Barrier Free Manitoba

The Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) has tabled a range of submissions in that province over the years in support of strong and effective accessibility-rights legislation.

The OHRC submissions have strongly supported the positon advanced by Barrier-Free Manitoba since 2008 that the Human Rights Code cannot

"on its own effectively bring about wide scale barrier removal and equal access for persons with disabilities."

Rather, what is needed is:

"meaningful legislation with strong centralized regulatory and non-regulatory coordination . . . to ensure the necessary momentum for systemic change."

Following is an excerpt from the OHRC's October 30, 2009 submission regarding the independent legislative review of the 2005 Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) that was recently conducted Charles Beer.

The OHRC has a long history of engaging its broad mandate promoting and protecting the rights of persons with disabilities, including providing advice to government dating back to 1998 on the development of successive pieces accessibility legislation as well as more recent submissions on standards being developed under the AODA.

From early on, the OHRC has stressed that the Human Rights Code (the Code), while an appropriate and necessary legislative tool for protecting and promoting rights, could not on its own effectively bring about wide scale barrier removal and equal access for persons with disabilities.

Rather, as the OHRC commented during the government’s consultation prior to introducing and subsequently retracting the initial Ontarians with Disabilities Act 1998, it would take meaningful legislation with strong centralized regulatory and non-regulatory coordination, including a one-stop-shopping approach for information and resources, to ensure the necessary momentum for systemic change.

The OHRC called for the establishment of a responsible agency, a consumer input mechanism and sectoral standing committees charged with developing and recommending accessibility standards, procedures, and compliance timelines with incremental progress goals, for eventual adoption into regulation. The OHRC also recommended that government ministries and funded agencies be required to examine barriers, develop plans for barrier removal and inclusive design, and report publicly on progress.

The OHRC further recommended that accessibility legislation address not just physical barriers but also attitudinal ones as well as so called “neutral” rules and requirements that pose systemic barriers for persons with disabilities.

The responsible agency should also monitor accessibility and barrier removal by sector to determine whether progress was being made, including by means of annual reporting directly to the legislature. Sectoral standing committees should also play an ongoing role to help monitor and report on achievement of standards. Indicators should not only include progress on barrier reduction and accessible design, but also socio-economic measures including income level and equal access to education and the labour force.

The OHRC identified the importance of provincial government strategies for education, communication and cooperation, including with the Federal government and other entities and jurisdictions, to address barriers in areas of overlapping responsibility such as telecommunications and the finance industry.

A full copy of the 2009 submission is posted on the OHRC's website (html or pdf).