Ford government must fulfill Ontario’s promise to people with disabilities

Star Editorial Board, The Star, March 12, 2019
Fourteen years ago Ontarians with disabilities might have been hopeful that the barriers that prevent them from fully participating in daily activities, from getting to work to eating in a restaurant, would be dismantled. Indeed, Ontario’s former lieutenant governor David Onley found that for most disabled persons, Ontario is not a place of opportunity but one of countless, dispiriting, soul-crushing barriers. As it stands, 1.9 million Ontarians with disabilities are receiving the message that you don’t belong here, says Onley, who himself uses a wheelchair. That should be viewed as a violation of both human and civil rights. Onley’s review is not the first to point out the glacial pace of progress on accessibility reform in this province. It is the third. It’s time the government listened and acted.