Send the AODA Alliance Feedback on Our Draft Brief to the Customer Service Standards Development Committee on What Should Be Enacted to Tear Down Disability Barriers in Access to Goods, Services and Facilities in Ontario

Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance Update

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

Website: www.aodaalliance.org

Email: aodafeedback@gmail.com

Twitter: @aodaalliance

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/aodaalliance

 

Send the AODA Alliance Feedback on Our Draft Brief to the Customer Service Standards Development Committee on What Should Be Enacted to Tear Down Disability Barriers in Access to Goods, Services and Facilities in Ontario

 

December 19, 2024

 

SUMMARY

 

For the very last time in 2024, we’re seeking your feedback on a draft brief. We know this comes on the verge of the holidays, which is not the best time for this! Such is the life of volunteer advocacy for disability rights!

 

This new draft brief describes the measures we need the Ontario Government to enact to tear down the many disability barriers in getting customer Service. That includes barriers people with disabilities when they try to shop in stores, eat in restaurants, use public services or stay in a hotel, among many other examples.

 

On October 10, 2024, the Ford Government made public the Initial Report of the Government-appointed Customer Service Standards Development Committee. We all have up to January 9, 2025, to send our feedback to the committee. You can read the Initial Report of the Customer Service Standards Development Committee, which the Government publicly posted on October 10, 2024, and the survey of customer service disability barriers conducted by the Standards Development Committee.

 

The Government had appointed the Customer Service Standards Development Committee under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act to make recommendations on what mandatory accessibility standards should be enacted under the AODA to remove and prevent the many unfair accessibility barriers that people with disabilities still face in trying to get customer service in Ontario. A Customer Service Accessibility Standard has been on the books since 2007, but it is very weak. Here is a chance to get it strengthened.

 

Our draft brief gives our feedback to the Customer Service Standards Development Committee on its Initial Report. It lists our recommendations on things we would like that Committee to add to or change before it finalizes its Initial Report and submits it to the Ford Government. Our draft brief is 58 pages long. It has an appendix which lists our 60 recommendations. We set that appendix out below. You can read our full draft brief on the AODA Alliance website where we posted it.

 

We apologize for this, but we need your feedback by June 3, 2025. Our brief must be submitted to the Ontario Government by January 9, 2025.

 

Write us with your specific suggestions for our draft brief at aodafeedback@gmail.com

 

Please don’t mark up our draft brief. Just send us an email listing any suggestions you have. We aim to submit our finalized brief to the Government on January 9, 2025. We will make our finalized brief public.

 

If you would like us to email you this draft brief as an MS Word file, just write us and ask for it. Again, we can be emailed at aodafeedback@gmail.com

 

You can see all the AODA Alliance’s past briefs on a wide range of accessibility subjects on the AODA Alliance website’s briefs page. You can see all our efforts over the past decade and a half to fight for barrier-free customer service on the AODA Alliance website’s customer service page.

 

As is always the case, our brief is the result of volunteer effort, informed by input we’ve gathered over the years from a wide range of sources and thoughtful individuals who donate their time to help us out, at times asking not to be thanked publicly by name. We are indebted to them all for their help and their selfless dedication to our accessibility cause.

 

We are especially grateful to the ARCH Disability Law Centre with whom we’ve extensively collaborated over the past months on this issue, leading to key recommendations in this draft brief.

 

A meager 13 days remain until January 1, 2025, the AODA ‘s deadline for the Ontario Government to lead this province to become accessible to people with disabilities. Stay tuned for more news about that impending deadline.

 

MORE DETAILS

 

Appendix to the AODA Alliance’s Draft Brief to the Customer Service Standards Development Committee.

 

^** 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.