Ontario has made slow progress to accessibility

Star Editorial Board, March 20, 2023
An interim review of Ontario’s progress in implementing the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) is anything but laudatory. Do you care? When the conclusion of a report begins and ends by asking the premier that question, you know that the rest of the report isn’t likely to be praising the province’s accomplishments. After extensive consultation with the disability community, Donovan notes that 77 per cent of people with disabilities report having a negative experience in public or at work, while only eight per cent describe their experience as positive. These negative experiences, Donovan maintains, are the result of a lack of leadership, enforcement, research and accountability, and of flaws in virtually every aspect of the system, including services, products, technology, buildings, infrastructure, careers, processes and human imagination. Donovan therefore concludes that without urgent action, the province will fail to meet the AODA’s target of making Ontario accessible by the beginning of 2025. That target seemed an achievable goal when the act, the first of its kind in Canada, was passed unanimously in 2005. But successive legislative reviews in 2010, 2014, and 2019 have sounded the alarm about the lack of progress. The ministry seems to perceive the situation very differently from those with lived experience of disability. And this disconnect is, in fact, present in society at large: In sharp contrast to the experiences of people with disabilities, 88 per cent of the general population describe Ontario as somewhat or very accessible. This misconceptualization, which exists inside and outside government, is one of largest impediments to progress. As Donovan observes, Until there is a greater societal shift in how people conceptualize and interact with people with disabilities, barriers will remain.