AODA Alliance
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
Sign Up for the 30th Anniversary of Ontario’s Movement for Strong Accessibility Legislation on November 25, 2024 2 to 4 p.m. ET
November 2, 2024
SUMMARY
We’re going back to where it all began! Join us on Monday November 25, 2024 from 2 to 4 p.m., in person or online, for a non-partisan 30th birthday party with a keen eye focused on the future!
Thirty years ago this month was the spontaneous birth of the organized grassroots non-partisan movement to win strong legislation to make Ontario accessible to people with disabilities. It all started in a meeting room at Queen’s Park following some legislative public hearings.
On November 25, 2024, we’ll draw on our deeply embedded grassroots spirit of community voice, non-partisanship, and creative constructive advocacy. We’re holding our own Disability Community Public Hearings at Queen’s Park in Toronto. We’ve invited the leaders of each of Ontario’s four major political parties, the Tories, NDP, Greens, and Liberals, to attend or send an MPP on their behalf. The parties’ representatives will be seated on the panel at this event. Our letter inviting the parties is set out below.
The panel will be moderated by ARCH Disability Law Centre’s executive director, Rob Lattanzio.
Now here is where you come in. We’re inviting you to sign up to speak to that panel for 3 minutes each, either in person at Queen’s Park or online. Tell the panel about disability barriers you face. Make constructive suggestions of what should be done to remove and prevent those disability barriers.
You can also sign up to attend and watch in person, even if you don’t want to speak. For those who can’t come to Queen’s Park but would like to watch the festivities, the event will be live streamed on the internet.
Sign up fast, using our online form. Space will be limited both for speakers and for people coming to watch. We’ll accept requests on a first-come, first-served basis. Please keep your presentation to the topic of our event.
We expect to close sign-ups when we’re full to capacity and in any event, by November 20, 2024. You will have to sign up in order to get into the building and attend the event. We need to provide our list of attendees to building security in advance. Closer to the date of this event, we will make public the link to watch the event on a live stream, and we will send listed speakers a Zoom link if they will be attending virtually.
We will have ASL and live captioning. If you need any other disability accommodation, let us know by November 14, 2024 by emailing us at aodafeedback@gmail.com
It is incredibly hard to book meeting space at the Legislature. The event will be held at the Ontario Legislature in Room 351. We appreciate the Ontario NDP making available its caucus room for our event. We emphasize that this event is entirely non-partisan and is organized by the AODA Alliance.
Now wait a minute, our most loyal readers will say. Didn’t we just announce November 26, 2024, in a “save the date” announcement? We certainly did, but we had to move the event to November 25 in order to get a room with enough space. So unsave November 26 and sign up to join us on November 25!
We’ve accomplished much over these 30 years. We’re also far from the goal of a barrier-free Ontario, which the Ontario Legislature unanimously promised in 2005 when it unanimously passed the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act. That’s Canada’s first comprehensive disability accessibility law.
Stay tuned for more news about this event as it gets closer. Direct any questions to us at aodafeedback@gmail.com
MORE DETAILS
Text of the AODA Alliance’s November 2, 2024, Letter to Ontario’s Four Party Leaders
Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance
United for a Barrier-Free Society for All People with Disabilities
Web: www.aodaalliance.org Email: aodafeedback@gmail.com Twitter: @aodaalliance Facebook: www.facebook.com/aodaalliance/
November 2, 2024
Via Email
Hon. Premier Doug Ford, Premier
Via email: premier@ontario.ca doug.ford@ontariopc.com
Room 281, Legislative Building
Queen’s Park
Toronto, Ontario M7A 1A1
Marit Stiles, Leader of the Official Opposition
Via email: MStiles-QP@ndp.on.ca
Room 113, Legislative Building
Queen’s Park
Toronto, Ontario M7A 1A5
Mike Schreiner, Leader of the Green Party of Ontario:
Via email: leader@gpo.ca
Room 451 Legislative Building
Queen’s Park
Toronto, ON M7A 1A2
Bonnie Crombie, Leader of the Liberal Party of Ontario
Via email: Care of darci.mcfadden@gmail.com
Dear Leaders,
Re: Invitation to the Queen’s Park Celebration of the 30th Anniversary of the Birth of Ontario’s Movement for Disability Accessibility Legislation — November 25, 2024, 2:00 to 4:00 p.m.
November marks the 30th anniversary of the birth of the non-partisan grassroots movement that led to the enactment in 2005 of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act. It was at Queen’s Park that this movement was born. We’re coming back on November 25, 2024, to hold an event and are eager for each of you or an MPP from your respective caucuses to be part of the proceedings. The rest of your caucus members are also welcome to come for all or part of the event.
Here’s what we are planning. From 2:00 to 4:00 p.m., we will convene community public hearings for members of the disability community to give their feedback to each of your parties. We will provide a non-partisan chair or co-chairs for the event. We would love it if a leader or MPP from each of your parties would also be on the panel to listen and learn.
We are inviting people with disabilities and their supporters to attend in person or to present virtually over the internet for 3 minutes each. They’ll be invited to talk about disability barriers they face and to make constructive suggestions of what should be done to remove and prevent those barriers in the future. We want to give your parties an opportunity to hear and learn from them.
Time will be limited. To enable as many people as possible to speak, we will ask speakers not to ask MPPs to answer any questions, and we will similarly ask panel members not to ask speakers questions during the formal proceedings. Of course, MPPs and party officials are more than welcome to speak side bar with anyone in attendance if they wish.
We have experience with this. In August 1998, our predecessor coalition, the Ontarians with Disabilities Act Committee, held such an event at Queen’s Park. All parties in the Legislature sent at least one MPP as a panel member. It was very successful. We aim to repeat that success.
At the outset of the panel, we will invite each panel member from the political parties to offer words of welcome for no more than one minute. This event will be live streamed for the public.
The event will be held in Room 368. We appreciate the NDP’s making that room available for our event, given the shortage of available space in the building. This is a strictly non-partisan event. As always, the AODA Alliance does not endorse or oppose any political party or candidate.
Please have one of your staff reach out to me to indicate whether your party will send a panel member and, if so, who it will be. Please also let us know which of your staff we should contact to work out logistics and field any questions.
We hope you or an MPP from your party will take part. It was a major accomplishment that the AODA was enacted in 2005 after a unanimous vote in support of it in the Legislature. We aim to carry forward that spirit.
Sincerely,
David Lepofsky CM, O Ont
Chair, Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance
Twitter: @davidlepofsky