‘We’re reliant on people’s goodwill’: Advocates say Ontario will not meet accessibility requirements without enforcement

Only 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.”

“I remember in that moment having this sudden realization that I might actually be able to access this province the same as everybody else, something that I never thought would be possible in my life,” recalls Jeff Preston, associate professor and chair of disability studies, at King’s University College, Western University.

Anthony Frisina from the Ontario Disability Coalition has a similar memory.

“I’ll never forget when we had this piece of legislation born. I anticipated the future not only for myself, but for members of the disability community to be more prosperous,” he says.

As one of the advocates who led the campaign to get the law passed, David Lepofsky, chair of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance, remembers the historic day vividly.

“Our movement started 30 years ago this fall and we fought for a decade from 1994 to 2005 to get this law passed. And it was a huge victory,” he says.

“There were great hopes and great expectations and the fact that all parties supported it was very important because it meant that whoever got elected, they were on board.”

As the AODA’s January 1, 2025, target is now less than six months away, Lepofsky says those feelings of hope have soured into betrayal.

“From shortly after it was enacted up to the present, we have been working very hard to try to get the government to keep its commitments and fulfill the requirements of the law,” he says.

Preston agrees that it has been a frustrating and disappointing countdown over the last two decades, with little progress to show for it.

“In a lot of ways, I am still struggling to access this world in many of the same ways that I was back in 2005 when this first came into effect,” he says.

“We seem to be wanting to govern over people with disabilities rather than giving people with disabilities quality of life,” adds Frisina.

“There’s no question we’re better off than if we had not had this legislation, but there have been tremendous failures — failures to enact all the standards, failure to provide the supports for business that they need, failure to effectively enforce the law,” says Lepofsky.

Lack of enforcement leaves AODA ‘toothless’

“Most organizations that are not complying with the AODA will suffer no consequences whatsoever beyond perhaps being asked to develop a plan, do an audit — that tends to be the extent of what the Ontario government is willing to do. If there are no consequences, then what compels someone to do anything about it?” says Preston.

“At the moment, we’re relying on people’s goodwill and their moral or ethical belief in accessibility, as opposed to what other laws do, which is to compel people to play by the rules.”

Disability rights advocate Tori Lacey adds that there’s no recourse to access when those rules aren’t being followed.

“As a person with a disability, when I see a business that isn’t compliant, I don’t even know what to do about that. There’s no process to file a complaint to get that looked into,” she says.

“These are really just broad suggestions for people, which is honestly not that helpful when it comes to actually enforcing change.”

Lepofsky explains that the AODA requires that the government pass a series of regulations called accessibility standards for everything from transit to buildings. Those are enforceable laws and as such, enforcement powers are woven into the fabric of the AODA.

“There are enforcement powers … they’ve got power to hire inspectors and directors and issue compliance orders and eventually levy substantial monetary penalties. But the government is largely not using those powers, or they’re using them only a tiny little bit,” he says.

“We were promised effective enforcement, it’s just they never delivered on it … the other problem is, if they don’t enact an accessibility standard, then they can’t use those powers in a particular area.”

Lacey, who has Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA), found that out first hand when she was apartment hunting and looking for units that would accommodate her motorized wheelchair.

“There are really no guidelines to make new rental buildings accessible. I’m in an apartment right now and there was not one barrier free unit that was built in this whole apartment building. And that seems pretty typical. There’s not a lot of guidelines that are forcing businesses, forcing landlords to make these changes,” she says.

“I think that is a huge area that we’re lacking in and people with disabilities should be able to get accessible rentals in the City of Toronto, and that just does not exist right now.”

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. The AODA required Ontario to have accessibility standards in place by 2025. There are currently standards in the areas of Information and Communications, Employment, Transportation, the Design of Public Spaces and Customer Service.”

He also provided a list of ways in which the government is making Ontario more accessible:

• AODA standards are built into the largest transit build in North America – this includes the Ontario Line and the Ontario Northland and all GO stations, GO buses and GO trains and the purchase of 2200 accessible public transit buses.
• AODA standards are built into the Ontario Building Code, into all new provincial infrastructure building and/or retrofits, into the 50 new hospitals, all new/retrofitted long term care facilities and the 60 new school projects
• Since, 2020 investing $1.4 billion annually to provincial school boards to upgrade and retrofit schools for students with disabilities; this includes new ramps, railing, doors, hallways and elevators
• The Assistive Devices Program (ADP) funds close to $500 million dollars a year to support persons with disabilities with mobility needs.
• In 2019, Ontario ensured ‘accessibility’ was part of the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program (ICIP) criteria for all infrastructure projects, including all 315 community, culture and recreation based projects across Ontario, such as new municipal facilities, recreation and cultural centres
• In 2020, Ontario partnered with the Rick Hansen Foundation to assess and certify 250 municipal buildings based on the Foundation’s accessibility rating.
• In 2020, Ontario created the Inclusive Community Grant program, to date, funding over 100 community-based projects from trails, to public spaces, to picnic tables, to beach mats, kayak launches, benches and other accessibility based projects
• The EnAbling Change Program, providing provincially based organizations with funding creating more accessible environments for all Ontarians to live, work and engage with.
• Ontario Parks installing beach mats in provincial parks making waterfronts accessible.
• The AODA also requires our 444 municipal partners to have Accessibility Plans.
• This year alone, the Skills Development Fund is is investing $6.5m that will support more than 3,770 people with disabilities to find meaningful employment in their communities.
• The Ontario Disability Employment Network (ODEN) and the Discover Ability Network help hire people with disabilities.

No comments were provided on the likelihood of the AODA deadline being missed or a revised timeline.

Addressing the AODA standards built into the Ontario Building Code, Lepofsky reiterates the lack of enforcement, citing the new Ontario courthouse in downtown Toronto as an example.

“It’s a billion-dollar accessibility bungle. They used public money, were given accessibility advice, and too often ignored it when the project was being built,” he says.

Lack of guidance and clear language in AODA

Preston points out that the language used in the AODA is often broad and hard to follow.

“There are a lot of people who aren’t aware of their obligations. They don’t understand what they’re supposed to do, or even worse, they don’t know how to enact it because at times there is pieces of the legislation that presumes a certain level of knowledge that a lay person may not actually have,” he says.

“So you might say to them, you need to provide alternate communication formats for all materials that you’re putting out for your business. Well, if you run a small social media organization, do you know how to acquire braille printouts? Do you know what the large print standards are? It’s not enough to put the standard out there and say ‘do it and comply.’ You also need to actually educate people on how to do it.”

Lacey agrees saying that along with enforcement, education is needed to ensure compliance.

“People are not going to do it on their own and quite frankly, I feel like people don’t really know how to do it on their own. People want to make changes. Business owners want to be accessible, but they don’t know how. I feel like this information is just not widely available,” she says.

“I’ve had business owners come to me and say ‘what can we do? I want to make my space accessible, but there’s just no information out there.’ It’s not readily available for people to understand so I think that’s a huge barrier as well — just making the AODA clear and easy to understand so that these changes can be made.”

What happens after Jan. 1, 2025?

“The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act does not vanish on January 1st of next year. It’s going to stay the law, and it would stay the law even if we achieved accessibility that the law promised us, because we need to make sure in the future that we don’t lose ground,” says Lepofsky.

He says the AODA still has much to offer, but there’s one key factor needed to ensure it fulfils its true potential.

“We need leaders in our government who are prepared to do their job. We need a government that’s prepared to fulfill its legal obligations and to take it seriously and to enact and enforce that regulation,” he says.

Frisina adds there needs to be greater collaboration between the government and the disabled community.

“As a saying goes in the disability community, ‘nothing about us without us,’ — it’s about giving us the space and place to work with people, become an ally with us. Don’t seek validation at the end of a project and saying ‘look how we did. Oh, congratulations, you, we did this for you,'” he says.

“The idea that being grateful for what we’re given should be a thing of the past. We need a call to action for the government to not throw us a bone, so to speak, but actually work with us as people with disabilities in all communities, all across Ontario.”

Preston agrees that the disabled community needs partners in the Ontario government.

“I do believe that there is a way forward, however, the way forward requires leadership. And that I think is what we’ve really been missing. We do not have, I think, enough leaders at Queen’s Park who are actively moving this forward in a way that actually makes a difference,” he says.

“It’s very easy to say, we’re committed to an accessible Ontario. It’s really easy to say we’re working as hard as we can. But when you look at the size of things like the accessibility directory of Ontario compared to other ministry bodies, when you look at the budget that’s being assigned to accessibility features and programs around accessibility, when you look at the speed at which we’re moving on things that the AODA versus say closing down the Ontario Science Center, there is very clearly a lack of priority being placed here and a lack of leadership. What we need is action, not platitudes.”

TTC says majority of subway stations will be accessible by 2026

While the province has not explicitly acknowledged that the AODA deadline will likely be missed or provided an updated timeline, the Toronto Transit Commission has done both.

In a staff report discussed at the TTC’s board meeting last September, it was noted that all 70 subway stations will not be fully accessible by Jan. 1, 2025.

At the time, 54 stations were accessible with a goal to add three more stations by the end of 2024.

As of August this year, 55 of 70 stations are accessible. TTC spokesperson Stuart Green said Donlands Station will be completed in September and Glencairn and Castle Frank stations are due to be accessible later this year.

“Of the 15 remaining stations, construction is underway at 14 of them and the Old Mill station request for proposal is due to be issued later this year,” he said.

He added that in the meantime, interim service plans outlined in the September 2023 report include providing accessible connections to the subway system through bus or shuttle service to and from accessible stations.

In addition, he said that with the full conversion and modernization of the streetcar fleet a few years ago, all TTC vehicles are accessible and “Wheel-Trans remains an excellent and well-regarded para-trans service.”

Addressing the delay despite a 20-year timeline to comply, Green says “most people will appreciate what we’re undertaking is a large and complex task.”

“Modifying stations with elevators, especially in the built-up downtown area, will always be challenging. Similarly, stations like Warden and Islington pose unique challenges because of their grade-separated bus bays. As well, prior to 2020, we simply didn’t have the capital funding in place to complete the program. Market conditions continue to be challenging with respect to the volume of construction activity within the GTA and this impacts availability of labour and services,” he said.

“This is not to make excuses, rather it provides some context as to the scale of this program.”

Green added that the TTC’s commitment to make the system fully accessible “has never wavered.”

“While we are making progress, we certainly understand the frustration around not meeting the [AODA] deadline – and we apologize to our customers for that. It’s why we committed to providing regular updates to our Board regarding the status of these projects. The next program update will be provided this Fall.”