Interim Report | Fourth Review of the AODA

Rich Donovan, entrepreneur, March 1, 2023
It is the assessment of the 4th Reviewer that leadership on accessibility, and the AODA, has been absent for 17 years. Without leadership, progress on this file is impossible. Without leadership, there can be no accountability. This has certainly been the case with the AODA. Yet this difficulty goes beyond ownership of this file. It is the assessment of the 4th Reviewer that even with engaged leadership, as it stands today, accountability would be a significant challenge. A key reason is there are no metrics for what success looks like. Based on what was heard, combined with a fulsome jurisdictional scan, the 4th Reviewer has organized their assessments into four primary buckets: outcomes, governance, leadership, and accountability. It hardly needs repeating that AODA outcomes have been poor. PWD report continued disappointment in the AODA since its inception, and as has been indicated in previous reviews, progress has been painfully slow and uneven. The 4th Reviewer has identified two main drivers of these poor outcomes: a reliance on standards, and the absence of enforcement/incentives. As a conclusion, the Reviewer is obliged to highlight that the Premier of Ontario and his Cabinet have yet to meet the basic needs of a group of people totaling over one fifth of its population. Do you care? The Reviewer has been haunted by this question since having candid discussions with senior government officials early in this review process.

In a democracy, demand defines direction. Advice to government is only as good as how well we understand your needs and wants. To help us understand, we need your participation. This applies to Ontarians with disabilities as well as businesses, not-for-profits and public sector entities that seek to delight all Ontarians.