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Words from the Director of the AMA on Leadership in Implementation

Jun 20, 2017

Jay Rodgers

Senior and committed government leadership will be absolutely essential to the timely and effective implementation of the 2013 Accessibility for Manitobans Act (AMA). That's why the words and views shared at last week's Canadian Conference on Developmental Disabilities and Autism by Jay Rodgers, Deputy Minister of Families and the recently appointed Director of the AMA are so encouraging.

Following is a slightly abridged version of the comments he offered on the AMA at the conference's closing session.

"Next I want to talk about Leadership – second theme in your conference and John didn’t mention that in addition to being the deputy minister, I was also appointed last fall as the Director responsible for the implementation of the Accessibility for Manitobans Act.

And this is legislation that was passed in 2013, my esteemed colleague Patrick Falconer, who I know is here, because I ran into him, Patrick where are you, put your hand up. Patrick has described this as game changer legislation. It is modeled after the legislation in Ontario and Nova Scotia has recently passed legislation that would be modeled after Manitoba’s.

I recently had the opportunity last week, to not once, not twice but three times, listen to David Lepofsky, who was a very strong advocate and was very influencial in getting the Ontario legislation passed and I was really influenced by many of the things that he had to say. One of the things he talked about was that in Ontario, he continues to have conversations with civil servants who were either involved in developing or implementing the Ontario legislation and they have since moved on. And those civil servants look back and reflect on their experience and they say that one of the most rewarding things that they ever did in their careers was to help develop or implement the Ontario Accessibility legislation.

I want to be one of those… so when I become a former civil servant, hopefully not in the next little while, I want to be able to look back and say that one of the things that I’m really proud of was the work that we did to fully implement the AMA here in Manitoba. Its another one of those areas in which I’m deeply committed to seeing that legislation thrive and become the game changer that Patrick talks about.

It's not easy, and in order for this to work as it should, government needs to step up and really play a leadership role. Government needs to be a role model for other organizations as this legislation is rolled out and over time, creates expectations for barriers to be addressed in private business and all kinds of similiar organizations. And that will happen over the next number of years.

So I have a lot of great work that is goes on in the Disabilities Issues Office, some of you may be familiar with, reports directly to me.

I must say that that leadership role, from government… I think we have a fair bit of catch up to do… I think that government needs to step up and show its commitment to have this legislation be successful so that it can have an immense effect on the lives of people with disabilities.

So are we making any progress? Well, in government, its challenging for governments to think of itself as an organization, as a collective with a collective responsibility, we tend to function more as a department and a department and a department. So I can tell you that’s that starting to change…

Ok collective responsibility in government.. one of the catalysts that are starting this change is the expectations that are now on government as a result of the Accessibility for Manitobans Act and so government has started to come together around this issue. I meet with my deputy colleagues every Friday and governments implementation of the AMA and standards that are now being implemented associated with the AMA are on the agenda for us at least once month… and the deputies, to their credit, have come together and we are now starting to plan collectively on how government is going to play that leadership role.

One of the best examples that I can give you, is that in the near future the government will be releasing a collective 2017/18 implementation plan related primarily to the customer service standard but also related to the expectations in the act and the commitment made by the Manitoba Government accessibility plan. This will be a government wide set of actions that all departments have committed to implementing over the next year and I want to come back and talk about the progress of doing that next year.

Now is that plan fully going to meet the expectations of Patrick and Barrier-Free Manitoba, probably not, they have very high standards and they should and we welcome feedback that we will get from Barrier-Free Manitoba.

Is it late, yes, it’s late, we should have had this done before. Is it important, absolutely, because of the collective responsibility and the collective behavior that we are starting to see in government in response to the AMA.

So it’s this whole of government approach that I think sets a platform for really making the legislation effective. The whole of government approach that sets the foundation for how we deal with clients, to make sure that organizations are removing barriers for persons with disabilities. And it’s in my view, this whole of government approach that can truly make this legislation a game changer."

Like we said, very promising and encouraging words indeed.

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