Advocates say province failed on promise to make Ontario fully accessible by 2025

By January 1, 2025, Ontario was supposed to be fully accessible.

It was a target set 20 years ago by the province, but disability advocates say the new year has only brought a broken legislative promise.

Lawyer David Lepofsky, who is blind, spearheaded the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA, a law unanimously passed in the Ontario legislature in 2005.

“We woke up to a province that’s still full of soul-crushing barriers,” said Lepofsky, who is the AODA Alliance Chair.

The legislation required the government to lead Ontario to become fully accessible for people with all kinds of disabilities within 20 years.

“They had to enact a series of regulations called accessibility standards that told people what they got to do and when they got to do it by. And they had to effectively enforce those standards,” explained Lepofsky. “Now the government did some of that and we made some progress, but nowhere near enough.”

The standards were introduced for transportation, public spaces and education for which the province says it’s invested $1.4 billion a year for school boards to support students with disabilities since 2020.

But for advocate Bianca Dahl, speaking at a public hearing in November, it’s still not enough to tackle the daily challenges faced by people with disabilities.

“The helpful wheelchair ramps from Stop Gap … I live down in the Queen Street West area, they are a huge support, they allow people that are wheelchair bound or in scooters to get in and out of stores, but the problem with the Stop Gap ramps is that they actually reduce the amount of usable sidewalk space,” said Dahl.

There are also to be fines for persons or organizations convicted of an offence under the AODA, including up to $100,000 for a corporation for each and every day or part day that an offence happens.

“Their enforcement has been paltry and pathetic,” added Lepofsky.

But the Ministry for Seniors and Accessibility tells CityNews Ontario is meeting, achieving, or exceeding the AODA standards.

“This includes historic spending in infrastructure, school upgrades, new and retrofitted hospitals, and long-term care facilities, as well as public transit investments in GO Transit, GO trains, GO buses and GO stations, plus over 2200 new accessible buses being delivered provincewide,” read the ministry’s statement.

The AODA Alliance says Ontario needs a new approach that would make the law live up to it’s true potential, they’ll be unveiling the next step in their campaign in the coming days.