Ontario to be Barrier Free by 2025
Ontario Government to Pass Regulations to Ensure Disability Access
This is an article describing a unique vision and legislative process undertaken by the Ontario (Canada) government to improve accessibility to persons with disabilities.
In 2005, the Ontario Government passed into law the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, or what was then called Bill 118. This is a unique project such that has not been tried by any other jurisdiction other than Australia, and is the first in Canada. The legislation is overseen and monitored by a provincially mandated committee, the Accessibility Standards Advisory Council (or ASAC) that advises the Minister on the progress this legislation.
The purpose of the legislation is to develop, implement and enforce standards (or regulations) with the objective of achieving accessibility for Ontarians living with any disability in a broad range of social areas by January 1, 2025. At this time, these social areas include: customer service, communications, transportation, built environment and employment. New social areas can be developed as needs are identified. For each social area, there is a committee of experts called "standards development committees" appointed to research, design and propose new regulations in their respective area.
For example, the committee reviewing transportation issues is developing regulations to ensure the services of public transit authorities, vehicles and operations are accessible to the full range of persons with disabilities. This removal of barriers can include ensuring low-floor access, ramp equipped vehicles are available on all conventional public transit routes, as well as installing signals and announcements to ensure persons with visual impairments are aware of the next stop. In customer service, this would mean that restaurants, for example, would be required to provide menus in large print and other alternate formats to ensure that all patrons can read them.
At least fifty percent of voting members on each of these committees, including ASAC, must be persons with disabilities. Committee members are encouraged to work within their respective networks and communities to consult on key issues as their work progresses. The idea is to ensure that the full range of disabilities, geographic regions and other interests are included in the standards development process.
The development and implementation stages, while expected to be completed by 2025, is intended to be rolled out in stages to ensure the benefits of regulation can be felt early in the process. Each standards development committee will focus on what can be best achieved in the next five years, consult with the public and make recommendations to the Minister, currently the Hon. Madeleine Meilleur, who will review all recommendations and approve them in whole, in part or revise them to fit, at which point they will be passed into law. Customer service standards are already law.
Many advocates for persons with disabilities feel the timetable is too long to wait for accessibility, but a phased-in development approach is seen as sensible, particularly given that some regulations will take longer than others to put into place. For example, while a requirement that transit operators announce all stops can be implemented almost right away, making changes to the built environment to make all Toronto subways stations fully accessible will take much longer. Further, the inclusion of persons with disabilities in the standards development process will ensure that their voices get heard from the very beginning of this project, so both internal and external resources will be considered.
It is not known at this point how these regulations will look once they are passed. The feeling overall, however, is cautiously optimistic. Standards for customer service have already been passed into law as of January 1, 2008. Again, this will impact on every business and service agency in the province of Ontario. This legislation allows for a period of time to allow businesses to prepare for this law, while the Ministry offers ongoing compliance support to stakeholders that want information on how to comply.
It is hoped that as time passes, and more regulations come into force, that the attitudes towards persons with disabilities will eventually fall into place as those that potentially serve, hire, work with and sell to, persons with disabilities will find that doing so can only impact positively on their bottom line.
