere near the goal of an accessible province, or to achieve accessible customer service. Educating providers of goods, services and facilities can be helpful. However, it cannot be expected to drive the change we need. This has been tried under the AODA with far too little success for two decades.

 

Second, the Initial Report’s covering letter said that among other things, the Standards Development Committee aimed at developing recommendations “that aligned with national and provincial legislation…” In the abstract, that can sound reasonable. However, it is vital that this not constrain the Standards Development Committees final recommendations.

 

Ontario’s accessibility standards are not required legally or constitutionally to align with federal legislation. If the Standards Development Committee wants obligated organizations to take a specific action, needed to achieve accessibility, Ontario has constitutional authority to require such action. Federal legislation cannot and should not reduce any such obligation below the level that the Standards Development Committee deems necessary.

 

Moreover, nothing in the AODA requires its accessibility standards to align with other provincial legislation. To the contrary, other legislation, such as the Ontario Building Code, have for too long undermined the goal of achieving accessibility for people with disabilities, by setting inadequate accessibility standards requirements for the built environment. For the Customer Service Accessibility Standard to “align with” the Ontario Building Code would hurt accessibility, not help it. The same can be said for the problematic Education Act in so far as protecting students with disabilities from disability barriers in school.

 

The AODA is meant to prevail over other legislation that provide for lesser accessibility. At several points in this brief, we point out where the Standards Development Committee sought to recommend this kind of alignment e.g. with federal requirements. Throughout, we ask that this be eliminated from the Standards Development Committee’s forthcoming final report.

 

Third, the covering letter stated:

“The committee reviewed all the sections under the customer service standards and general requirements, developing recommendations that aligned with national and provincial legislation, addressed duplication, increased clarity and proposed new requirements in areas that are not covered under the current regulation.

I believe that our report and recommendations, once finalized, will provide a pathway to help prevent barriers and make it easier for Ontarians with disabilities to access goods, services and facilities.”

 

The goal of the Customer Service Accessibility Standard is not merely to “make it easier to access services, goods and facilities. Its goal is to achieve the accessibility of services, goods and facilities.

 

Similarly, the Initial Report’s background section significantly understates the AODA’s goal. It states:

 

“sets out accessibility standards in key areas of daily life, including customer service, to help create a more accessible and inclusive Ontario.”

 

In fact, the AODA’s purpose is to achieve an accessible Ontario, not a “more accessible” Ontario. Utterly minimal and inadequate action would bake Ontario “more accessible” than it now is. Merely installing one ramp somewhere would achieve this goal. It is vital that the Standards Development Committee’s recommendations not in any way diminish the AODA’s core goals for which people with disabilities fought so long and hard.

 

Fourth, the background section of the Initial Report also incorrectly states:

 

“Under these standards, public, private and not-for-profit organizations with more than one employee in Ontario must provide accessible customer service to people with disabilities.”

 

We wish that that were the case. We regret that the Customer Service Accessibility Standard and the Integrated Accessibility Standards Regulation general provisions are so weak that they do not come close to such a requirement. We need these standards revised to state what the Standards Development Committee here thought the standard now requires. Our recommendations would achieve this.

 

** Part III Our Detailed Feedback on the Standards Development Committee’s Specific Recommendations

 

 

1. Long Term -Objectives of the Customer Service Accessibility Standard

 

We respectfully disagree with the Initial Report’s proposed long-term objective of the Customer Service Accessibility Standard. It is far too weak and limited. It will dramatically underserve people with disabilities.

 

It only aims to ensure that those who provide services, goods and facilities to people with disabilities “understand their obligations” to people with disabilities. The Standards Development Committee recommended that the Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be as follows:

 

“The long-term objective of the customer service standards is that persons or organizations providing goods, services (including programs), and facilities understand their obligations to design and deliver barrier-free customer service that is accessible and equitable to persons with disabilities in the province of Ontario. The standards specify requirements for achieving the long-term objective.”

 

The standard’s objective must not confuse means with ends. To fulfil the AODA’s goal, the Customer Service Accessibility Standard must actually lead to people with disabilities receiving accessible customer service by 2025, or as soon after that date as can be achieved. An obligated organization might fully understand its obligations, thereby fulfilling the Standards Development Committee’s stated objective, but do absolutely nothing to remove or prevent barriers to accessible customer service. The state of knowledge of service providers may be a means to the end, but it is not the end in and of itself.

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#1 The proposed long-term objective of the Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be revised to read as follows:

 

“The Customer Service Accessibility Standard’s long term-objective is to ensure that people with disabilities can receive accessible, barrier free customer service in Ontario by 2025, or as soon after January 1, 2025 as can be achieved.”

 

2. Recommendation 1: establishment of accessibility policies

 

We generally agree with the Initial Report’s Recommendation 1: establishment of accessibility policies, subject to additional matters that need to be addressed, below. However, we respectfully disagree with Recommendation 1 where it states:

 

“6. Update the language in the customer service standards from “equal” to “equitable” to reflect the different needs of people with disabilities.”

 

This well-intentioned recommendation appears to rest on the erroneous implicit premise that “equal” means treating everyone the same, while “equitable” means recognizing and accommodating situations where people with disabilities have different needs.

 

However, under the Ontario Human Rights Code, “equal treatment” does not mean automatically treating everyone the same. The Supreme Court of Canada has held for decades that identical treatment can itself be discriminatory, and equality can require people to be treated differently, including, of course, in the context of accommodating the needs of people with disabilities.

 

There is therefore no need for the Initial Report’s recommended change. Using the vague term “equitable” risks diluting the protection for customers with disabilities.

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#2 The Initial Report’s Recommendation 1 should be revised to delete the proposal that the word “equal” in the Customer Service Accessibility Standard’s policy provision be replaced with the more vague and diluted word “equitable.”

 

3. Recommendation 2: accessible training

 

We agree with the contents of the Initial Report’s Recommendation 2: accessible training. However, it does not go far enough. It focuses on non-legislative measures.

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#3 The Initial Report’s Recommendation 3 should be strengthened to proposed amendments to the Customer Service Accessibility Standard to achieve the ‘Standards Development Committees goals.

 

4. Recommendation 3: accessibility plans

 

We agree with the content of Recommendation 3: accessibility plans, with one exception.

 

Obligated organizations with 20 to 50 employees should be required to establish accessibility plans, albeit with more flexibility and fewer requirements than for organizations with over 50 employees. An organization with 45 employees is by no means akin to a small mom and pop operation. The accessibility planning requirement plays an important role in focusing an organization on what specifically it needs to do to remove and prevent disability barriers.

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#4 The Initial Report’s Recommendation 3 should be revised to require that obligated organizations with 20 to 50 employees have some requirement to establish and implement accessibility plans.

 

5. Recommendation 4: feedback process required

 

We support the contents of the Initial Report’s Recommendation 4: feedback process required. Several additional recommendations are needed to make customer feedback on accessibility issues far more effective.

 

As the Customer Service Accessibility Standard now stands, no one need ever review the customer feedback. No one in authority need ever know what people with disabilities have told the organization. There is no assurance that people with disabilities will reach a human being when giving feedback. People with disabilities are far less likely to bother giving feedback when it is merely submitted on some faceless and impersonal web form, rather than speaking to an individual.

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#5 The Initial Report Recommendation 4 should be revised to require that:

1. a) For obligated organizations with over 50 employes, the feedback mechanism should be required to offer people with disabilities the option of giving their feedback by phone or in person directly to a human being.
2. b) The obligated organization should be required to designate an employee to review the customer feedback and convey it to the CEO or other senior manager.
3. c) The obligated organization should be required to take into account the customer feedback received when establishing or revising its Accessibility Plan.

 

6. Recommendation 5: format of documents

 

We support the Initial Report’s Recommendation 5: format of documents. We address this topic more later in this brief.

 

7. Recommendation 6: procuring or acquiring goods, services or facilities

 

We agree with the general thrust of the Initial Report’s Recommendation 6: procuring or acquiring goods, services or facilities, with these exceptions.

 

The Initial Report recommends:

 

“The Ontario government to monitor Accessibility Standards Canada (ASC) and the Accessible Procurement Resource Centre (APRC) projects underway to evaluate changes to procurement standards and leverage opportunities to inform procurement standards, emphasizing the importance of Federal-Provincial-Territorial collaboration.”

 

It is of course always helpful to learn from others’ practices in the area of accessibility. However, there is no need for “Federal-Provincial-Territorial collaboration” in the procurement context. Ontario buys the goods and services it needs, regardless of what the Federal Government procures.

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#6 The Initial Report Recommendation 6 should not recommend devoting effort at federal-provincial-territorial collaboration in the context of procurement.

 

The Initial Report recommends:

 

“The Ontario government to study the utilization of artificial intelligence and its implications for accessibility standards.”

 

It seems that AI is now the fad or flavour of the month. Accessibility however requires a keen focus on individualized human experience, not computer-generated experience. AI risks automating inequality.

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#7 Resources and time should not now be devoted to using artificial intelligence to address accessible procurement.

 

#8 If AI is to be considered for accessible procurement, sufficient measures should first be required to ensure that the AI is not itself creating new disability barriers by automating inequality.

 

The Initial Report also recommends:

 

“Define practicability similarly to section 14 (6) from the information and communications standards and make it clear how it works alongside undue hardship in Ontario’s Human Rights Code.”

 

We strongly object to any AODA accessibility standard including a “practicability” standard. It falls below the Ontario Human Rights Code mandatory and overarching undue hardship standard.

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#9 The test of “practicability” should be removed from any and all AODA accessibility standards and replaced with the legally mandatory standard of “undue hardship.”

 

Right now, the Customer Service Accessibility Standard does not specifically lay down the overarching principle that public money should never be used to create or exacerbate barriers against people with disabilities. This should be a requirement of the procurement provisions.

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#10 The Integrated Accessibility Standards Regulation procurement requirements should be amended to require that public money is never used to create or exacerbate disability barriers.

 

#11 The Integrated Accessibility Standards Regulation should be amended to require the Ontario Government to establish and widely publicize an avenue for the public to report to the Government on situations where public money is used to create, perpetuate or exacerbate disability accessibility barriers e.g. through the procurement process.

 

#12 The Provincial Auditor should be required to audit the Government to ensure compliance with requirements on ensuring that public money is not used to create, perpetuate or exacerbate disability accessibility barriers e.g. in the procurement process.

 

8. Recommendation 7: notice of temporary disruptions

 

We support the Initial Report’s Recommendation 7: notice of temporary disruptions

 

9. Recommendation 8: self-service kiosks

 

In general, we support the direction of the Initial Report’s Recommendation 8: self-service kiosks with the following important exceptions:

 

The Integrated Accessibility Standards Regulation’s current requirements for electronic kiosks do not address retrofitting existing electronic kiosks which have accessibility problems. The technology for these electronic kiosks is evolving. They get upgraded periodically. A retrofit requirement should be built into this cycle.

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#13 the Integrated Accessibility Standards Regulation’s electronic kiosk provisions should be revised to require retrofitting of electronic kiosks in their development cycle, and in any event, within five years, to remove and prevent disability barriers.

 

The current electronic kiosk requirements include no specifics on what should be included in an electronic kiosk. Specific technology should not be required, since that technology is evolving. However, the provision should the accessible usability outcomes that must be achieved e.g. that persons who cannot read print must have alternative ways to access print information presented by the electronic kiosk.

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#14 the Integrated Accessibility Standards Regulation’s electronic kiosk provisions should be revised to set out mandatory accessibility outcomes that the accessibility features must achieve.

The Initial Report emphasizes in this context:

 

“the importance of alignment with any future federal accessibility requirements, given the impact these would have on federally regulated sectors such as banking or airlines”

 

We do not see any need to harmonize with federal accessibility requirements, present or future. This risks diluting Ontario’s requirements. We want to ensure that the highest level of accessibility prevails. Moreover, any such “harmonization” creates more work and delays, with no benefit to people with disabilities.

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#15 The Initial Report’s electronic kiosks’ recommendations should not require or consider any form of harmonization with present or future federal regulatory requirements.

 

The Initial Report proposes to refer an issue surrounding electronic kiosks to the Design of Public Spaces Standards Development Committee, as follows:

 

“Refer issue to the Design of Public Spaces Standards Development Committee to consider the design and definition of kiosks beyond the issue of counter height, to include the physical environment of the kiosk (for example, gap pumps, ticket machines, room size, space for a wheelchair, etc.).”

 

We do not want this issue splintered, especially given the other work on the Design of Public Spaces Standards Development Committees plate and the need for that Standards Development Committee to substantially strengthen its Initial Report’s recommendations.

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#16 The Initial Report’s Recommendation 8 should cover all standards needed for electronic kiosks and should not defer any of this to the Design of Public Spaces Standards Development Committee.

 

Increasingly, stores and service providers are implementing point-of-sale devices. These must be accessible for there to be truly accessible customer service. Too often, they are not.

 

Moreover, an obligated organization that deploys these needs to offer an easily-available alternative for those who, due to disability, cannot use them e.g. a human being at a check-out or service counter.

 

The 2011 Integrated Accessibility Standard Regulation provides for new electronic kiosks in part. Its provisions are too vague, weak and limited.

 

New point-of-sale devices are popping up in stores all the time. It is no burden to ensure that they are designed to be fully accessible to persons with disabilities. Such accessibility features typically make such devices easier for all to use, not just persons with disabilities.

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#17 The Standards Development Committee should present detailed accessibility requirements to enhance those now in the Integrated Accessibility Standard Regulation regarding point-of-sale devices.

 

 

 

10. Recommendation 9: the use of service animals

 

We agree with the Initial Report’s Recommendation 9: the use of service animals with these exceptions.

 

The Initial Report recommends that training materials be developed to explain where service animals can be excluded on grounds such as other provincial laws or municipal bylaws. Yet the Ontario Human Rights Code and the ban on discrimination based on use of a service animal prevails over other Ontario laws and municipal bylaws. At the very least, AODA standards also prevail over municipal bylaws.

 

The Initial Report’s Recommendation 9 includes:

 

“7. Ensure alignment with federal government standards as they are released in order to reduce confusion and work towards a seamless experience across jurisdictions.”

 

This again risks diluting Ontario protections in the case of any possible weaker federal requirements. Ontarians with disabilities should not have to fight a rear-guard battle to protect their Ontario protections against weaker federal ones.

 

In recent years, the Federal Government considered a very retrograde recommendation regarding service animals. This required a major advocacy effort by people with disabilities to fend it off. We don’t need any more of that.

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#18 The Initial Report’s Recommendation 9 should be revised to eliminate any call for Ontario service animal requirements to be aligned with federal requirements, or to provide training materials that might in any way suggest that duties to service animal users can be reduced by other provincial laws or municipal bylaws.

 

We commend the Customer Service Standards Development Committee for endorsing recommendations on service animals from the Health Care Standards Development Committee. However, we regret that the Customer Service Standards Development Committee said nothing about the detailed service animal recommendations from the K-12 Education Standards Development Committee. These should be endorsed and incorporated into the Customer Service Accessibility Standard.

 

It has been almost three years since the Government received the K-12 Education Standards Development Committee’s final report. Yet the Government has not enacted any of their recommendations. The K-12 Education Standards Development Committee’s final report included:

 

“Service animals (as per Accessibility for Ontarians With Disabilities Act, 2005 customer service standards) recommendation

 

Barrier: some school boards or schools do not let students with disabilities bring a sufficiently trained service animal to school as an accommodation to their disability, either because the school board or school does not allow for this or lacks a proper policy to allow for this.

 

Some students on the autism spectrum and their families in Ontario have reported having difficulties at some school boards with being allowed to bring a service animal to school and have even had to take action before the Human Rights Tribunal against a school board. Others have been able to succeed without barriers in bringing their service animal to school.

 

92. We therefore recommend:

 

92.1 when a student with disabilities or their parent/caregiver request permission for the student to bring a trained service animal to school with them as an accommodation to their disability, the school board shall consider, decide upon that request, and give reasons for its decision, in accordance with the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005, with the duty to accommodate students with disabilities under the Ontario Human Rights Code, with the policy of the Ontario Human Rights Commission on the duty to accommodate persons with disabilities, available at http://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/policy-ableism-and-discrimination-based-disability and the Commission’s Policy on accessible education for students with disabilities available at http://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/policy-accessible-education-students-disabilities and with the following requirements set out in these accessibility standards. This includes requests regarding a trained service animal from an accredited training organization that provided training to the animal and to the student. Where the service animal was not trained by an accredited training organization, it is open to the student or their family to present to the school board satisfactory evidence that both the service animal and the student have received sufficient training.

 

92.2 the school board shall put in place a fair and speedy procedure for considering requests for a student to bring a service animal to school. This procedure should include the following:

1. a) if the school board has any objection to or concerns about the request, the school board will immediately notify the student and family about the specific concerns, and shall work to resolve them, in a manner consistent with the Ontario Human Rights Code.
2. b) if the school board does not believe that the service animal could assist the student at school, the school board should investigate the request, including how the student’ benefits from the service animal outside the school and in the home.
3. c) if the school board has any concerns about the feasibility of allowing the student to bring the service animal to school, it shall investigate the experience of other school boards and schools which have successfully enabled a student to bring their service animal to school.
4. d) if a concern is expressed that the service animal at school would interfere with the human rights of other students or staff, the school board shall take action to effectively accommodate their rights without sacrificing the human rights of the student using the service animal, in accordance with the policy of the Ontario Human Rights Commission on conflicting rights. For example, if an EA, assigned to work with the student, cannot work with the service animal for health or other human rights reasons, the school board shall facilitate the assignment of this responsibility to another staff member.
5. e) a student shall not be refused the opportunity to bring a qualified service animal to school without the school board first allowing a trial or test period with the service animal at school.
6. f) where it is proposed to allow a student with disabilities to bring a service animal to school, the school board shall work out with the student, their family, and the organization providing the service animal, a plan to promote the success of the accommodation, including such things as:
7. Allowing the service animal’s training organization to provide training in the school to school staff, including emergency response with the service animal to ensure of their safety.
8. allowing the training organization to provide an orientation to the student population at the school to the presence of the service animal.

iii.        providing information to other families to reinforce the inclusion of the service animal at school.

1. g) if the school board does not agree to the service animal being allowed at school, or if there is a problem with implementing the school board’s plans to facilitate its inclusion, the school board shall make available a swift dispute resolution process, including independent mediation if needed, to resolve these issues.

 

92.3 the Ministry of Education shall obtain information from school boards on where service animals have been allowed in school, to make it easier for a school board to reach out to those schools to gather information, if needed.

 

92.4 nothing in these accessibility standards shall reduce or restrict the rights of a person with vision loss who is coming to a school bringing with them their guide dog, trained by an accredited school for training guide dogs.

Timeline: six months”

 

The K-12 Education Standards Development Committee reached a strong consensus on these recommendations after very extensive work. This included working closely with disability community representatives, teachers’ union and school board representatives on the Standards Development Committee, and a recognized service animal training organization.

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#19 The Initial Report should be revised to endorse the service animal recommendations in the K-12 Education Standards Development Committee’s final report.

 

 

11. Recommendation 10: the use of support persons

 

We agree with the Initial Report‘s Recommendation 10: the use of support persons with important exceptions.

 

The Initial Report’s Recommendation 10 would improve the Customer Service Accessibility Standard by attempting to reduce the opportunity for obligated organizations to require a customer with disabilities to bring a support person with them. The Independent Review includes:

 

“5.          An organization may only require a person with a disability to be accompanied by a support person where it is determined that no other reasonable accommodation measures will allow the individual to access the goods, services or facilities provided by the organization. Where that is the case, the organization must pay the fees and wages for the support person to the point of undue hardship.

 

6. The Ontario government should partner with the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) to produce plain language training materials on the procedural duty to accommodate the need for a support person under both the AODA and OHRC and include this as mandatory training under the IASR.”

 

However, the Customer Service Accessibility Standard should simply never purport to empower an obligated organization to require a person with disabilities to be accompanied by a support person. Section 80.47 5) of the standard authorizes some organizations to create new barriers to impede access to persons with disabilities. An AODA accessibility standard cannot itself create or authorize the creation of a disability barrier. Section 80.47 states in material part:

 

“(5) The provider may require a person with a disability to be accompanied by a support person when on the premises, but only if, after consulting with the person with a disability and considering the available evidence, the provider determines that,

(a)        a support person is necessary to protect the health or safety of the person with a disability or the health or safety of others on the premises; and

(b)       there is no other reasonable way to protect the health or safety of the person with a disability and the health or safety of others on the premises.

 

(6) If an amount is payable for a person’s admission to the premises or in connection with a person’s presence on the premises, the provider shall ensure that notice is given in advance about the amount, if any, payable in respect of the support person.

 

(7) If, under subsection (5), the provider requires a person with a disability to be accompanied by a support person when on the premises, the provider shall waive payment of the amount, if any, payable in respect of the support person’s admission to the premises or in connection with the support person’s presence on the premises.”

 

Under this provision, an organization can force a person with a disability in some situations to bring a support person with them. If the person with a disability doesn’t comply, the organization can refuse to admit the person with a disability.

 

The vague standard governing this is “only if a support person is necessary to protect the health or safety of the person with a disability.” There is a real and serious risk that an organization with an uninformed stereotype-induced perception of disabilities will wrongly conclude that some person with a disability poses a health and safety risk to themselves. This provision also doesn’t require the risk to health and safety to be serious or substantial or imminent, or preventable by reasonable means short of forcing the person with a disability to be accompanied by a support person.

 

This standard lets an organization create this barrier against persons with disabilities even if a person with a disability, with far superior understanding of their disability, knows he or she poses no such risk, or concludes that the risk is one they are prepared to bear. This violates the fundamental dignity of persons with disabilities to decide what risks they wish to undertake for themselves.

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#20 the Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be revised to remove Section 80.47(5), (6) and (7) which authorizes an obligated organization to require a customer with disabilities to be accompanied by a support person as a condition of their being admitted to the premises of the obligated organization.

 

12. Recommendation 11: purpose, application and definitions;

 

We agree with Recommendation 11: purpose, application and definitions where it recommends that:

 

“2. The definition of a service animal should include emotional support animals and provide examples of different types of service animals.”

 

We do not know if there is standardized documentation available for emotional support animals. As such, we are cautious about the recommendation that:

 

“The requirement to carry documentation for service animals should also apply to emotional support animals.”

 

We disagree with the Initial Report where it recommends:

 

“The ‘customer service standards’ should be renamed ‘the design and delivery of accessible programs and services standards’ to align with language used by other jurisdictions, including federal.”

 

As stated earlier, there is no general benefit to harmonizing with federal legislation or regulations. Moreover, this new name will only cause confusion. Obligated organizations and people with disabilities have had 17 years to get used to the name Customer Service Accessibility Standard. The proposed new name is not any clearer, and will not help.

 

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#21 The Initial Report’s Recommendation 11 should be revised to remove its proposal that the Customer Service Accessibility Standard be renamed.

 

**Part IV Ontario Needs Substantially Stronger Revisions to the Customer Service Accessibility Standard Beyond Those in the Initial Report

 

In the Initial Report, the Customer Service Standards Development Committee systematically reviewed the 2007 Customer Service Accessibility Standard (as revised in 2016) on a clause-by-clause basis. As the foregoing discussion shows, we agree with much of what the Standards Development Committee has recommended in its Initial Report. A number of the Initial Report’s recommendations modestly improve the sections of the Customer Service Accessibility Standard they address. A good number of the recommendations focus on ironing out inconsistencies in the Customer Service Accessibility Standard and other provisions of the Integrated Accessibility Standards Regulation which were enacted after 2007, and which were not added requirements in somewhat different terms than those in the Customer Service Accessibility Standard.

 

However, even if the Government enacted all the revisions to the Customer Service Accessibility Standard that the Initial Report recommends, the Standard would not significantly improve things for customers with disabilities. Those revisions would not substantially strengthen the Customer Service Accessibility Standard. Far more substantial reforms are needed, if there is to be any hope that customer service will become accessible to Ontarians with disabilities.

 

The next part of this brief lists the additional revisions that the Standards Development Committee should add to its report to the Ontario Government before it finalizes that report. They are designed to fill the gap and substantially strengthen the Customer Service Accessibility Standard.

 

This is needed for these reasons. First, we know beyond doubt that Ontarians with disabilities continue to face a myriad of accessibility barriers when seeking customer service in Ontario. The AODA Alliance regularly receives complaints about this from our supporters. We regularly get such complaints even when we don’t actively solicit such information. Indeed, complete strangers to the AODA Alliance periodically reach out to us because of these barriers.

 

As well, the media has regularly reported on customer service disability barriers. Reporters regularly reach out to the AODA Alliance for comment on stories that individuals with disabilities have brought to them. We have posted samples of this reportage on the AODA Alliance website’s media page.

 

That such barriers persist are also recognized in successive Government-appointed AODA Independent Reviews. Those Independent Reviews are required to consult the public, including people with disabilities. The first AODA Independent Review, conducted by Charles Beer, could not address this, because the Customer Service Accessibility Standard had not yet gone into full effect when the Beer Report was rendered in early 2010.

 

A decade ago, the final report of the 2^nd AODA Independent Review conducted by Mayo Moran found that serious barriers still face people with disabilities in accessing goods and services, nine years after the Customer Service Accessibility Standard was first enacted in 2007. Its findings remain relevant a decade later. That report stated:

 

“Access to Goods and Services

 

Many people with disabilities have confronted personal issues with access to goods and services, despite the Customer Service standards. For example, one person with a disability told of being talked down to in a threatening way by staff of a government program. A ServiceOntario office gave a customer with a white cane a piece of paper with a number on it and told him to watch the video screen. A shop in Windsor refused to admit two women in wheelchairs, and many businesses are still denying access to guide dogs. A store clerk refused to help a person with a disability fill out a form for a points card – an accommodation that would have cost nothing. All in all, businesses may be doing more paperwork and filing more forms under the Customer Service standard, said one participant, but little change is happening at the storefront level.

 

Travellers have the strong impression that Ontario is far behind the United States as far as accessibility goes.

 

Individuals with hearing loss often find they are expected to bring their own interpreter or facilitator, even when the service provider is responsible for two-way communication. People with speech and language disabilities not caused by hearing loss worry about the lack of awareness and availability of simple tools such as alphabet boards and communications assistants in hospitals. More generally, it is felt that police, health care professionals and social service workers, in their day-to-day interaction with the public, “don’t have a clue” about deafness and other disabilities and the impact on people’s lives.

 

Travellers have the strong impression that Ontario is far behind the United States as far as accessibility goes. One presenter, who is blind, explained that the biggest difference was in awareness – in the United States the welcome received when entering a business was always positive, as opposed to what was described as avoidance and marginalization found when using services in Ontario. Another speaker remarked that restaurant employees in the U.S. are used to reading menus to customers out loud instead of suggesting they order one of the specials. One participant said that if you try renting a cottage, bed and breakfast or room in Ontario’s main tourist areas with a service animal, you are probably out of luck.

The Review also heard that although the Customer Service standard requires organizations to make information about their customer service feedback process readily available, many are not doing so effectively. The result is that few people know that there is an avenue that could help to correct problems and organizations do not receive the feedback that could enable them to remedy problems and improve their customer experience. Moreover, some participants suggested that people may be reluctant to use feedback mechanisms for fear of being seen as troublemakers.”

 

The Moran Report also found:

 

“Customer Service

 

Some disability stakeholders feel the Customer Service Standard is not specific enough to be effective. It explicitly addresses only a few named barriers, like those concerning service animals and support persons. Otherwise accessibility largely depends on the hard-to-enforce criterion of “reasonable efforts” to follow such principles such as dignity, integration and equal opportunity.

Concerns were expressed that the ASAC proposal – during the standard review – to require that a service animal be trained to assist a person with a disability would exclude emotional support animals, which may have no training or certification. It was pointed out that this would be detrimental to those with mental health issues and also inconsistent with the Human Rights Code.

 

The Review also heard that the existing standard creates a new barrier by allowing service providers to require a customer with a disability to bring a support person where the health and safety of the person with a disability or others is at risk. As well, there were calls to remove provisions that allow support persons to be charged a fee. Transit operators, for example, contended that support persons should have free access to any service that requires an admission charge, not just transit. With the decline of full-service gas stations, the Review also heard that drivers with disabilities are finding it hard to get gas. A presenter in Toronto proposed a system known as “fuel call” in which a gas station posts a wheelchair symbol on its signs when an attendant is available, and the attendant responds when a button near the pump is pushed.”

 

In 2019, the third AODA Independent Review conducted by former Lieutenant Governor David Onley, reported that progress on accessibility in Ontario had been “glacial” with improvements being “barely detectable.” It found that Ontario remains a province full of “soul-crushing barriers” and that the goal of an accessible province was hardly in sight.

 

The Onley Report made detailed assessments regarding the fact that customer service barriers are common, even as late as 2019. It found:

 

“Customer Service Barriers

 

Though the Customer Service standard was the first on the books, barriers facing consumers with disabilities remain commonplace. Many restaurants, stores and other facilities often dismiss requests for accommodation, the Review was told by a MAAC from a small community and by many others. In particular, technology available today can address virtually every situation where people with hearing impairments may need assistance, so there is no excuse for barriers. In the hospitality sector, a senior with a disability who travels a lot finds hotel beds 30 inches above floor hard to get into from a wheelchair, yet these rooms are often described as accessible. And participants observed that very few self-check-out machines are accessible to someone using a wheelchair.

 

One stakeholder called on the government to launch the next review of the Customer Service standards now, since they are still weak despite revision in 2016. A proposed change concerns the provision – which goes back to the original standard – allowing service providers to require a customer with a disability to bring a support person where the health and safety of the person with a disability or others is at risk. This clause was viewed as a new barrier that should be eliminated. Other suggested revisions to the current standard include such low-cost measures as:

­ Designating an employee to ensure accessible customer service is provided, and that complaints about accessibility are heard and resolved.

­ Communicating by diverse and adaptable methods.

­ Posting signage about scent-free policies.

­ Ensuring accessibility of cash registers or tills with price displays.

­ Providing accessible restaurant menus.

 

There were also calls to broaden the scope of the Customer Service standards so fewer small organizations are exempt from some requirements. For example, it was noted that under the current standard, businesses and non-profits with at least 20 but fewer than 50 employees are no longer obliged to document their accessible customer service policies and make them public.

 

The demise of full-service gas stations has created new barriers. A woman explained that her husband, who is paraplegic, has been independent in his car for decades. She talked to a self-service gas station to inquire about who would pump his gas. No employee was assigned this task but the owner said he was sure someone else buying gas would help. Where is the customer service in this, she wonders?

 

Training

 

Training on Customer Service and other AODA requirements was widely viewed as “underwhelming” and should be revamped with input from persons with disabilities. The current lessons were said to consist largely of common sense advice like don’t leave a person sitting in a wheelchair behind a closed door. The Review heard that training adds up to only four hours and can be taken through an online link in 15-minute increments during the lunch break – and no one checks if you pass.

 

Training on Customer Service and other AODA requirements was

widely viewed as “underwhelming”.

 

The consultations offered various ideas for improvement. Some suggested that training should be tailored to the sector rather than one size fits all, while others felt that specific training should be provided for specific jobs. It was observed that the training is often not internalized and should be repeated at least every two years. Large organizations should treat AODA training like mandatory safety training with certified trainers and a detailed list of required content. Training should address the types of accommodation generally required by people with disabilities, such as how to interact with them and how to assist with filling out forms. Training materials should be culturally sensitive and work with perspectives on disability from diverse backgrounds. To address attitudinal barriers, the content should include information about under-representation of people with disabilities and the barriers they experience.

 

As well, more e-training modules on customer service would be helpful and the government should provide more visual tools to businesses, especially smaller ones, so employees get a strong idea of why we are doing this. A further idea was to create a formal training validation system. People with disabilities could be employed to evaluate the effectiveness of the training provided, and establishments could post a placard or sticker confirming satisfactory results.

 

In addition, a MAAC from a small community suggested that the requirement to train volunteers should not apply to those volunteering for just a single day.

 

Service Animals

 

Some of the most contentious issues brought to the Review involved service animals. It was reported that many people with service animals are having trouble entering businesses and other public venues – in direct violation of the Customer Service standards. For example, a retired combat veteran and paramedic, who has been diagnosed with PTSD, was denied entry to a café patio with his dog that has had years of training. Other individuals complained of taxi drivers refusing service animals for fear saliva could get on them.

 

Some participants observed that the introduction of emotional support animals, which are considered service animals based on a health care professional’s note, have led to an epidemic of untrained “fake” service animals that are out of control. This gives all service animals a bad name, makes business owners wonder about their responsibilities and leads some to exclude all service animals.

 

The Review heard calls to change the law so that all service animals must be trained to assist their handler to perform tasks that mitigate disability without being disruptive in a public environment. Training could be provided by the handler, but all animals should have to be tested and certified by a third party. A doctor’s note should not be treated as proof of service animal status, but rather as a recommendation to seek formal obedience training for the animal.

 

Another proposed revision to the standards was to add conditions under which a business can exclude a misbehaving service animal – for example, if the animal is aggressive or disruptive or not housebroken. It was also suggested that animals in the process of training should be allowed to enter the same premises as service animals can, subject to the same behavioural restrictions.

 

The Review heard calls to change the law so that all service animals must be trained.

 

Verification requirements also sparked debate, with some stakeholders contending that a person with a disability should not be obliged to use an identifying piece of service animal equipment or carry a formal health letter. If it is not obvious that the animal is a service animal, the business should be allowed to ask and should accept credible verbal assurances.

 

Not everyone agreed, however. One individual said he believes a doctor’s note requirement is better than certification, which creates financial and distance barriers. He would also prefer to require a doctor’s note even if the animal is clearly marked because vests, harnesses and patches are easy to come by. A community group felt that service animal handlers should be required to carry proper identification from either an accredited training school or from government.

 

A woman with a mental health disability explained that she handles a service rabbit that is trained to do pressure therapy and retrieve her medication. She felt it would be a shame if service animals were restricted to dogs as seems to be happening in other provinces.

 

The presence of service animals in schools was another issue that arose. The Review was advised that each school board now decides on its own whether to permit service animals in the classroom. Autism assistive dogs are reportedly being refused despite the benefits of calming children, helping them focus and keeping them safe. Boards apparently fear the dog will distract other children and it will fall to the teacher to look after the animal.”

 

In 2023, the fourth AODA Independent Review, conducted by Rich Donovan echoed the Onley Report’s findings. The Donovan went further. It declared that Ontario is in an “accessibility crisis.”

 

The four AODA Independent Reviews each called for renewed, re-reinvigorated Government leadership on accessibility. The most recent three AODA Independent Reviews specifically called for strong new leadership by Ontario’s Premier. No premier announced or showed such new leadership. No Government announced or showed reinvigorated leadership on the AODA.

 

Third, the AODA Alliance has documented and the three most recent AODA Independent Reviews have themselves found that AODA enforcement is at best, minimal and paltry. Obligated organizations need not fear practical adverse consequences under the AODA if they do not provide accessible customer service. Similarly, in recent years, the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario has become slower and more ineffective at addressing any discriminatory claims. It can take five years or more to get to a hearing, if at all, under the Ontario Human Rights Code.

 

Fourth, the Customer Service Accessibility Standard 2007 is extremely weak. Under it, even as minimally revised in 2016, customer service in Ontario need never become accessible to people with disabilities. We have pointed this out publicly to the Government since shortly after that regulation was enacted in 2007, and many times since then.

 

Among its many deficiencies are the following:

 

• The Customer Service Accessibility Standard does not require obligated organizations to actually provide accessible and barrier-free customer service. It requires obligated organizations to have an accessible customer service policy, and mandates vague principles that the obligated organization must use reasonable efforts to reflect or embed in its policy. Standing alone, this and the corollary provisions in this brief accessibility standard don’t require a single disability barrier to ever be removed in connection with the provision of goods, services or facilities.

 

• The Customer Service Accessibility Standard does not include a list of disability barriers to be removed and prevented. It mentions a short list of barriers, such as in relation to regarding service animals, support persons, and service interruptions. Beyond that, it leaves each obligated organization to reinvent the accessibility wheel, trying to figure out what even constitutes a customer service barrier.

 

• As noted earlier, while it does little to remove or prevent barriers, it purports to authorize an obligated organization to create new barriers by allowing them to insist that people with disabilities bring a support person with them if they are to be admitted to the premises. An AODA accessibility standard cannot create or authorize disability barriers.

 

• Because it is so weak and vague, it is hard to effectively enforce this Standard, should the Government start to seriously enforce it. It will be hard to show that an accessibility policy does not include reasonable efforts to use the principles listed in the accessibility standard except in the most extreme cases.

 

Finally, and most pointedly, these disability barriers in customer service violate the Ontario Human Rights Code. Section 1 of the Ontario Human Rights Code makes it illegal to discriminate against people with disabilities in access to goods, service and facilities. The Code imposes a strong duty to accommodate the needs of people with disabilities in relation to goods, services and facilities. An obligated organization can only justify a failure to accommodate if it can prove through convincing evidence that it was impossible to do any more for the customer with disabilities to accommodate their disability, without the obligated organization suffering undue hardship. The obligated organization bears the burden of proof to show undue hardship. Where an effective accommodation is not initially found, the obligated organization has a duty to investigate alternative solutions (the procedural duty to accommodate). To learn more on the duty to accommodate people with disabilities, check out this video: https://youtu.be/y32XvjWmDAQ

 

The AODA was enacted to ensure that the rights of people with disabilities under the Ontario Human Rights Code and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms were honoured, without their having to battle these barriers through individual human rights complaints, one barrier at a time and one obligated organization at a time. It was also meant to make it much easier for obligated organizations, so that they each did not have to reinvent the disability accessibility wheel. On both of these scores, the Customer Service Accessibility Standard is an abject failure, even if it were amended in all of the ways that the Initial Report urges.

 

** Part V Additional Recommendations We Urge the Customer Service Standards Development Committee to Include in Its Final Report

 

1. Set a General Requirement to Provide Accessible Customer Service and Include Extensive Non-Exhaustive List of Specific Barriers and Requirements Regarding Them

 

The Customer Service Accessibility Standard needs provisions which let obligated organizations what to do to tear down and prevent customer service barriers.

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#22 The Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be revised to include in it a broad general requirement that obligated organizations that provide goods, services or facilities must provide accessible customer service to people with disabilities, and must identify, remove and prevent disability barriers to services, goods and facilities they provide or offer.

 

#23 The Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be revised to include detailed specifics of recurring barriers that should be removed and prevented, and timelines gauged to whether the obligated organization is large or small.

 

The Customer Service Standards Development Committee should now consult the disability community and the obligated sectors to learn what barriers to accessible customer service continue to recur.  It should also consult the disability community and the obligated sectors on suggestions for strategies to fix these barriers and to prevent new ones from being created in the future.

 

At a meeting with the Customer Service Standards Development Committee earlier this year, we had recommended that the Standards Development Committee conduct a survey of the public on these issues as part of its development of its Initial Report. We understand that it did not do so. This work is still needed, and should be undertaken now to inform the Standards Development Committee’s addressing these recommendations.

 

The Standards Development Committee can also find good illustrations of these kinds of specifics in the information and communication and transportation and public spaces portions of the Integrated Accessibility Standard Regulation. Although those accessibility standards also have some serious deficiencies, they stand in sharp contrast to the lack of such in the Customer Service Accessibility Standard, and in the Customer Service Standards Development Committee’s initial proposed revisions to the Customer Service Accessibility Standard. We provide some examples in the following pages of this brief. However, our list is not meant to be comprehensive.

 

We would be happy to assist the Customer Service Standards Development Committee in conducting a process of gathering information on this from the disability community, using our network. However, the Customer Service Standards Development Committee can be greatly helped by the Ontario Government’s far greater resources, as well as by directly canvassing the public, including all Municipal Accessibility Advisory Committees across Ontario. The Customer Service Standards Development Committee should, within the next four months, convene a focused meeting of stakeholders to crystalize proposals after that information has been gathered.

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#24 The Customer Service Standards Development Committee should consult the disability community and obligated sectors to identify recurring barriers to accessible customer service, and strategies for removing and preventing barriers.

 

2. Create Process for Requesting Disability Accommodation

 

In addition to requiring the removal and prevention of recurring disability barriers, the Customer Service Accessibility Standard should also require obligated organizations to put in place and publicize to its customers a swift, easy-to-use and effective process for customers to seek individual accommodations. This is especially necessary for barriers that are not recurring.

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#25 The Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be revised to provide that the obligated organization must establish and publicize a process for a person with disabilities to seek accommodation in relations to any barriers in their goods, services or facilities.

 

3. Redefine Classes of Organizations under the Standard

 

There is a need to redefine the classes of organizations in the Standard.

 

We propose that classes of organizations should not be defined simply by numbers of an organization’s employees. We have always agreed that small business should be subject to a different set of requirements, and should get more time for taking action under an AODA accessibility standard. There should not be a “one size fits all” approach to any standard under the AODA.

 

For purposes of this accessibility standard, the number of employees, standing alone, is not the sole way to effectively find out if the business is small or large. A business might have only a few employees, but may be a franchisee of a huge, well-resourced chain, with ample information and communication infrastructure and supports available. A business with only a few employees may have substantial assets, substantial revenues, and substantial profits. It may have a larger number of workers with whom it has contracted as independent contractors, rather than as employees. It may only have a small staff, but a huge presence on the web.

 

It would be better to use a definition of small or large organization which takes into account these variables, but which is also clear and easy to follow. For an AODA standard, an obligated organization should be able to now at a glance whether it falls within the small business category.

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#26 the classes of private sector organizations should be re-defined in the Standard to take into account not only the number of employees, but as well, the organization’s total assets and revenues, and in the case of a for-profit organization, its profit position in past five years.

 

An added class of private sector organizations should be created, with greater accessibility requirements. This should include very large private sector organizations, those with over 200 employees and commensurately more assets and revenues.

 

#27 The Standard should be amended to provide that when calculating an organization’s number of employees for purposes of classifying that organization, the number of employees includes the number of employees in that organization as well as any related, jointly operated or co-managed organizations.

 

#28 The Standard should be amended to make it clear that owner-operated sole proprietorships that offer goods, services or facilities must comply with the Standard.

 

When it comes to delivering accessibility of their workplaces, and of their goods, services and facilities, very large private sector organizations like IBM, Canadian Tire and the like, are not the same as a very modest organization with over 50 employees, such as a law firm with 20 lawyers and 30 support staff. To hold very large organizations to the longer time lines that might be justified for an organization of 50-199 employees would unjustifiably slow down efforts at accessibility of the very large organizations.

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#29 The Standard should be amended to add to the definition of “obligated organization” the classification “very large organization,” defined as a private sector organization with over 200 employees and commensurately more assets and revenues. Timelines and requirements for very large private sector organizations should be incorporated wherever time lines are set, which are more prompt than those for smaller private sector organizations. With 50-200 employees.

 

4. Provide One-Stop Staff Person to Be Available When Needed for Customer Service Accommodation and Accessibility Support

 

A very efficient and helpful way to increase an organization’s ability to ensure accessible customer service is to designate one person from among its existing staff with lead responsibility for accessible customer service. That person can be the “go to” person when other staff have questions about accessible customer service. As well, if customers with disabilities need help that cannot be quickly provided, that person can be the “go to” person for customers with disabilities as well.

 

The Ministry of the Attorney General has commendably provided such a person in each court facility around Ontario for well over a decade. It has improved service for people with disabilities.

 

The designated customer service representative should be mandated to assist customers with disabilities, ensure compliance with customer service standards, and resolve customer service complaints. This “one-stop-shopping” approach helps organizations ensure accessible Customer Service while helping customers with disabilities know whom to approach. This practice is mandated under the Americans with Disabilities Act (s. 35.107).

 

If an obligated organization has a website, it should be required to clearly identify that there is an accessible Customer Service representative in their organization, and how to contact them. Contact information should include a variety of communication methods including both phone and email, in order to accommodate different communication disabilities.

 

If the obligated organization has other readily available ways of announcing this to the public, such as on a telephone interactive voice response system, it should be required to announce that position on that line. Finally, any recorded messages including phone numbers should be repeated more than once, slowly, in plain language.

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#30 the Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be amended to provide that any organization that provides goods, services or facilities and that has at least 10 employees should:

 

1. a) designate an employee with lead responsibility for ensuring accessible customer service, and

 

1. b) make public the name and contact information for that employee, both on the organization’s website, if it has one, and through postings and audible announcements, where feasible, at the organization’s public establishments.

 

1. c) If the obligated organization has other readily available ways of announcing this to the public, such as on a telephone interactive voice response system, it should be required to announce that position on that line.

 

1. d) The obligated organization should be required to ensure that a customer service representative is specifically trained (beyond the standard accessible Customer Service training, given to all employees) in addressing a list of recurring communication supports. The Ontario Government could assist this by creating a free online training module to fulfil this need.

 

5. Require Obligated Organizations to Review their Goods, Services and Facilities for Barriers

 

The Customer Service Accessibility Standard does not require an obligated organization to systematically review its goods, services and facilities for accessibility barriers. Such activity may be a by-product of the Standard’s activities, by coincidence or good fortune, for some organizations. However, this has not been made a specific and universal requirement.

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#31 the Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be amended to require an organization that provides goods, services or facilities to

 

1. a) Undertake a review to identify any disability barriers in any goods, services or facilities that the organization provides, and any barriers in the way the organization makes them available to the public, and:

 

2025. b) develop and implement a targeted action plan to remove those barriers, and to prevent new ones from being created, except where doing so is impossible without undue hardship to that organization, with the goal of achieving fully accessible customer service no later than 2025.

 

6. Require Organization’s Senior Management to Periodically Review Feedback Received on Accessible Customer Service

 

As noted earlier, the Standard does not now require an organization’s senior management to ever review the feedback that the organization receives on its accessible customer service through the feedback mechanism that the Standard requires the organization to establish. Giving feedback is pointless if there is no assurance that it will be reviewed, taken seriously and used.

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#32 The Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be amended to require an organization’s senior management to review periodically, and at least once every six months, the feedback the organization received through its accessible customer service feedback mechanism.

 

7. Require Organizations to File with the Government Their Service Accessibility Policies

 

Under the current Customer Service Accessibility Standard, an organization that provides goods, services or facilities must develop an accessible customer service policy. However, they don’t have to file that policy with the Government.

 

Some organizations have commendably taken the positive step of posting their customer service accessibility policy on their website. This should be mandatory. It costs nothing and helps spread the word. It also helps encourage an organization to ensure that they have a good policy, worthy of public display.

 

It is easy to set up a system for organizations to electronically file their customer service accessibility policy with the Government. When an organization knows its policy is to be filed with the Government, it has a greater incentive to ensure that the policy is a good one that fully complies with the law.

 

It would make it easier for the Government to enforce the Standard if these are required to be filed. The Government will have them immediately on hand.

 

Moreover, the government easily could and should make this data base publicly accessible. These are public documents. This would enable the public, including the disability community, to be able to easily review these policies. It would help monitor how effective the AODA is at achieving full accessibility by 2025.

 

There is no downside to any of these steps. Such measures are especially important given the demonstrated rampant violations of the Customer Service Accessibility Standard known to have taken place by private sector organizations with at least 20 employees.

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#33 The Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be amended to require

 

1. a) any organization that must make a written accessible customer service policy, to post it in an accessible format on its website, if it has one.

 

1. b) Each obligated organization that provides goods, services or facilities should post on their website and on their premises a commitment to provide accessible barrier-free customer service to people with disabilities.

 

1. c) Any organization that must have a written accessible customer service policy to electronically file it with the Ontario Government, with the searchable accessible data base of those policies to be made accessible to the public.

 

8. Require Obligated Organizations to Regularly Publicize for Customers the Availability of Accessibility Supports and Opportunities for Giving Feedback to the Organization

 

Many customers won’t know that there are accessibility supports or assistance available in an organization. Yet if one visits at least one particular drug store chain in the U.S. one can hear periodic announcements that if a customer needs their prescription instructions printed in large print, just ask the pharmacist. One U.S. bank branch in Buffalo New York had a sign in its open customer service space, announcing which counter to approach if a customer needs disability-related assistance. Such actions are extremely inexpensive. They can easily reach customers when they need the information most.

 

It is not sufficient to simply have a general accessible customer service policy available on request. Many if most won’t know to ask for this. Moreover, the policy may speak in very general terms, and not specifically list the accessibility supports that can be requested.

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#34 The Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be amended to require that organizations that provide goods, services or facilities make readily available information in an accessible format to inform customers of the specific accessibility supports that are offered, e.g. by posting signs, making audible announcements (where the organization has a public address system or pipes music into their public spaces), by posting on their website and announcing over any automated customer service phone lines.

 

9. Prohibit any Surcharge for Accessible Customer Service

 

Some organizations charge an added fee if their services are ordered over a call-in line, rather than on their website. Some persons with disabilities need to place their order by phoning the organization, e.g. due to accessibility issues with their website, or because they don’t have an accessible way to use a computer. For them, this surcharge amounts to an unfair disability accessibility surcharge.

 

The Integrated Accessibility Standard Regulation commendably prohibits a higher public transit fare for para-transit than for conventional transit. It also bans taxis from charging higher fares to passengers with disabilities. That principle should apply equally to all forms of customer service.

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#35 The Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be amended to prohibit any added fee or surcharge for customers with disabilities when they seek to order goods, or services e.g. due to ordering these over the phone, rather than on the web.

 

10. Work Toward Providing Goods, Services and Facilities that Are Disability-Accessible

 

As stated earlier, Section 1 of the Ontario Human Rights Code requires that goods, services and facilities themselves be accessible to persons with disabilities. It is important for an organization that provides goods, services or facilities to try to ensure that they are accessible. Often, stores do not create or manufacture the goods they sell. However, there are steps a store or other organization can take to try to ensure the accessibility of their goods, services or facilities.

 

For example, they can take accessibility into account, when selecting what goods, services or facilities to provide, and try to select ones which have accessibility features, or which incorporate principles of universal design. They can also let customers know what accessibility features are available. These steps are good for the bottom line, as well as for persons with disabilities.

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#36 the Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be amended to require organizations that provide goods, services or facilities to

 

1. a) consider accessibility features when deciding which goods, service or facilities to provide, and

 

1. b) make public and readily available on their website, if they have one, and through other accessible means, information on the accessibility features of any goods, services or facilities that they provide.

 

11. Revise the Standard to Effectively Address Accessibility Barriers in the Built Environment that Impede Accessible Customer Service

 

Physical accessibility is an indispensable part of accessible Customer Service. If customers with disabilities cannot get into the facility where goods and services are provided to the public, they are placed in a very disadvantageous position due to their disability.

 

Organizations that provide goods, services or facilities in Ontario too often have physical barriers that impede access by people with disabilities. These can include, for example, steps to get into the premises, steps within the establishment’s public areas, aisles of product displays that are too narrow, products on shelves that are too high, and the lack of accessibility in other important public amenities.

 

Sufficient accessible public washrooms in public venues associated with the provision of goods, services and facilities are fundamentally important to everyone. They are especially important to anyone who, due to disability, illness, aging, medication side-effects or other cause, must frequently use the facilities.

 

The AODA requires full accessibility by 2025, including full accessibility of the built environment. To date, the Government has only enacted very limited measures to address barriers in the built environment. Those include amendments to the Ontario Building Code (which are not the promised Built Environment Accessibility Standard enacted under the AODA) to address accessibility in new construction and major renovations. Those also include the weak and very limited 2012 “Public Spaces” provisions in the Integrated Accessibility Standard Regulation, to address accessibility in new and redeveloped public trails, sidewalks, parking etc.

 

None of those measures deal with built environment barriers in the public spaces of existing establishments that are undergoing no major renovation. None of these deal with the built environment in the barriers of an establishment that the Ontario Building Code does not regulate e.g. the height of product displays. Thus, even the most easily removable built environment barriers, that violate the Ontario Human Rights Code, can often remain in place forever.

 

We have no assurance that the Design of Public Spaces Standards Development Committee’s current review of the 2012 Design of Public Spaces Accessibility Standard will effectively address built environment barriers in the context of customer service. We know that the -12 Education Standards Development Committee made detailed recommendations regarding built environment requirements needed in school facilities. The Customer Service Standards Development Committee can and should do the same for the customer service context.

 

Obligated organizations want to know what they have to do to ensure the accessibility of the built environment in their establishments. To now include detailed provisions in the Customer Service Accessibility Standard could meet this need for them, as well as for Ontarians with disabilities. It could fulfil the AODA’s aim of avoiding having to fight human rights cases, one barrier at a time, to address such recurring barriers.

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#37 The Customer Service Standards Development Committee should now consult with the disability community and obligated organizations on, and develop specific proposals for

 

1. a) removing and preventing accessibility barriers to the public premises where organizations offer or provide goods, services or facilities, including barriers which are not now addressed by the Ontario Building Code or the Integrated Accessibility Standard Regulation.

 

1. b) setting requirements for built environment accessibility when an obligated organization moves any part of its existing public facilities for offering or providing goods, services or facilities to a new location, in order to make accessibility a priority in choosing any new location.

 

1. c) Specifying priorities for retrofitting in the case of old buildings with substantial barriers.

 

As a first step, interim measures are immediately needed to address readily removable physical barriers that impede accessible Customer Service. We offer examples here. Retail establishments want to know what they need to do to ensure accessibility. They don’t want to each have to spend the time and money to reinvent the wheel.

 

Many establishments that offer goods, services or facilities to the public have one, two or three steps at their entrance. They should be required to at least provide a movable ramp, except where to do so would cause undue hardship within the meaning of the Ontario Human Rights Code.

 

The provision of transportable ramps is a necessary accommodation for persons with mobility disabilities. A growing number of obligated organizations have accepted this. Ontario’s ground-breaking “Stop Gap” organization offers such temporary ramps at low cost.

 

These ramps need to be positioned in a way that ensures there are no barriers at the top and bottom of the ramp. The ramp should fit the specific width of the sidewalk, or landing beyond the steps, and allow for maneuverability of a mobility device.

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#38 The Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be revised to require an obligated organization with a small number of steps at the front door, where feasible, to install a moveable ramp to provide level access to the front door.

 

Door handles should function without the need for tight grasping, pinching, or twisting. See the US Department of Justice’s Checklist on Polling Places (pg. 20).

 

Where manageable, doors should have automatic door openers, especially if they are used for public access and are heavy. Members of the public with no disability much prefer to use automated doors, especially if they are carrying things.

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#39 The Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be revised to set minimum retrofit requirements for accessible means to open and close the front door of an obligated organization.

 

#40 If the building has not yet been retrofitted, businesses and service providers should be required to post a phone number in the window at virtually no-cost so that customers with disabilities that prevent them from opening the door can contact someone inside.

 

#41 Obligated organizations should be required to remove movable physical obstacles from main paths of travel within an obligated organizations Customer Service areas, and on any outdoor public path of travel leading to the entrance. For example, where signage can be situated in a place where customers with vision loss or other disabilities won’t collide with it, this should be preferred over placing it in the middle of main traffic halls or aisles.

 

#42 Head-level obstructions should be prohibited, especially where the obstacle cannot be safely detected by the use of a white cane.

 

#43 The Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be revised to designate required widths of aisles and heights of shelves for display of products for sale. These can be varied depending on whether the obligated organization is a large chain store, or a medium-size establishment, or a small local store.

 

#44 An obligated organization which, despite these efforts, cannot assure full physical accessibility of its public areas should be required by the Customer Service Accessibility Standard to create and publicize alternative ways for people with disabilities to access their goods, services, or facilities. This could include a phone number to call for curb-side shopping, offers for a store employee to help a person shop from home using Skype etc.

 

12. Ensure that Signage is Accessible and Doesn’t Create Barriers

 

To date, AODA standards deal in a sparse, spotty, incomplete and insufficient way with the accessibility of public signage. This is especially important for organizations that provide goods, services or facilities in a public establishment like a store or public office building.

 

There are generally three accessibility needs. First, the sign needs to use lettering, fonts, font size, and colour contrast, and be sufficiently lit to ensure that it is clearly readable by people with low vision. Second, the sign needs to be positioned in a way that does not constitute a barrier or danger for people with disabilities such as people with mobility disabilities or people with vision loss. Having a sign block your path, or walking into a sign that sticks out at head level and that a white cane doesn’t detect, is too frequent and too frustrating an experience in Ontario.

 

Third, where possible, the information on the sign should be made readily available to customers who cannot read print, such as those with vision loss or dyslexia. This might include audible announcements where workable and unobtrusive.

 

Neither the Customer Service Accessibility Standard nor other accessibility standards enacted under the AODA to date effectively and comprehensively addresses this.

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#45 the Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be amended to provide in connection with organizations that provide goods, services or facilities:

 

1. a) accessibility requirements for the font, letter size and colour contrast of new signage, and for the retrofit of existing signage on their premises;

 

1. b) accessibility requirements for the placement of signage in a public establishment such as a store or public office, to ensure that it is not a barrier or hazard for people with mobility disabilities, vision loss or other disabilities;

 

1. c) accessibility requirements to provide ready access to the same information as is contained on public signage for customers with disabilities who cannot read the signage.

 

13. m) Visual Fire Alarms

 

Having visual fire alarms installed in organizations that offer goods, services or to the public is essential for personal safety for persons who are deaf, deafened or hard of hearing. Yet despite the irremediable consequences of not having a visual alarm, they are not required in existing or older organizations. The Rich Donovan 4^th AODA Independent Review emphasized the importance and urgency of establishing effective emergency protections for people with disabilities.

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#46 The Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be amended to require that public establishments that provide goods, services or facilities to the public implement visual fire alarm systems.

 

14. Letting Customers with Disabilities Know about Nearest Accessible Washroom and Transit Locations

 

Where obligated organizations have not yet ensured the full physical accessibility of their public premises, customers with disabilities still need vital information. When persons with disabilities cannot use the washroom in, or park near, an obligated organization that provides goods, services or facilities due to physical accessibility barriers, those obligated organizations can lose customers.

 

As an interim measure, a customer service accessibility representative could easily tell a customer with a disability the location of the closest accessible washroom, parking or public transit stop. Ensuring that an obligated organization can provide this would cost nothing, improve awareness of existing barriers, and would be quite helpful to customers with disabilities.

 

Further, the customer service accessibility representative can relay information about the accessibility measures in the office, store, or restaurant. For example, when making reservations at a restaurant, the representative should know of barriers that still exist within the space, remove any known readily removable barriers, and ask the customer what further measures are needed.

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#47 the Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be amended to require obligated organizations that do not have accessible washrooms to find out where the nearest available ones are, and to let customers with disabilities know where to find them.

 

15. Provide Accessible Public Washroom Signs

 

When obligated organizations have public washrooms, they should be required to post accessible signage i.e. signs that include universal access symbols, Braille, large print and colour-contrasted raised letters. Further, if the washroom is not accessible, an accessible sign should direct users to the nearest accessible washrooms. These measures are not expensive. They are important for independent access.

 

The US Department of Justice requires signage to be acquired under the Americans for Disabilities Act (ADA) even in temporary situations such as emergency shelters. The signs should be installed “with raised characters and Braille on the wall adjacent to the latch side of the door and centered 60 inches above the floor and leave the existing sign in place on the door if removing it will damage the door,” (ADA Checklist for Emergency Shelters, 2007, pg. 42).

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#48 the Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be revised to require the readily achievable measure of ensuring public washroom signage is accessible.

 

16. Provide Access to Accessible Parking

 

Parking can be essential for the first interaction between customers and an obligated organization. While longer term accessibility measures are developed, interim or temporary measures are necessary and helpful. If a parking lot does not contain any, or enough accessible parking, and when there is an available curb cut-out in place, a temporary measure can be put in place to secure more accessible parking.

 

When there is no nearby accessible curb cut-out and the obligated organization does not have a curb ramp, the organization’s accessible customer service representative should at minimum investigate and tell customers with disabilities about the nearest accessible parking spots available.

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#49 The Customer Service Accessibility Standard should require obligated organizations to notify customers with disabilities where the nearest available accessible parking may be found.

 

17. Ensure Timely Snow Removal to Ensure Physical Accessibility

 

Persons with disabilities too often now face piles of snow as a barrier to access on an otherwise accessible route to an establishment that provides goods, services or facilities. Snow can pile up in a way that blocks the physical accessibility of an establishment that offers goods, services or facilities. Moreover, when snow is shoveled, it can make this worse, by being relocated on a ramp or other route needed for access to the establishment. Snow should never be shoveled in a way that creates a new accessibility barrier.

 

As with so many other contexts, the accessibility measures needed here are good for any organization. They help ensure that they can serve as broad a market as possible. It also helps reduce the risk of slip and fall injuries, and the related liability that that can cause.

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#50 The Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be amended to require organizations that provide goods, services or facilities in an establishment that is open to the public, to ensure that snow is cleared on accessible routes to and from the establishment on the property they own, rent or otherwise control.

 

18. Post Signage Requesting Compliance with Scent-Free Policy

 

Individuals with invisible disabilities such as Multiple Chemical Sensitivities (MCS), or Idiopathic Environmental Intolerance (IEI), can easily be accommodated through the expanded visibility of no scent/fragrance policies. In addition, offices using cleaners should be required to use the least toxic or “green” cleaning products. We all benefit from fewer toxins in the air. This signage, web postings, and related periodic announcements on the obligated organization’s public address system and telephone voice response system, where these communication systems already exist, will also serve as a low-cost or no-cost public education tool.

 

Posting signs in stores, offices, and customer service centers will promote understanding of, and responsiveness to, no scent policies. This policy should extend to scent policies in public spaces including on public transit.

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#51 The Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be revised to require posting of no-scent policies.

 

19. Remove Exemption for Product Labels

 

Section 9(2) of the Integrated Accessibility Standards Regulation now absolutely and totally exempts product labels from any accessibility requirements whatsoever, no matter how readily achievable it would be to provide accessible product labels. This is absolutely unjustified.

 

As earlier indicated, Section 1 of the Ontario Human Rights Code bans discrimination because of disability in goods, as well as services and facilities. It imposes a duty to accommodate people with disabilities up to the point of undue hardship.

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#52 the Initial Report should be revised to recommend the repeal the Integrated Accessibility Standards Regulation’s complete exemption of all product labels from any accessibility requirements.

 

20. Provide Accessible Drug Prescription Labels and Information

 

Large drug store chains or other large chains that have pharmacies should be required to offer accessible prescription labelling services. This technology is now readily available. Major chains in the US provide this service. It would let customers with print disabilities independently read their prescription information. Canadian media have covered shocking stories about people with disabilities who have encountered resistance from stores that are part of major drug store chains, when seeking this obvious readily achievable accommodation.

 

Similarly, those establishments should be required to offer to print prescription labels and information in large font if requested. An American drug store chain was offering this service over a decade ago.

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#53 the Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be revised to require stores that sell prescription drugs to offer to provide accessible labels.

 

21. Ensure Accessibility of Cash Registers or Tills with Price Display

 

The price display on cash registers should use a large font, with proper colour contrasting. To assist customers with low vision.

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#54 Cash registers in stores should be required to display information in large font.

 

22. Provide Accessible Restaurant Menus

 

There are several very low-cost options for restaurants to make menus available in an accessible format for those who cannot read print due to such things as vision loss, or dyslexia. Braille menus can be ordered for production for a few dollars. A large print menu can be easily printed for pennies. Posting the menu online in an accessible format allows a person using a smart phone to have its screen-reader read the menu aloud to him or her.

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#55 The Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be amended to require restaurants to offer menus in an accessible format, either a hard copy or accessible online copy.

 

23. Ensure Accessibility of Services and of Provincially-Regulated Financial Institutions that Offer Bank-Like Services

 

Organizations that provide financial services should have specific requirements to provide printed financial statements in an accessible format. Such financial records are very important to an individual. They contain very private information. A person should not have to ask others to read that private information to them aloud. Technology for this service has existed for years.

 

Provincially-regulated trust companies that provide services to their customers should implement technology that can allow customers with disabilities to conduct banking transactions at home via webcam.

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#56 The Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be revised to require provincially-regulated financial institutions to implement accessible statements and related services.

 

24. Require Reducing Loud Music on Request in Public Spaces Where Customer Service is Offered

 

The increasing practice of blaring loud music in public spaces and service areas of obligated organizations that provide goods, services or facilities is annoying to many if not most customers. For people with certain disabilities, this loud music can go beyond annoyance. It can constitute a real and serious barrier.

 

For some people with autism, it can be the same as shining a blinding light in one’s eyes. For a person who is hard of hearing, it can prevent carrying on a conversation. For people with vision loss, it can make it hard or even impossible to navigate independently, since sound is a part of independent orientation and mobility.

 

In some retail establishments, many employees that serve the public have no idea how to turn down or off the music volume.

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#57 The Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be revised to require obligated organizations to have a policy that they will reduce the music volume or turn it off, when requested based on a disability-related accommodation need. This policy should be posted and periodically announced, where the obligated organization has regular spoken announcements or a telephone interactive voice response system. Where the obligated organization has a website, it should be posted there.

 

#58 The obligated organization should be required to include, in its accessible Customer Service training, a requirement to train Customer Service staff on this policy and on how to turn down the volume.

 

 

25. Provide Carry-to-Car Services for Customers with Disabilities

 

Large retail establishments should offer carry to car service for customers with disabilities who may be unable to carry groceries by themselves. We therefore recommend that:

 

#59 the Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be revised to require large retail establishments to offer a free carry-out service for customers with disabilities who cannot carry their own purchases out of the store to a car.

 

26. Require Hotel Room Numbers to Be Posted in Braille and Large Print

 

American hotels routinely post their hotel room numbers in Braille and large print. Canadian hotels less frequently do, except where they are part of an American chain. This is an easy measure to implement.

 

We therefore recommend that:

 

#60 The Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be revised to require hotels to post guest room numbers in Braille and large print.

 

 

** Appendix List of Recommendations in This Brief

 

#1 The proposed long-term objective of the Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be revised to read as follows:

 

“The Customer Service Accessibility Standard’s long term-objective is to ensure that people with disabilities can receive accessible, barrier free customer service in Ontario by 2025, or as soon after January 1, 2025 as can be achieved.”

 

#2 The Initial Report’s Recommendation 1 should be revised to delete the proposal that the word “equal” in the Customer Service Accessibility Standard’s policy provision be replaced with the more vague and diluted word “equitable.”

 

#3 The Initial Report’s Recommendation 3 should be strengthened to proposed amendments to the Customer Service Accessibility Standard to achieve the ‘Standards Development Committees goals.

 

#4 The Initial Report’s Recommendation 3 should be revised to require that obligated organizations with 20 to 50 employees have some requirement to establish and implement accessibility plans.

 

#5 The Initial Report Recommendation 4 should be revised to require that:

1. a) For obligated organizations with over 50 employes, the feedback mechanism should be required to offer people with disabilities the option of giving their feedback by phone or in person directly to a human being.
2. b) The obligated organization should be required to designate an employee to review the customer feedback and convey it to the CEO or other senior manager.
3. c) The obligated organization should be required to take into account the customer feedback received when establishing or revising its Accessibility Plan.

 

#6 The Initial Report Recommendation 6 should not recommend devoting effort at federal-provincial-territorial collaboration in the context of procurement.

 

#7 Resources and time should not now be devoted to using artificial intelligence to address accessible procurement.

 

#8 If AI is to be considered for accessible procurement, sufficient measures should first be required to ensure that the AI is not itself creating new disability barriers by automating inequality.

 

#9 The test of “practicability” should be removed from any and all AODA accessibility standards and replaced with the legally mandatory standard of “undue hardship.”

 

#10 The Integrated Accessibility Standards Regulation procurement requirements should be amended to require that public money is never used to create or exacerbate disability barriers.

 

#11 The Integrated Accessibility Standards Regulation should be amended to require the Ontario Government to establish and widely publicize an avenue for the public to report to the Government on situations where public money is used to create, perpetuate or exacerbate disability accessibility barriers e.g. through the procurement process.

 

#12 The Provincial Auditor should be required to audit the Government to ensure compliance with requirements on ensuring that public money is not used to create, perpetuate or exacerbate disability accessibility barriers e.g. in the procurement process.

 

#14 the Integrated Accessibility Standards Regulation’s electronic kiosk provisions should be revised to set out mandatory accessibility outcomes that the accessibility features must achieve.

The Initial Report emphasizes in this context:

 

“the importance of alignment with any future federal accessibility requirements, given the impact these would have on federally regulated sectors such as banking or airlines”

 

#15 The Initial Report’s electronic kiosks’ recommendations should not require or consider any form of harmonization with present or future federal regulatory requirements.

 

#16 The Initial Report’s Recommendation 8 should cover all standards needed for electronic kiosks and should not defer any of this to the Design of Public Spaces Standards Development Committee.

 

#17 The Standards Development Committee should present detailed accessibility requirements to enhance those now in the Integrated Accessibility Standard Regulation regarding point-of-sale devices.

 

#18 The Initial Report’s Recommendation 9 should be revised to eliminate any call for Ontario service animal requirements to be aligned with federal requirements, or to provide training materials that might in any way suggest that duties to service animal users can be reduced by other provincial laws or municipal bylaws.

 

#19 The Initial Report should be revised to endorse the service animal recommendations in the K-12 Education Standards Development Committee’s final report.

 

#20 the Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be revised to remove Section 80.47(5), (6) and (7) which authorizes an obligated organization to require a customer with disabilities to be accompanied by a support person as a condition of their being admitted to the premises of the obligated organization.

 

#21 The Initial Report’s Recommendation 11 should be revised to remove its proposal that the Customer Service Accessibility Standard be renamed.

 

#22 The Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be revised to include in it a broad general requirement that obligated organizations that provide goods, services or facilities must provide accessible customer service to people with disabilities, and must identify, remove and prevent disability barriers to services, goods and facilities they provide or offer.

 

#23 The Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be revised to include detailed specifics of recurring barriers that should be removed and prevented, and timelines gauged to whether the obligated organization is large or small.

 

#24 The Customer Service Standards Development Committee should consult the disability community and obligated sectors to identify recurring barriers to accessible customer service, and strategies for removing and preventing barriers.

 

#25 The Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be revised to provide that the obligated organization must establish and publicize a process for a person with disabilities to seek accommodation in relations to any barriers in their goods, services or facilities.

 

#26 the classes of private sector organizations should be re-defined in the Standard to take into account not only the number of employees, but as well, the organization’s total assets and revenues, and in the case of a for-profit organization, its profit position in past five years.

 

#27 The Standard should be amended to provide that when calculating an organization’s number of employees for purposes of classifying that organization, the number of employees includes the number of employees in that organization as well as any related, jointly operated or co-managed organizations.

 

#28 The Standard should be amended to make it clear that owner-operated sole proprietorships that offer goods, services or facilities must comply with the Standard.

 

#29 The Standard should be amended to add to the definition of “obligated organization” the classification “very large organization,” defined as a private sector organization with over 200 employees and commensurately more assets and revenues. Timelines and requirements for very large private sector organizations should be incorporated wherever time lines are set, which are more prompt than those for smaller private sector organizations. With 50-200 employees.

 

#30 the Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be amended to provide that any organization that provides goods, services or facilities and that has at least 10 employees should:

1. a) designate an employee with lead responsibility for ensuring accessible customer service, and
2. b) make public the name and contact information for that employee, both on the organization’s website, if it has one, and through postings and audible announcements, where feasible, at the organization’s public establishments.
3. c) If the obligated organization has other readily available ways of announcing this to the public, such as on a telephone interactive voice response system, it should be required to announce that position on that line.
4. d) The obligated organization should be required to ensure that a customer service representative is specifically trained (beyond the standard accessible Customer Service training, given to all employees) in addressing a list of recurring communication supports. The Ontario Government could assist this by creating a free online training module to fulfil this need.

 

#31 the Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be amended to require an organization that provides goods, services or facilities to

 

1. a) Undertake a review to identify any disability barriers in any goods, services or facilities that the organization provides, and any barriers in the way the organization makes them available to the public, and
2. b) develop and implement a targeted action plan to remove those barriers, and to prevent new ones from being created, except where doing so is impossible without undue hardship to that organization, with the goal of achieving fully accessible customer service no later than 2025.

 

#32 The Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be amended to require an organization’s senior management to review periodically, and at least once every six months, the feedback the organization received through its accessible customer service feedback mechanism.

 

#33 The Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be amended to require

1. a) any organization that must make a written accessible customer service policy, to post it in an accessible format on its website, if it has one.
2. b) Each obligated organization that provides goods, services or facilities should post on their website and on their premises a commitment to provide accessible barrier-free customer service to people with disabilities.
3. c) Any organization that must have a written accessible customer service policy to electronically file it with the Ontario Government, with the searchable accessible data base of those policies to be made accessible to the public.

 

#34 The Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be amended to require that organizations that provide goods, services or facilities make readily available information in an accessible format to inform customers of the specific accessibility supports that are offered, e.g. by posting signs, making audible announcements (where the organization has a public address system or pipes music into their public spaces), by posting on their website and announcing over any automated customer service phone lines.

 

#35 The Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be amended to prohibit any added fee or surcharge for customers with disabilities when they seek to order goods, or services e.g. due to ordering these over the phone, rather than on the web.

 

#36 the Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be amended to require organizations that provide goods, services or facilities to

 

1. a) consider accessibility features when deciding which goods, service or facilities to provide, and
2. b) make public and readily available on their website, if they have one, and through other accessible means, information on the accessibility features of any goods, services or facilities that they provide.

 

#37 The Customer Service Standards Development Committee should now consult with the disability community and obligated organizations on, and develop specific proposals for

1. a) removing and preventing accessibility barriers to the public premises where organizations offer or provide goods, services or facilities, including barriers which are not now addressed by the Ontario Building Code or the Integrated Accessibility Standard Regulation.
2. b) setting requirements for built environment accessibility when an obligated organization moves any part of its existing public facilities for offering or providing goods, services or facilities to a new location, in order to make accessibility a priority in choosing any new location.
3. c) Specifying priorities for retrofitting in the case of old buildings with substantial barriers.

 

#38 The Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be revised to require an obligated organization with a small number of steps at the front door, where feasible, to install a moveable ramp to provide level access to the front door.

 

#39 The Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be revised to set minimum retrofit requirements for accessible means to open and close the front door of an obligated organization.

 

#40 If the building has not yet been retrofitted, businesses and service providers should be required to post a phone number in the window at virtually no-cost so that customers with disabilities that prevent them from opening the door can contact someone inside.

 

#41 Obligated organizations should be required to remove movable physical obstacles from main paths of travel within an obligated organizations Customer Service areas, and on any outdoor public path of travel leading to the entrance. For example, where signage can be situated in a place where customers with vision loss or other disabilities won’t collide with it, this should be preferred over placing it in the middle of main traffic halls or aisles.

 

#42 Head-level obstructions should be prohibited, especially where the obstacle cannot be safely detected by the use of a white cane.

 

#43 The Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be revised to designate required widths of aisles and heights of shelves for display of products for sale. These can be varied depending on whether the obligated organization is a large chain store, or a medium-size establishment, or a small local store.

 

#44 An obligated organization which, despite these efforts, cannot assure full physical accessibility of its public areas should be required by the Customer Service Accessibility Standard to create and publicize alternative ways for people with disabilities to access their goods, services, or facilities. This could include a phone number to call for curb-side shopping, offers for a store employee to help a person shop from home using Skype etc.

 

#45 the Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be amended to provide in connection with organizations that provide goods, services or facilities:

1. a) accessibility requirements for the font, letter size and colour contrast of new signage, and for the retrofit of existing signage on their premises;
2. b) accessibility requirements for the placement of signage in a public establishment such as a store or public office, to ensure that it is not a barrier or hazard for people with mobility disabilities, vision loss or other disabilities;
3. c) accessibility requirements to provide ready access to the same information as is contained on public signage for customers with disabilities who cannot read the signage.

 

#46 The Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be amended to require that public establishments that provide goods, services or facilities to the public implement visual fire alarm systems.

 

#47 the Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be amended to require obligated organizations that do not have accessible washrooms to find out where the nearest available ones are, and to let customers with disabilities know where to find them.

 

#48 the Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be revised to require the readily achievable measure of ensuring public washroom signage is accessible.

 

#49 The Customer Service Accessibility Standard should require obligated organizations to notify customers with disabilities where the nearest available accessible parking may be found.

 

#50 The Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be amended to require organizations that provide goods, services or facilities in an establishment that is open to the public, to ensure that snow is cleared on accessible routes to and from the establishment on the property they own, rent or otherwise control.

 

#51 The Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be revised to require posting of no-scent policies.

 

#52 the Initial Report should be revised to recommend the repeal the Integrated Accessibility Standards Regulation’s complete exemption of all product labels from any accessibility requirements.

 

#53 the Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be revised to require stores that sell prescription drugs to offer to provide accessible labels.

 

#54 Cash registers in stores should be required to display information in large font.

 

#55 The Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be amended to require restaurants to offer menus in an accessible format, either a hard copy or accessible online copy.

 

#56 The Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be revised to require provincially-regulated financial institutions to implement accessible statements and related services.

 

#57 The Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be revised to require obligated organizations to have a policy that they will reduce the music volume or turn it off, when requested based on a disability-related accommodation need. This policy should be posted and periodically announced, where the obligated organization has regular spoken announcements or a telephone interactive voice response system. Where the obligated organization has a website, it should be posted there.

 

#58 The obligated organization should be required to include, in its accessible Customer Service training, a requirement to train Customer Service staff on this policy and on how to turn down the volume.

 

#59 the Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be revised to require large retail establishments to offer a free carry-out service for customers with disabilities who cannot carry their own purchases out of the store to a car.

 

#60 The Customer Service Accessibility Standard should be revised to require hotels to post guest room numbers in Braille and large print.