When Ontario passed in 2025, it was supposed to do so as an accessible province. Instead, advocates say it missed its own deadline.
In 2005, a unanimous vote made Queen's Park accessible to people with disabilities within two decades.
The Accessibility of Ontarians Act (AODA) was created to help people with disabilities participate fully in society, creating mechanisms to help them make rules and enforce standards. Advocates and experts hailed the legislation as groundbreaking and progressive.
But as Beau Hayward makes his way through Toronto in his wheelchair today, he still sees room for improvement.
“One of the biggest impacts is transportation,” he said, pointing to the sometimes spotty elevator service at TTC stations as an example. “During the winter, if you have to bypass your location through several stations, it's quite difficult for me to push through the snow in a wheelchair.”
Oda al-Anizi decorated his wheelchair with a special attachment that transformed it into a bicycle, allowing him to navigate the city as a cyclist. As he told CBC's Talia Ritchie, it's been a game changer.
Hayward, a quadriplegic with some arm and shoulder function, said the biggest improvement in his mobility has come through a motorized wheel attachment for his wheelchair. Previously, he was using a cumbersome fully motorized chair and ran into more obstacles that others faced.
“For example, if a restaurant has a six-inch step for a power chair user,” he said. “It's pretty much like a door lock.”
The fact that Ontario won't be accessible to everyone in 2025 should come as no surprise to those who have spent years trying to get the government to do it. One of them returned to Queen's Park this fall, nearly 20 years after he and others fought for AODA, still calling for change.
Lawyers have sounded the alarm for decades
David Lepofsky, president of the AODA Alliance, said in November that for more than a decade, minister after minister and government after government warned the deadline would not be met. He said the province is “not even close” to its target.
“At the rate we're going, not only will we reach a fully accessible province by 2025, we'll never get there,” said Lepofsky, who is blind.
The minister responsible for the file, Raymond Cho, said he was concerned about what disabled people were experiencing.
Toronto here and now6:09Today is International Day of Persons with Disabilities
Today is the International Day of Persons with Disabilities. This day is a day to raise awareness about disability related issues. And this year's theme is Expanding the Leadership of People with Disabilities. Toronto is home to many of Canada's groundbreaking access activists. Associate producer Juliana Romanik was on Here & Now to talk about our city's disability rights leaders and what needs to be done next.
Asked if Ontario will be barrier-free as promised by 2025, Cho, who turns 88 in November, said he is a stroke survivor with hearing challenges. He said that he would support the province's investment to open employment opportunities for the disabled.
“Project by project, community by community, Ontario is meeting, passing the AODA,” he said at a media availability in November.
The TTC said 57 of its 70 stations are accessible and the rest are being worked on. A spokeswoman said adding elevators in built-up downtown areas is challenging, and funding for initiatives has only occurred in recent years.
Lack of enforcement, says legal review
The AODA would create enforceable accessibility standards for goods, services, housing, jobs and buildings by 2025, applying to both the public and private sectors.
The implementation of the Act has been reviewed four times over the years, most recently by Rich Donovan. His 2023 report said the law was not being enforced and the access situation in the province was in a “crisis”.
“The reality is you can create all the standards you want in the world. If companies don't adopt and use them, they're completely ineffective,” he said in a recent interview with CBC Toronto.
A statement from the Ministry of Seniors and Accessibility said the government uses a supportive “modern regulatory process” to ensure accessibility standards are met.
Donovan said one of the problems with AODA was that it was sold as a simple act.
“It's a lot more complicated than people think,” he said.
“This requires intentional activism on the part of regulators, regulated and clearly disabled people.”
He said the idea of a deadline was stupid, because it suggested that people would wake up one day and everything would be accessible.
“These are things that need constant improvement,” he said. “And right now we don't have that.”
