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
Striking CBC News Report Illustrates Why Ontario Needs a Residential Housing Accessibility Standard to Be Enacted Under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act
January 21, 2025
SUMMARY
For months if not years, Ontario, federal, and municipal politicians have made many speeches about why it is a huge priority to increase the supply of affordable housing. Yet far too little is said about the massive need for a dramatic increase in the supply of accessible housing. Ontario has an accessible housing crisis.
Accessible housing includes houses, condos and rental apartments where people with disabilities can live and visit, free from any kind of disability barriers.
For well over a decade, the AODA Alliance has campaigned for the Ontario Government to create a Residential Housing Accessibility Standard under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act. As part of our advocacy for the dramatic reform of the Design of Public Spaces Accessibility Standard, now under review by the Design of Public Spaces Standards Development Committee (which the Ford Government appointed under the AODA), we have again urged that disability barriers in residential housing be addressed.
Of course, some of the barriers that people with disabilities confront when they seek an accessible place to live are physical barriers—houses, condos and rental apartments that are not designed and built in conformity with principles of universal design. However, there can be other less physical but equally obstructing barriers. An exceedingly disturbing article that CBC published and broadcast on Christmas Eve last month is an example of this. We set that article out below.
CBC reported how a person with disabilities regularly visited her ailing mother in the mother’s condo. She is accompanied by a service animal. The condo, however, established rules that created barriers for people who come to that condo with a service animal. The woman engaged a lawyer and took the issue to CBC for help. CBC sought comment from the AODA Alliance. We set out that CBC report below. It also led Talk 640 Radio in Toronto to interview AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky on this story on December 24, 2024.
Thanks to the pressure generated by CBC’s coverage, the condo board reportedly made an exception to its draconian policy for the woman in issue. However, that is too little too late. The condo board did not repeal the policy altogether. The barrier at that condo therefore remains in place for all other people with disabilities with service animals. The whole idea of the AODA is that people with disabilities should not have to battle barriers one at a time.
The Ontario Government needs to enact a strong Residential Housing Accessibility Standard that will remove and prevent all barriers, physical and bureaucratic, that impede the housing needs of people with disabilities. The AODA Alliance has called on all Ontario political parties to make the Accessible Ontario Pledge, which includes a commitment to create a Residential Housing Accessibility Standard. So far, only the Green Party has made the Accessible Ontario Pledge. The AODA Alliance is now actively advocating to get the other Ontario political parties to do the same. This is especially important, since an Ontario election may be called as soon as tomorrow!
How You Can Help
- Email members of the Ontario Legislature. Urge them to commit to create a Residential Housing Accessibility Standard under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act and to make the Accessible Ontario Pledge.
- Publicize the online video of the AODA Alliance’s January 6, 2025, Queen’s Park news conference. We unveiled the Accessible Ontario Pledge at that news conference. Get others to watch that video!
- Visit the AODA Alliance website’s built environment page to learn about our advocacy for over 15 years to tear down disability barriers in the built environment.
There have now been 20 days since Ontario failed to meet the January 1, 2025 deadline for becoming accessible to people with disabilities set by the AODA. We need all parties to commit to the Accessible Ontario Pledge to turn this accessibility ship around!
MORE DETAILS
CBC News December 24, 2024
Originally posted at https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/condo-board-rules-service-dog-1.7416606
Condo board backs down after trying to restrict visitors with service dogs
New rules won’t be enforced, lawyer says. But will they be formally revoked?
Michael Smee
Emily Mclennan, of Kitchener, and her service dog Honey, infront of the Mississauga building where her mom and sister live. Mclennan says she’s not felt welcome in the building since she began visiting with Honey.
Emily Mclennan, of Kitchener, Ont., and her service dog Honey, in front of the condo building where her mom and sister live. The condo board recently imposed new restrictions on visitors with service dogs. (Mike Smee/CBC)
The board of a Toronto-area condo is reversing course on an order that forced a disabled woman with a service dog to register with the property manager every time she wanted to visit the building, where her mother and sister live.
Emily Mclennan, who drops by 1515 Lakeshore Rd. E., in Mississauga, Ont., with her service dog Honey about once a week, had told the board through a lawyer last week that the new rules violate the Ontario Human Rights Code, and gave them until Monday to expunge them or face legal action.
Despite the board’s reversal on Wednesday, Mclennan says she’s skeptical.
“I’ll believe when I see it,” removed from the condo’s rules, the Kitchener, Ont., psychotherapist told CBC Toronto.
The case is a cautionary example for condo boards says Deborah Howden, a condo law specialist at the Toronto law firm Shibley Righton LLP.
“Rules have to be reasonable, as do bylaws,” said Howden, who was not involved in this case. “If they are not reasonable, they are not enforceable.”
David Lepofsky, of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance, says the aides that school boards provide to students with disabilities are a right not a privilege.
David Lepofsky, chairman of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance, says people with service animals must be accommodated under the Ontario Human Rights Code. (Mike Smee/CBC)
3 different forms
The controversy began earlier this month when the condo board circulated a letter about an updated rule that bans dogs. That bylaw was accompanied by a separate set of rules that said service dogs would be allowed — but only under certain circumstances.
For starters, any visiting service dog must be registered with the building, and its owner must fill out a second form for each visit. The rules also required a third form to be filled out if the dog and its owner were staying more than 24 hours.
Mclennan says she took the new orders personally: “This feels like a witch hunt against my service dog,” she said.
Mclennan says she developed thrombocytopenia and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome — both of which can cause her to suddenly lose consciousness — about two years ago.
Deborah Howden, a partner with the Toronto law form Shibley Righton LLP, says rules drafted by condo boards must be reasonable, in order to be enforceable.
Deborah Howden, a partner with the Toronto law form Shibley Righton LLP, says rules drafted by condo boards must be reasonable in order to be enforceable. (Craig Chivers/CBC)
Six months later she got Honey, a specially trained labradoodle mix that begins to shake when she senses Mclennan is about to black out.
But soon after, she says, building residents began making her feel uneasy during visits.
“I’ve had neighbours follow me out and take pictures of me with my dog,” she said. “I feel spied on when I’m here.”
The new rules, announced Dec. 10, made the situation worse, Mclennan says.
“I don’t feel welcome in this building. I don’t feel like I can spend Christmas with my family here. It’s heartbreaking.”
But Patricia Elia, the lawyer for the condo’s board of directors, says the rules were not meant to alienate anyone, and won’t be enforced in Mclennan’s case.
“If she’s a frequent visitor, we’ll note that on the file of the unit owner so that she’ll be allowed to visit, with her service animal,” Elia said. “There’s no need to escalate it. This is a common sense board.”
‘This is ridiculous’
A letter from Mclennan’s lawyer to the board, dated Dec. 16, states the new rules violate the Ontario Human Rights Code.
They impose “an extra burden on persons with disabilities visiting the building that is not imposed on able-bodied visitors,” the letter reads. “If Ms. Mclennan were able-bodied, there would be no restriction on when or for how long she could visit her mother and sister.”
David Lepofsky, founder and chairman of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Coalition and a visiting professor of disability rights at Western University and the University of Ottawa, believes Mclennan has a case.
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He said the Ontario Human Rights Code says people with disabilities must be accommodated, provided it doesn’t pose undue hardship.
“People without disabilities aren’t told you’ve got to leave your legs at the door,” nor are people in wheelchairs required to register them, he said. “This is ridiculous.”
Though Elia says the rules won’t be enforced in Mclennan’s case — nor, likely, in any similar cases — she would not say if they will be formally revoked.
She says the rules could be changed without a vote of the condo’s unit owners, because they are not strictly speaking part of a bylaw, which requires a majority vote to alter.
Honey is trained to begin shaking when she senses that Mclennan is on the verge of losing consciousness, because of her disability.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michael Smee
Reporter, CBC Toronto
Michael Smee has worked in print, radio, TV and online journalism for many years. You can reach him at michael.smee@cbc.ca