Accessibility Top Stories
Tenacious Ontarians with Disabilities Converge Today at Queen’s Park to Demand Action to Tear Down the Many Accessibility Barriers, Marking 30th Anniversary of the Birth of Grassroots Accessibility Campaign
David Lepofsky, chair of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance (AODAA), November 25, 2024
Disability advocates converged on Queen’s Park today to demand government action, marking the 30th anniversary of a tenacious campaign to make Ontario accessible to 2.9 million Ontarians with disabilities. At a Queen’s Park news conference this morning, AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky slammed successive Ontario Governments. They failed to lead Ontario to become accessible to people with disabilities by January 1, 2025. In 2005, after a decade of non-partisan provincewide advocacy, the Legislature unanimously passed the landmark Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act. It requires the Ontario Government to lead the province to become accessible to people with disabilities by 2025. Yet almost twenty years later, Ontarians with disabilities still face too many accessibility barriers when they try to get a job, ride public transit, use our health care system, get an education, eat in restaurants, or shop in stores. This afternoon, the AODA Alliance convened community public hearings At Queen’s Park. The Legislature did not organize these hearings. We did. Presenter after presenter told MPPs from the four parties about barriers they face in education, health care, transportation, employment, long term care, the built environment, enforcement, and much more.
Now it's the Toronto Star reporting on the serious disability barriers at the new Toronto courthouse!
Toronto Star, Francine Kopun, Senior Writer, August 24, 2024
The $956-million provincial courthouse in Toronto is under fire again – this time for failing to meet the province’s own accessibility legislation. Disability rights activist David Lepofsky says courthouse violates the province’s own Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act. He and others raised concerns with the government during and after the construction of the provincial courthouse, which opened in March 2023. They made a series of very bad mistakes. They easily could have avoided all of them,
said Lepofsky, chair of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance (AODAA) and visiting research professor of disability rights at the faculty of law at the University of Western Ontario.
Ian McConachie, a spokesperson for Infrastructure Ontario, said officials are reviewing feedback on the building from stakeholders, including its accessibility advisory group and the public, with an eye to mitigating issues. In order to facilitate this process, the project’s accessibility consultants conducted the final building review and we are gathering their feedback.
Advocates say Ontario will not meet accessibility requirements without enforcement PROVINCE THE SAME AS EVERYBODY ELSE
We’re reliant on people's goodwill
: Advocates say Ontario will not meet accessibility requirements without enforcement PROVINCE THE SAME AS EVERYBODY ELSE.
Toronto CityNews, Dilshad Burman, August 21, 2024
As the 20-year deadline for compliance with the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act looms, advocates weigh in about its failings and what needs to change to make it effective. On June 13, 2005, the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) was passed unanimously with a 20-year timeline to make Ontario fully accessible with respect to goods, services, facilities, accommodation, employment, buildings, structures and premises on or before January 1, 2025.
CityNews reached out to Minister for Seniors and Accessibility Raymond Cho to ask about the progress Ontario has made and his thoughts on the looming AODA deadline. In response, the minister’s communications director Wallace Pidgeon provided the following statement:
Since 2018, Ontario has been achieving, meeting and exceeding AODA standards. Community by community, project by project we are making Ontario more accessible each and every day.
According to the UN, Canadians with intellectual disabilities are being exploited
Academic rigour, Samuel Ragot, PhD Candidate, McGill University, August 20, 2024
It is very difficult, if not impossible, to know exactly how many people with an intellectual disability are in sheltered work programs in Canada.
Canada was recently criticized by Tomoya Obokata, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, in relation to the shortcomings of the temporary foreign worker program. However, this was not the Special Rapporteur’s only criticism. The working conditions of persons with intellectual disabilities also drew his attention. As a researcher on issues related to the financial security and employment of persons with disabilities, and as someone who works in the field of public policy, I would like to shed some light on a controversial practice that is still widespread in Canada: sheltered work programs. Relatively unknown to the general public, sheltered work programs are a historical legacy of the longstanding segregation and exploitation persons with intellectual disabilities have experienced throughout North America. Unlike institutionalization, which has been in relative decline, sheltered work programs are still thriving, despite repeated calls to end them in both Canada and in Québec.
Powerful New Video Reveals Serious Accessibility Problems at new Downtown Toronto Mega-Courthouse
AODA Alliance, August 8, 2024
Disability Advocates' Powerful New Video Reveals Serious Accessibility Problems at new Downtown Toronto Mega-Courthouse. A Billion-Dollar Accessibility Bungle Shows Ontario Falling Further Behind Schedule for Becoming Disability Accessible by 2025.
The AODA Alliance today makes public a striking new 14-minute video (and a more detailed 50-minute version) exposing significant disability accessibility barriers in a new public billion-dollar government building in the heart of downtown Toronto, built with public money. This video documents serious accessibility problems at the new Toronto Armoury Street Courthouse. AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky, himself totally blind, guides you on a tour of barriers that hurt people with blindness, low vision, hearing disabilities, mobility disabilities, autism, dyslexia, chronic fatigue or pain, and others.
The AODA Alliance video shows what can happen when accessibility and usability standard design features are not fully included in the planning phase. This should be of interest to municipalities planning city revitalization projects. Communities concerned with disability inclusion must ensure all stakeholders are active participants in city planning. Goodwill and best intentions are not good enough.