AODA Alliance Presses Two Cabinet Ministers on Plans to Finalize the
Overdue Built Environment Accessibility Standard That the McGuinty
Government Last August Promised to Enact “Promptly”
June 4, 2012
SUMMARY
The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act requires
Ontario’s buildings to become accessible to persons with disabilities by
or before 2025. To achieve this, for several years the McGuinty
Government has been developing a Built Environment Accessibility
Standard to enact under the AODA.
On August 19, 2011, during last year’s Ontario election campaign,
Premier Dalton McGuinty wrote us to promise that the Built Environment
Accessibility Standard that his Government had under development would
be enacted “promptly.” To see Premier McGuinty’s 2011 disability
accessibility election pledges, which were set out in his August 19,
2011 letter to us, visit
http://www.aodaalliance.org/strong-effective-aoda/090220111.asp
We continue in our efforts to get the McGuinty Government to keep
this election pledge. On Friday, June 1, 2012, the AODA Alliance wrote
the two Ontario Government cabinet Ministers responsible to finalize the
overdue Built Environment Accessibility Standard, to press for its
enactment. This letter to Community and Social Services Minister John
Milloy and Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Kathleen Wynne, set
out below, raises five key issues:
1. We asked when the Government will be publicly posting a draft of
the proposed Built Environment Accessibility Standard for public
comment.
2. We asked the Government as soon as possible to release a summary
of the intended contents of the proposed Built Environment Accessibility
Standard, in advance of finalizing its precise legal language.
3. The Government plans to enact part of the new Built Environment
Accessibility Standard in the form of amendments to the Ontario Building
code. We asked the Government to commit that any new accessibility
requirements to be added to the Ontario Building Code also be enacted as
part of the enforceable Built Environment Accessibility Standard
enacted under the AODA.
4. We asked the Government to include in the Built Environment
Accessibility Standard, a requirement that when public sector
organizations engage in downsizing of their buildings holdings, they
give priority to closing inaccessible properties in favour of retaining
more accessible properties.
5. The forthcoming Built Environment Accessibility Standard will not
require retrofitting of any existing buildings that are not undergoing
major renovations. We asked for a clear commitment now that as soon as
the part of the Built Environment Accessibility Standard that addresses
the sphere of the Ontario Building Code is enacted, the Government will
immediately launch a prompt standards development process to develop a
part of the Built Environment Accessibility Standard to deal with
retrofitting of existing buildings that are not slated for major
renovations.
We last wrote the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing for her
plans for finalizing the Built Environment Accessibility Standard back
on December 2, 2011. To see the AODA Alliance’s December 2, 2011 letter
to the Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister, visit
http://www.aodaalliance.org/strong-effective-aoda/12052011.asp
The minister’s response to that letter gave little detail. To read
the Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister’s January 17, 2012 letter to
the AODA Alliance, visit
http://www.aodaalliance.org/strong-effective-aoda/05042012.asp
For a chronology and summary of key events in the Government’s
efforts at developing the Built Environment Accessibility Standard, and
its earlier commitments on completing that project, visit
http://www.aodaalliance.org/strong-effective-aoda/07082011.asp
Send us your feedback. Write us at aodafeedback@gmail.com
*****
ACCESSIBILITY FOR ONTARIANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT ALLIANCE
1929 Bayview Avenue
Toronto, Ontario M4G 3E8
Email: aodafeedback@gmail.com Twitter: @aodaalliance
Visit: www.aodalliance.org
June 1, 2012
via email: john.milloy@ontario.ca; kathleen.wynne@ontario.ca
Hon. John Milloy, Minister
Community and Social Services
6th Floor, Hepburn Block
80 Grosvenor Street
Toronto, Ontario M7A 1E9
and
Hon. Kathleen Wynne, Minister
Municipal Affairs & Housing
17th Floor, College Park
777 Bay Street
Toronto, Ontario M5G 2E5
Re: Built Environment Accessibility Standard
We write to ask important questions concerning your Government’s work
on developing the promised Build Environment Accessibility Standard
under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act. Both of you
as ministers, and both of your ministries, are involved in the
development of this important accessibility standard.
Minister Wynne’s January 17, 2012 letter to us gave very little in
the way of specifics on the Government’s plans. Each of the issues we
raise here appears to require policy directions from you as ministers.
We have been told that the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing
has responsibility for developing the part of the Built Environment
Accessibility Standard that falls within the scope of the Ontario
Building Code. We were also told that the Ministry of Community and
Social Services has responsibility for developing the part of the Built
Environment Accessibility Standard that deals with areas that the
Building Code doesn’t cover, such as outdoor spaces. We understand that
your Government is considering bringing forward two separate standards,
one to address each of these parts, rather than one single standard.
We would welcome answers to the following issues:
1. We want to know when the Government will be publicly posting a
draft of either or both of these two parts of the Built Environment
Accessibility Standard, for public comment. The AODA requires that the
Government post a proposed accessibility standard for public comment
before it can enact it.
The Built Environment Accessibility Standard is long overdue. On June
1, 2010, the previous Community and Social Services Minister committed
that the Built Environment Accessibility Standard and the other
accessibility standards then under development would be enacted by the
end of 2010. The Built Environment Accessibility Standard still remains
to be enacted.
In the 2011 Ontario general election campaign, Premier McGuinty
promised that this standard would be enacted “promptly.” That election
took place nine months ago. We believe that “promptly” has already come
and gone.
2. We ask the Government as soon as possible to release a summary of
the intended contents of the two parts of the proposed Built Environment
Accessibility Standard, in advance of finalizing its precise legal
language. The Government commendably took a similar step in 2010 as it
was finalizing the Integrated Accessibility Regulation. In making this
request, we don’t want this to delay in any way the finalization of this
standard. We are concerned that the Built Environment Accessibility
Standard will be highly technical. It would therefore be very helpful
for the Government to let the public know as soon as possible in
non-technical language about the policy direction that the Government is
considering heading.
3. We understand that the Government is planning to enact the part of
the Built Environment Accessibility Standard that falls within the
scope of the Ontario Building Code, by amending the Building Code
itself. We have no objection to this, so long as the Government also
enacts the very same requirements as an accessibility standard, passed
under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act. We urge
this for four reasons:
First, we want to have access to the full enforcement/compliance
regime that we won in the AODA. Unless these accessibility requirements
for buildings are set out in an accessibility standard enacted under the
AODA, we will have no access to those enforcement/compliance
provisions.
Second, we want to have all the AODA’s protections of a review of
these accessibility requirements every five years by a Standards
Development Committee whose membership includes 50% representation of
persons with disabilities. Third, we want the effectiveness of the
entire Built Environment Accessibility Standard to be subject to the
periodic Independent Review process that section 41 of the AODA
requires. Fourth, we want the AODA’s protection that the accessibility
standard cannot be altered without the rights of participation by the
disability community that the AODA enshrines.
If these key building accessibility requirements are only enacted in
the Building Code, but not in a parallel AODA accessibility standard, we
will be unfairly denied all these entitlements and safeguards. We
fought long and hard for those safeguards in the AODA. We do not want
the Government through this process to, in effect, exempt from that
future review the vital area of building accessibility that falls within
the Building Code’s scope.
We see no downside to our proposal. Builders will not face
conflicting requirements. This is because the same accessibility
requirements will be enshrined both in the Building Code and the Built
Environment Accessibility Standard.
The fact that the Building Code has its own compliance/enforcement
regime doesn’t take away from the benefit of also having access to the
AODA accessibility standard enforcement/compliance regime.
During the 2004-2005 debates in the Legislature over Bill 118, the
proposed AODA, many Government statements about what would be achieved
under that legislation focused on making buildings physically
accessible. It is vital that the Government not now carve a large part
of that field right out of the AODA.
The Building Code has historically lagged behind in the area of
disability accessibility. Those responsible for keeping the Building
Code up to date chronically did not do so in the disability context.
That is what produced the pressing need for a Built Environment
Accessibility Standard under the AODA. We don’t want to revert back to
sole reliance on the failed regulatory regime that produced that
longstanding and systemic deficiency in this area.
We therefore ask your Government to commit that any new accessibility
requirements to be added to the Ontario Building Code also be enacted
in an enforceable Built Environment Accessibility Standard enacted under
the AODA.
4. We ask your Government to include in the Built Environment
Accessibility Standard, a requirement that when public sector
organizations engage in downsizing of their buildings holdings, they
give priority to closing inaccessible properties in favour of retaining
more accessible properties. For example, some school boards are closing
some of their school buildings due to declining numbers of students. If a
school board is considering closing some of its school buildings, the
Built Environment Accessibility Standard should require wherever
possible that the school board close schools that are more inaccessible,
and keep open more accessible schools. It would be wrong, and a huge
waste of public money, to close a school that has an elevator, and leave
open a school that is only accessible via flights of stairs. The public
sector should show this kind of leadership by not managing public
infrastructure in a way that makes Ontario more inaccessible.
5. We seek a clear commitment now that as soon as the part of the
Built Environment Accessibility Standard that addresses the sphere of
the Ontario Building Code is enacted, the Government will immediately
launch a prompt standards development process to develop a part of the
Built Environment Accessibility Standard to deal with retrofitting of
existing buildings that are not slated for major renovations.
When the Government first established the Built Environment Standards
Development Committee, we understand that it only gave that Committee a
mandate to develop accessibility proposals for new buildings or for
major renovations of existing buildings. This raised serious concerns
for persons with disabilities. Many if not most barriers in the built
environment are in existing buildings which are not undergoing major
renovations. The Built Environment Accessibility Standard provisions
that are now under development will leave those barriers entirely
intact. It will not require the removal of such barriers even if this
can be readily achieved at little cost. That impedes the achievement of
accessibility for many Ontarians with disabilities.
The AODA requires the Government to enact accessibility standards
that will achieve a fully accessible Ontario by 2025. This includes
achieving full accessibility of the built environment. The provisions of
the Built Environment Accessibility Standard that are now under
development will not be able to come close to achieving this, no matter
how strong and effective they are, because they won’t require retrofit
of any existing buildings that are not undergoing major renovations.
During 2004-2005 debates in the Legislature over the proposed AODA,
the Government justified setting a long twenty-year deadline for
achieving full accessibility in no small part because it would take that
long to address the many current barriers in existing buildings. Yet,
fully seven years into that twenty-year period, we have no requirements
for retrofitting those buildings, if not undergoing a major renovation,
and no such requirements under development.
It was clear during Second Reading debates in the Legislature on Bill
118, the proposed AODA, that your Government intended to address
retrofitting of existing buildings to achieve accessibility. For
example, on November 18, 2004, during Second Reading debates on bill
118, Khalil Ramal, Parliamentary Assistant to Citizenship Minister Marie
Bountrogianni (the minister who was sponsoring that bill), described
tangible results that we should expect:
“If passed, this legislation would make a real difference in the
lives of people with disabilities….a parent who uses a wheelchair and
attends a school play could sit in the main seating area to watch his or
her children perform; a teenager who uses an ambulatory device could
take a regular bus with a friend to go to a movie at the local mall; or
an elderly patient who has diminished vision and uses a scooter could
make his way into a medical building through a ramp and an automatic
door that are clearly marked with large print signs and then take an
elevator with voice commands and a lowered button panel as he goes to
have an X ray.”
Similarly, on that same day, Ms. Wynne, you said: “So we need to make
sure that there’s access for children in every part of this province to
the schools that they need to go to, to the colleges, to the
universities. That’s a critical piece of this because we have got to
educate the whole province, and in order to do that, we’ve got to make
sure that students can get to those institutions of learning.”
Your Government committed in July 2009 to address barriers in
existing buildings through the standards development process after it
completes the first round of development of the Built Environment
Accessibility Standard. The McGuinty Government commitment on the future
development of accessibility standards to address retrofits of existing
buildings is available at
http://www.aodaalliance.org/strong-effective-aoda/07242009.asp
We want the Government to let us know what specific concrete steps it will undertake to that end, and when they will be taken.
As always, we are eager to do whatever we can to assist. We are
pleased to discuss them at any time. These steps are important if
Ontario is to get back on schedule for achieving full accessibility by
2025.
Sincerely,
David Lepofsky, CM, O. Ont.
Chair, AODA Alliance
cc: Premier Dalton McGuinty, fax (416) 325-3745, dmcguinty.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org
Marguerite Rappolt, Deputy Minister, Community & Social Services, fax (416) 325-5240, marg.rappolt@ontario.ca
Ellen Waxman, Assistant Deputy Minister for the Accessibility
Directorate, Ministry of Community and Social Services, fax (416)
325-9620, ellen.waxman@ontario.ca
William Forward, Deputy Minister, Municipal Affairs & Housing, william.forward@ontario.ca
Elizabeth Harding, Assistant Deputy Minister of Municipal Affairs and
Housing, Municipal Services Division, liz.harding@ontario.ca
Brenda Lewis, Director, Building and Development Branch, Municipal
Services Division, Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing,
Brenda.Lewis@ontario.ca
To sign up for or unsubscribe from AODA Alliance e-mail updates write to aodafeedback@gmail.com
Follow us on Twitter and get others to! Twitter.com/aodaalliance
Learn more at: www.aodaalliance.org
UNITED FOR A BARRIER-FREE ONTARIO
