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
Tremendous Media Coverage of the 30th Anniversary of Ontario’s Grassroots Campaign for Disability Legislation
November 30, 2024
SUMMARY
Over the past week, we’ve been in the media almost every weekday, pressing our call for more action to tear down disability barriers. Over the next days, our AODA Alliance Updates will roll out these reports for you.
For example, over this week, the AODA Alliance got fantastic media coverage of our November 25, 2024, event at Queen’s Park, marking the 30th anniversary of the birth of the grassroots non-partisan campaign for strong Ontario disability legislation. On November 25, 2024, the AODA Alliance held a news conference in the Queen’s Park Media Studio. That afternoon at Queen’s Park, the AODA Alliance staged their own community public hearings. MPPs from the four Ontario political parties received deputations by people with disabilities in person and over Zoom. Presenters described disability barriers they still face and what the Government must do to make Ontario accessible to all.
Here’s the coverage we’ve found. Send us any other media reports you find about our November 25, 2024, Queen’s Park events!
- On November 25, 2024, CBC Radio reported on the AODA Alliance’s Queen’s Park news conference. You can watch that news conference online at any time, but we did not get a recording of the radio news coverage.
- On November 25, 2024, CTV news and CP24 included a great TV report on our Queen’s Park events. You can watch that CTV news report whenever you wish!
- The November 28, 2024, edition of the Guelph Mercury Tribune and at least 24 other Metroland publications included AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky’s disability rights column, set out below, which reflected on this important anniversary of our advocacy efforts.
- The November 28, 2024, edition of The Trillium, a publication focusing on Queen’s Park politics, included a superb report by journalist Sneh Duggal on our Queen’s Park events. You’ll find it below.
- The November 29, 2024, Durham Region and all the other Metroland online news publications included a report on the November 25, 2024, Queen’s Park events, focusing on some of the individual presentations at the community public hearings we staged for MPPs.
- The November 25, 2024, edition of Metroland’s Halton Today had a report in advance of our Queen’s Park events to take place that day. Read it below.
There is a huge chasm between the reality of accessibility barriers facing Ontarians with disabilities, on the one hand, and the Ford Government’s shocking claims during Question Period in the Legislature on November 25, 2024, suggesting that things are just rosy and that the Ford Government is doing a great job on this issue. Read the November 29, 2024 AODA Alliance Update for all the details.
How You Can Help
Circulate this media coverage widely and post it on social media and the web. Email it to family and friends.
Use email, social media and personal conversations to encourage as many people as possible to watch the online recordings of the AODA Alliance’s November 25, 2024 Queen’s Park news conference, and the community public hearings held at Queen’s Park later the same day.
Invite people to watch the short and sweet November 25, 2024 CTV news report on our 30th anniversary events at Queen’s Park.
Press your local media to cover these events and issues. Let the media know what you think of the Ford Government’s November 25, 2024, claim that 88% of people think Ontario is accessible to people with disabilities.
Watch for more action tips over the next days.
For more background
- A comprehensive timeline of major events over the past 30 years in the grassroots campaign for accessibility in Ontario.
- The AODA Alliance’s November 25, 2024 news release after its press conference and community public hearings wrapped up.
- The AODA Alliance’s captioned online video series of the major news conferences and other key events in the 30-year campaign for accessibility for people with disabilities.
MORE DETAILS
Guelph Mercury Tribune November 28, 2024
Ontario’s grassroots disability advocates mark 30-year milestone with public hearings at Queen’s Park
Grassroots groups are as determined and tenacious as they were three decades ago, writes David Lepofsky.
By David Lepofsky
Monday, November 25, 2024
David Lepofsky breaks down barriers
David Lepofsky, who is blind, outside the Ontario Court of Justice at 10 Armoury St. in Toronto. Lepofsky has fought for more than 45 years to break down barriers for people with disabilities and won’t stop anytime soon, he says.
Nick Kozak photo
This month marks an incredible anniversary for 2.9 million Ontarians with disabilities. You probably don’t know anything about it.
On Nov. 29, 1994, 20 of us found ourselves sitting in a Queen’s Park legislative hearing room. Our blood was boiling.
Hearings had begun on a private member’s bill that aimed to tear down the many accessibility barriers impeding people with disabilities in education, employment, health care, public transit and access to other goods and services.
Ontario’s first deaf MPP, Gary Malkowski, had introduced this bill into the Legislature.
At these hearings, the NDP government responded to that bill with evasive, patronizing lip service.
Outraged, we stormed down the hall. I followed the crowd. We found an empty committee room. Spontaneously we launched a new grassroots coalition, dedicated to win the enactment of new legislation to make Ontario a barrier-free province for Ontarians with disabilities.
We had no idea what we were getting into.
What we wanted appeared, objectively, to be impossible to win. The broad disability community had not united around our goal, nor even knew much if anything about it. No political party supported us. Social media did not yet exist to enable us to rally people to support us.
Yet a decade later and after endless efforts at non-partisan advocacy, on May 10, 2005, our dream of new legislation was realized. The Legislature passed the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act. It passed unanimously with all MPPs giving it a standing ovation, something beyond our wildest dreams.
I never thought I’d take on a leadership role in this when we met that afternoon three decades ago. However, I ended up with the privilege as a volunteer to lead the 10-year campaign to get the Disabilities Act passed.
How did we do it?
It was thanks to so many people with disabilities in their local communities, most with no prior advocacy training. There was Cathy in London, writing guest columns for her local newspaper. There was Barb in Thunder Bay who managed our fledgling new website. Don’t forget Paul in Kingston who used this new thing called email to write every MPP in Ontario. Dean in Windsor organized a disability march in support down a main street to city hall. In Mississauga, Chris pulled together a town hall meeting. Louise single-handedly went from Kingston to Peterborough to organize a local group there to support our campaign. Michael in London wrote and sang a theme song for our movement, “Still Waiting,” with lyrics that remain relevant today.
In city after town, municipal councils passed resolutions calling for Ontario to enact the law we sought. Conservative premier Mike Harris promised to pass it in his first term, but endlessly dragged his feet and showed no interest. A weak law was passed under Harris, the very last during his reign. It didn’t require a single disability barrier to ever be removed.
In 2003, Dalton McGuinty led the Liberals to victory, having promised a stronger and effective Disabilities Act. He delivered on that promise in 2005, after working closely with us on developing it. In opposition, the Tories supported it, even though it was much stronger than the paltry legislation that they had earlier enacted.
How have things gone since then?
Progress under that legislation has been far too sluggish. But we are undeterred.
To celebrate this anniversary, we’re going back to where it all began, Queen’s Park, to stage our own public hearings.
On Monday, Nov. 25, Ontarians with disabilities will talk about the barriers they still face and what the government needs to do now. We’ve invited all the political parties to send MPPs to listen and learn.
We’re as determined and tenacious as we were three decades ago. We have amassed a great deal of experience in how to keep up the pressure. Just watch us.
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David Lepofsky is a retired lawyer who chairs the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance and is a visiting professor of disability rights at the law schools at Western and the University of Ottawa.
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The Trillium November 28, 2024
Originally posted at https://www.thetrillium.ca/municipalities-newsletter/disability-advocates-say-province-not-even-close-to-reaching-full-accessibility-by-2025-goal-9876617
Disability advocates say province ‘not even close’ to reaching full accessibility by 2025 goal
The AODA Alliance held hearings at Queen’s Park on Monday so members of the public could share with the government the barriers people with disabilities still face
Sneh Duggal
Disability advocates held a press conference at Queen’s Park on Nov. 25, 2024.
Disability advocates say Ontario is on track to miss its goal of a fully accessible province by 2025.
Thirty years after the launch of a movement that eventually led to Ontario passing accessibility legislation, they also question whether provincewide accessibility will ever happen.
“Ontario will not be accessible to Ontarians with disabilities … as the (Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act) AODA had promised, not even close,” David Lepofsky, chair of the AODA Alliance, said at Queen’s Park on Monday.
The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, passed in 2005, outlined the goal of achieving “accessibility for Ontarians with disabilities with respect to goods, services, facilities, accommodation, employment, buildings, structures and premises on or before January 1, 2025.”
The act, which applies to all people and organizations in the public and private sectors, requires the government to create accessibility standards for organizations to follow.
“We’ve been warning government after government and minister after minister that this was going to happen for well over a decade,” said Lepofsky, adding that while there has been some progress, it’s been “glacial.”
“But successively, government after government, minister after minister, slowed down to the point where our current rate of progress can only be described as abysmal,” he continued. “At the rate we are going, not only won’t we reach a fully accessible province that we were promised by 2025, we never will.”
Lepofsky and other advocates held a press conference at Queen’s Park on Monday, prior to hosting hearings so that members of the public could share with legislators the barriers that people with disabilities still face and what they believe the government should do.
Representatives from all parties were expected to attend, with the government sending Daisy Wai, parliamentary assistant to Minister for Seniors and Accessibility Raymond Cho.
Lepofsky said it was 30 years ago that about 20 people with disabilities gathered at Queen’s Park for public hearings on a private member’s bill. Frustrated with what Lepofsky called “patronizing lip service,” the group ended up “storming down the hall, somebody found a meeting room, and spontaneously, a new coalition was born.”
“But the fact is, we can’t just celebrate because we come here with a mixture of pride and anger,” he said. “We are not dispirited. We are more motivated than ever.”
Lepofsky said around 2.9 million Ontarians with disabilities will “suffer” as a result of the province’s failure to meet its January goal, as will their families and friends and those who get a disability later in life.
“If you total that up, it means every Ontarian will ultimately suffer from the successive failures to effectively implement this law,” Lepofsky said.
Nora Green, a retired special education teacher and member of the Toronto District School Board’s Special Education Advisory Committee, said Ontario’s 300,000 students with disabilities in publicly funded schools “experience far too many barriers.”
Green said it’s not just about “insufficient funding,” and that parents have told the committee it’s hard to find out what services and supports are available for their children at school.
“They must navigate a frustrating, dispiriting maze to try and get action if the school doesn’t deliver what it promised,” she said, adding that many students with disabilities are sent home or excluded and are being refused the right to an education.
She said accessibility standards for education haven’t been enacted under the AODA, with Lepofsky adding that neither have standards for health care.
As for how long it could take for the province to reach its goal of being fully accessible, Lepofsky said while target dates are helpful, he thinks the focus should be on “goals that we can achieve individually.”
For example, ensuring hotels have braille room numbers.
“You go to a hotel, one thing you kind of want to know is your room number,” said Lepofsky. “We don’t need five years, 10 years to get braille numbers up on hotel room doors, or, dare I say, on elevator buttons. So there are a number of accommodations that could be achieved extremely quickly.”
With speculation of an early provincial election, Lepofsky said the alliance plans to write to all the parties to “seek commitments on what they will do when we don’t meet the deadline of 2025 for full accessibility to get us as close to that goal, as quickly after that deadline as they can.”
NDP Leader Marit Stiles said she thinks her party’s proposal for a “New Deal for municipalities” would help them “meet more of the requirements of the AODA.”
“I think these are the ways that the government can actually help support change happening a lot faster than it is,” she said. “When you’re underfunding municipalities, you’re underfunding school boards … it’s really, really hard for folks on the ground to be able to meet these standards.”
Robin Jones, president of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO), said municipalities have been “at the forefront of removing barriers and making our communities more inclusive.”
“AMO continues to focus on improving municipal capacity to fulfill the promise of the Act in a way that is both effective and feasible,” said Jones. “There is still more work to do across Ontario to make the province more accessible. A provincial action plan that goes beyond 2025 would ensure that Ontario continues to make progress.”
For its part, the government said the province is “exceeding the AODA standards each and every day.”
“We have built the standards of the AODA into the Ontario building code. All new GO Transit stations, train platforms and bus stations adhere to the AODA. We have delivered over 2,200 accessible buses to municipalities,” said Cho, the accessibility minister, during question period. “The province is making historic investments to make Ontario more accessible today and for the future.”
—With files from Jack Hauen
Durham Region November 29, 2024
‘The AODA is toothless:’ Accessibility advocate complains in forum of Ontario legislation’s lack of accessibility enforcement power as Jan. 1, 2025 deadline nears
The article highlights the 30-year journey of accessibility advocates in Ontario, emphasizing the need for stronger enforcement, proactive action, and inclusive design standards under the AODA.
By Tim Kelly
David Lepofsky stands on subway platform
Lawyer David Lepofsky, who is blind, is chair of the AODA Alliance, a non-partisan coalition that monitors progress on the province’s Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act.
Bernard Weil Toronto Star file photo
The original fighters for accessibility in Ontario, the “pioneers” if you will, gathered together in a Queen’s Park meeting room Monday to mark a 30-year anniversary.
It was back on Nov. 29, 1994 that a private member’s bill introduced by NDP MPP Gary Malkowski, came before a committee at the legislature for discussion. Plenty of disability advocates gathered to eagerly listen to what would be said — and came away alternately deflated and fully determined to take action.
According to David Lepofsky, the long-standing AODA Alliance chair who was there that day and remains just as committed to accessibility today as he was 30 years ago, the NDP minister who spoke at the committee showed little inclination to push forward with an Ontario Disability Act.
But the 20 or so disability committee advocates who met afterward would become the seeds of the group who would help push forward to get the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) passed in 2005.
Lepofsky was there Monday at a committee room at Queen’s Park, urging disability advocates to speak up, especially with a deadline for the AODA looming on Jan. 1, 2025. That’s when, back in 2005, the goal was to create a barrier-free Ontario.
“The AODA is not going away on Jan. 1. It remains the law, the law the government must obey. We are going nowhere. This is our 30th anniversary of tenacity because we’re not stopping, we’re not slowing down; we’re going to speed up,” Lepofsky said on Monday afternoon.
“There is an election expected, if not next year, then the year after, and by all rumours, it’s going to be this spring. In this ninth election in a row, we will contact the political parties and list what we want them to do in the spirit of non-partisanship to commit to get us to the goal of the disabilities act, as close as possible to the deadline of the disabilities act.
“What are going to ask for? We’d like to hear from you today. This is your opportunity to speak to us and to members of the legislature. All four parties said they’re going to send an MPP. We want to hear what you have to say to them and we want to build on what you experience as we formulate our demands that will be coming out by the end of this year or the start of net year.
“So, this is our big opportunity to turn the tables on what happened 30 years ago. Thirty years ago, we listened to public hearings. This time, we’re organizing the public hearings,” he said.
A number of people spoke up and they were asked to concentrate on two issues: What disability barriers do you still face and what should the government do about those barriers?
This is a selection from several of those who spoke:
Bianca Dahl
Bianca Dahl is an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Toronto’s Scarborough Campus.
“I am an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Toronto Scarborough Campus and I was born with a genetic condition that resulted in me losing the ability to walk independently in 2014.
“The main problem that I see with the AODA is that it’s toothless, that it reduces accessibility to a check list, rather than embracing it as an ethos. Accessibility can’t be a temporary fix, it doesn’t work. The standard excuse, which is that’s it’s hard to implement new measures into a city that was built and designed before these regulations were called into place; that’s an excuse that doesn’t cut it.
“People in positions of marginalization should not just be given positions of equality, the same access to health care as everybody else, but a preferential option. But we want the most basic forms of access, just the most basic baseline. This seems like a task that should already have been completed. It is a stain on our province and on the memory of lieutenant-governor David Onley that accessibility has not been made for all of us.”
Lorin MacDonald
Order of Ontario recipient (2022) Lorin MacDonald. MacDonald, who is a lawyer with a hearing impairment and is working on health standards for the AODA, spoke on Monday during discussions about disability awareness.
Lorin MacDonald
Lorin MacDonald, a lawyer who supports people with disabilities, is a disability awareness trainer and instructor at the Lincoln Alexander School of Law at Toronto Metropolitan University.
“I want to discuss the right to accessible health care which isn’t negotiable. As a member of the AODA health-care standards committee, which provided steps for the care of people with disabilities, I’ve seen first-hand how Ontarians face significant barriers to accessing essential medical care.
“The 2022 Canadian survey on disabilities released last year, stated nearly 2.5 Ontarians live with one or more disabilities. Nearly 450,000 Ontarians have a hearing disability. I am one of them. I want to share my experience in accessing health care.
“For us, medical interactions can be dangerous and traumatic. Imagine trying to communicate symptoms through masks that muffle speech and block lip-reading; straining to hear your name in a waiting room or trying to understand crucial medical instructions in a noisy hospital environment. Add inaccessible intercom systems and critical information, provided only verbally. It becomes overwhelming.
“I can attest to all this over the past few years. I changed what I could, but barriers sometimes caused even strong self-advocates like me to break. These aren’t mere inconveniences, they lead to misdiagnosis, medication errors. The COVID pandemic only intensified these barriers.
“Our committee began its work in 2017 and powered through the pandemic, submitting its final recommendation report on Feb. 28, 2022. Nearly three years later, we still await these desperately needed regulations.
“Solutions exist. Our committee spent years developing them. What we need now is political will and public demand. With nearly 2.5 million Ontarians living with one or more disabilities, these barriers impact entire families and communities.
“Contact your MPPs, demand action on our recommendations and support disability advocacy organizations.”
Thea Kurdi
Thea Kurdi is an accessible design strategist.
“I work with architects, builders and the developers. The architects and building owners and design teams have to create accessibility standards above and beyond. Why do we have to do that? Because the Building Code has been so resistant to change. It is not yet aligned with the Ontario Human Rights Code.
“So, the Ontario Human Rights Code says Building Code spaces shall not discriminate against people but the Building Code does not create environments that achieve that. That is a significant problem.
“If we try to push this onto procurements, adding additional requirements, that will require additional legislation. It always comes back to, where does it say that I have to do that? If it’s not in legislation, if it’s in a set of standards for a municipality, that’s not legislation. If it’s in a procurement policy, that’s not legislation. It is seen as being open to negotiation.
“This pushes it back to human rights tribunals; this pushes it back to people with disabilities. We have not seen the progress we should have seen. The delay has to stop. The wasting money on studies and talking to experts has to stop. We knew in 2005 what needed to be changed in the built environment, we already had it written down.
“The Building Code must be rewritten top to bottom; we must insist that licensing for professionals and continuing education must be updated so design professionals have the ability to create. Take that as an urgent call. Every day you wait is another day with another building that is inaccessible.”
Odelia Bay
Odelia Bay, who has multiple sclerosis, is a lawyer and co-founder of the Canadian Association of Lawyers with Disabilities.
Tim Kelly screenshotOdelia Bay
Odelia Bay is co-founder of the Canadian Association of Lawyers with Disabilities who also has multiple sclerosis.
“We are a national association of lawyers, paralegals and other legal practitioners. Our members are very diverse with respect to our experiences of disability and practice.
“Last year, something exciting happened or something potentially exciting. The province of Ontario opened a new state-of-the-art courthouse in downtown Toronto. And the promise of an accessible Ontario that we’ve come to expect under the AODA is well — the building is sadly full of access barriers.
“Some are minor irritants and some create serious potential to physical harm. All communicate to the disabled people who both use and serve the justice system that they are either forgotten, ignored, or even worse, not actually valued.”
Omar Ha-Redeye
Omar Ha-Redeye is a lawyer on the board of directors with Spinal Cord Injury Ontario.
“The (Rich) Donovan report highlights a critical gap in the AODA: enforcement. Without stronger mechanisms, the vision of a wholly accessible Ontario will fall short.
“The 2019 review by lieutenant-governor David Onley found many organizations remain non-compliant, leaving many Ontarians with disabilities to face persistent barriers. Enforcement has relied too much on voluntary compliance, which has proven ineffective.
“Many organizations remain unaware of their obligations and lack the incentive to act. Accountability must become a priority. We must commit to proactive enforcement, which includes bolstering the enforcement and compliance branch, conduct audits and impose penalties.
“Public awareness must improve. Many organizations aren’t aware of their responsibilities. We must empower people with disabilities to enforce their rights. This means easier ways to enforce violations and access legal support.
“Accessibility is a right, not a privilege. But rights without enforcement are empty promises.”
Tim Kelly is a reporter with durhamregion.com. He can be reached at tkelly@durhamregion.com.
Inside Halton November 25, 2024
Originally posted at https://www.insidehalton.com/news/how-close-is-ontario-to-meeting-accessibility-standards-watch-and-listen-to-what-advocates-and/article_cb6cb684-a12c-5f0a-9a31-75f612dbd505.html
How close is Ontario to meeting accessibility standards? Watch and listen to what advocates and people with disabilities have to say
Presenters will describe disability barriers they still face and what the government’s role in the process during live event beginning at 2 p.m.
By
Metroland Staff
Insidehaltoncom
Monday, November 25, 2024
With Ontario’s deadline to implement accessibility standards a little over a month away, a disability rights activist is part of a group holding an online forum.
A barrier-free Ontario was the purpose of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA), unanimously passed by members of provincial parliament in 2005.
With the province’s 20-year deadline for the implementation of accessibility standards looming on Jan. 1, 2025, AODA Alliance chair David Lepofsky will be part of the panel hosting the event from 2 to 4 p.m. today, and we will have the YouTube stream of the event of the public hearing.
AODA Alliance will stage community public hearings. MPPs from the four Ontario political parties will receive deputations from people with disabilities in person and via video. Presenters will describe disability barriers they still face and the government’s role in the process.
The event will stream live on the AODA Alliance YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/user/aodaalliance.
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