Tenacious Ontarians with Disabilities Converge at Queen’s Park to Demand Action to Tear Down the Many Accessibility Barriers

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.