Academic rigour, Samuel Ragot, PhD Candidate, McGill University, August 20, 2024 It is very difficult, if not impossible, to know exactly how many people with an intellectual disability are in sheltered work programs in Canada. Canada was recently criticized by Tomoya Obokata, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, in relation to…
Kate McCullough, Hamilton Spectator Reporter, June 30, 2022 When a blind disability advocate reached out to Mohawk College to complain they’d cancelled a program that trains students to develop accessible media, he received a response in a format he couldn’t fully read. The irony of the situation was not lost on David Lepofsky, chair of…
Marie-Claude Landry, Chief Commissioner, Canadian Human Rights Commission, April 27, 2022 The Canadian Human Rights Commission is pleased to welcome Michael Gottheil, by Order in Council, as Canada’s first Accessibility Commissioner. Commissioner Gottheil brings to his new role his extensive experience and expertise as an adjudicator, mediator and educator in various fields of law, including…
Mark A. Riccobono, President, National Federation of the Blind, July 2021 Tonight, we, as blind people organized in a civil rights movement, come to our own moment of reflection. We cannot remove ourselves from the nation in which we live. We cannot deny the influence of the pressures, perspectives, barriers, and inequities of that nation,…
Greg Thomson, Accessibility For Ontarians With Disabilities Act Alliance, January 28, 2021 A Victory Disability Advocates Now Invoke to Prevent Disability Discrimination in Access to Life-Saving Critical Care if Hospitals Start to Triage Critical Care. Weeks earlier, in October 1980, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau introduced a bill into Parliament to add a new Charter of…
View point, Canadian Human Rights Reporter, August 12, 2020 One in five Canadians lives with one or more disabilities. Everyday these 6.2 million individuals encounter various barriers. These barriers prevent persons with disabilities from participating fully in all aspects of society. It is thus not surprising that 60 percent of complaints received by the Canadian…
Greg Thomson, Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance, July 25, 2019 Two years ago, the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario rendered a controversial and deeply troubling decision about the rights of students with disabilities in Ontario schools. An 8-year-old boy with autism wanted to bring his certified autism service dog to school with him….
David Lepofsky, AODA Alliance Opinion, The Star, April 29, 2019 When it comes to ensuring accessibility for 5 million Canadians with disabilities, Canada lags far behind the U.S., which passed the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act 29 years ago. Canadians with disabilities still face far too many barriers in air travel, cable TV services, and…
Ms. Catalina Devandas-Aguilar, OHCHR, Ottawa, April 12, 2019 In my capacity as United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities, I conclude today my first official visit to Canada, which took place from 2 to 12 April 2019. I am an independent expert who reports to the United Nations Human Rights Council…
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,…
