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Barrier-Free Manitoba Releases Primer and Report Card on AMA Implementation to Date

Mar 01, 2018

Report card half way out envelope

The coming year represents a very important time in our collective efforts to realize a fully accessible Manitoba. This is because of two important developments.

The first is the comprehensive independent review of the landmark Accessibility for Manitobans Act that we are told will begin later this month and continue through to the end of 2018. Minister Fielding recently appointed Ms. Theresa Harvey Pruden to conduct the review. We are confident that she is committed to doing an outstanding job.

The second development will be the wrap-up of Barrier-Free Manitoba's operations in December 2018. We originally had only planned to be around for 3 years. The three years became five years before the AMA was passed. Then we committed to five more years of work to provide continuity through the Act’s early stages of implementation and the comprehensive review.

We are humbled by the broad, strong and continuous support we have received and are honoured to have served. That said, those five years will end in December 2018. So too will Barrier-Free Manitoba.

These two developments present both critical challenges and significant opportunities. In order to address these effectively, our communities will need to develop answers for two important questions:

  1. What changes are needed to ensure the full, timely and robust implementation of the Accessibility for Manitobans Act so that significant progress toward full accessibility is achieved by 2023?
  2. How can and should our province's diverse disability communities work together to provide strong and effective leadership in advocating and holding government accountable for accomplishing the transformative purposes of the Accessibility for Manitobans Act?

We have prepared a '"Primer" (Word / PDF) to introduce these two questions and to share information that we believe needs to be considered in developing the answers.

We have also prepared a "Principled Report Card" (Word / PDF) that provides our assessment of the implementation of the AMA to date. This includes much of the information from the Primer but in summary form.

We plan to support community discussion about the questions and possible answers over the next ten months. As part of this, we look forward to hosting community consultations sessions starting in May.

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