Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance Update United for a Barrier-Free Society for All People with Disabilities Web: https://www.aodaalliance.org
Email: aodafeedback@gmail.com
Twitter: @aodaalliance
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aodaalliance/
January 28, 2022
SUMMARY
On Friday, January 28, 2022, the Ford Government received the final report of the K-12 Education Standards Development Committee. It gives the Government detailed recommendations on what the Government should enact in the promised Education Accessibility Standard to tear down the many disability barriers impeding students with disabilities in Ontario-funded schools.
This is a major milestone on the road to a barrier-free Ontario for people with disabilities. The AODA Alliance campaigned from 2009 to 2016 to get the Government to agree to develop an Education Accessibility Standard. It has had to campaign time and again to move the process along to develop that much-needed regulation.
There is still much to be done to get the Government to act on the K-12 Education Standards Development Committee’s final report. The first step is to get that report made public.
We immediately wrote the Ford Government, calling on it to swiftly fulfil its mandatory duty to publicly post that report “upon receiving” it. You can read that letter below.
As our letter notes, the Ford Government has a sorry track record in this regard. It took two years to publicly post the final report of the Employment Standards Development Committee. Given the chronic unemployment facing people with disabilities they certainly deserved better than that.
Last year, the Ford Government inexcusably delayed publicly posting the initial reports of three Standards Development Committees, the K-12 Education Standards Development Committee, the Health Care Standards Development Committee and the Post-Secondary Education Standards Development Committee. AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky had to resort to bringing a court application to press the Government to fulfil its duties under the AODA.
Please email, tweet or otherwise tell the Ford Government not to again delay the public posting of a Standards Development Committee’s report.
MORE DETAILS
Text of the AODA Alliances January 28, 2022 Letter to the Ford Government’s Minister for Seniors and Accessibility
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/
January 28, 2022
To: The Hon Raymond Cho, Minister for Seniors and Accessibility Via email: raymond.cho@ontario.ca
College Park 5th Floor
777 Bay St
Toronto, ON M7A 1S5
Dear Minister,
Re: Fulfilling Your Statutory Duties Under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act
Today, the K-12 Education Standards Development Committee submitted its final report to you under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (“AODA”). That report sets out that Committee’s important recommendations on what should be included in the promised Education Accessibility Standard for students with disabilities in Ontario K-12 schools.
We write to ask you to now publicly post that report online. Section 11(2) of the AODA requires you to post such a report from a Standards Development Committee upon receiving it.
When you received the initial report of the K-12 Education Standards Development Committee on March 12, 2021, you took some two and a half months to post it online. That was far longer than was needed to do so. Ontarians, including one third of a million students with disabilities in Ontario-funded schools need you not to delay the public posting of this report.
As a member of the K-12 Education Standards Development Committee, I was extensively involved in the preparation of that report. You now have it in an accessible format. It has only minor revisions to the initial report that you received last March. That initial report is already coded and posted online in English and French. It should take, at most, only a few days, and certainly less than a week, for the final report to be translated and coded for posting in HTML. It can be posted immediately in MS Word format.
Your Government has a troubling track record in this area. For example, you were obliged to publicly post the final report of the Employment Standards Development Committee upon receiving it. However, your Government delayed two years before posting that report.
We make the same request for swift public posting of the forthcoming final reports of the Health Care Standards Development Committee and the Post-Secondary Education Standards Development Committee, when you receive them. I do not want to again have to file a judicial review application in court due to delays in getting these reports publicly posted online upon your receiving them, as you are required by the AODA to do.
Sincerely,
David Lepofsky CM, O. Ont.
Chair Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance Twitter: @davidlepofsky
CC: The Hon. Premier Doug Ford premier@ontario.ca
Carlene Alexander, Deputy Minister of Accessibility, carlene.alexander@ontario.ca
Alison Drummond, Acting Assistant Deputy Minister for the Accessibility Directorate, alison.drummond@ontario.ca