Community Living Ontario is recommending the Ontario government provide increased training and education to people who are developing the province’s new accessibility standards, in an effort to enhance the process.

As part of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA), established in 2005, the province is tasked with developing, implementing and enforcing accessibility standards to achieve accessibility for Ontarians who have a disability.

Community Living Ontario legal counsel Orville Endicott says the act is unique, as it relies on citizen participation to identify and create the standards. 
 
“The statute gives the government the final word on what the regulations say and how they say it, but the bulk of the work in developing the standards remains in the hands of the people,” says Endicott.

Each of the five accessibility standards — customer service, transportation, information and communications, employment and the built environment — are developed by people from the business and disability communities. 

While people on the committees have been working hard and are dedicated to their roles, Endicott says more can be done to prepare them for the task at hand. Before the development of standards, committees should have a mutual understanding of the factual and legal context to developing the standards, a task most citizens are unprepared for.
 
“The members of the standards development committees ought to have been given a more thorough orientation to the legal and factual elements that have to be kept in mind throughout the process,” explains Endicott. 

For example, Endicott says committees should be trained on the current existing laws in practice in order to understand how they will affect the development of new standards.

For each particular set of standards there is either companion legislation or governing statues.

An example of companion legislation would be the building code, in the case of the built environment standards.

Governing statutes include the Ontario Human Rights Code; elements of constitutional law, such as the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms; and obligations under international law, such as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Endicott says these factors need to be considered during the process to develop standards.

In addition, Endicott says it would be helpful for the government to include education and resources for people serving on the committees about the act’s purpose clause, which states “The purpose of this Act is to benefit all Ontarians.”
 
Endicott says members of the committees, whichever sector they represent, would benefit from being “steeped” in information about how full inclusion is beneficial to society as a whole.
 
“There are ways in which it can be empirically determined that sound enforceable accessibility legislation is good for everyone,” he says.

While standards committees have already been created for all five standard areas, Endicott adds it is not too late to point out shortcomings in the committee process and make improvements.
 
He says it is required by law for the committees to reassemble within five years of the standards being made into regulations, to assess the impact of their work and find ways to further refine the regulations.
 
Community Living Ontario is also recommending new standard development committees be created for areas that are not directly addressed in the first five standards, which would benefit from an enhanced committee process, according to Endicott.

These ideas were included in Community Living Ontario’s submission to Charles Beer, who is conducting an independent review of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act.
 
— More to come
 
In what ways do you think the standard implementation process could be enhanced to achieve full accessibility for Ontarians? To share your story, please contact camille(at)axiomnews.ca., or call the newsroom at 800-294-0051, ext.24.

This article may be reproduced without seeking further permission if used in proper context and with the following credit line: "Reprinted from Community Living Leaders, an online news news service of Community Living Ontario. www.communitylivingontario.ca."