The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - A Disabilities Agenda for Ontario's Election

Episode Date: February 25, 2025

How will Ontarians with disabilities be affected by this election? And what have the various parties pledged in terms of improving accessibility? We're joined by David Lepofsky, Chair of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Renew your 2.0 TVO with more thought-provoking documentaries, insightful current affairs coverage, and fun programs and learning experiences for kids. Regular contributions from people like you help us make a difference in the lives of Ontarians of all ages. Visit tvo.me slash 2025 donate to renew your support or make a first-time for people trying to advance the cause of those living with disabilities. Donald Trump's tariffs, hallway healthcare, and a shortage of primary care have dominated the narrative, leaving little bandwidth for much else. So let's spend some time with David Lepofsky, chair of a group called the Accessibility for Ontarians

with Disabilities Act Alliance. He joins us now from London, Ontario. Welcome to the program, David. Great to talk to you. All right, because of the focus on tariffs and healthcare, what have we not talked about related to disability issues that we should have them? There are a number of pressing disability issues that matter to 2.9 million Ontarians who now have a disability and all other Ontarians who are going to get a disability as they

get older. Let me just tell you about one. Our province was by law required to become accessible to people with disabilities by the start of this year. That was the requirement of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act passed 20 years ago with a 20-year deadline. Well guess what? New Year's Day came, we still live in a province full of physical barriers, technology barriers, bureaucratic barriers that impede people with disabilities who try to get a job or get an education or ride public transit or just go shopping. Well, we, this election was called right after the government blew

it on this deadline. So we were ready and we called on the parties to each make an accessible Ontario pledge to specify what they would do to fulfill the commitment in the Disabilities Act, even though we failed to meet the deadline. And three of the parties have answered with detailed commitments, the Greens, the NDP, and the Liberals. The Conservatives have not even answered. Similarly, in the 2022 election, the other parties made commitments to us and the Tories did not answer.

Now we're nonpartisan. We're not out to campaign for or against or to support or oppose any party. We want all the parties to make these commitments. So we've done two things. We've tried as best we can on social media and every way we can to get the Conservatives to make a commitment. They didn't answer. Last week, an all candidates debate was scheduled on disability issues in Toronto with a number of disability organizations of which we were part, organizing it.

All the parties sent representatives, again, except the Conservative Party, so we tried to give them a chance there to present what they'd be prepared to do. That's where we're at. Sadly, a number of the mainstream media outlets have not told voters this. So voters are being told by the media, you know, what the polls are saying, but they're not being given the information they really need so they can decide what their priorities are. David, you had mentioned those commitments from the other parties.

Can you walk me through some of these commitments? Under the Disabilities Act, there's supposed to be effective enforcement. Right now, the enforcement is paltry and frankly pathetic. The Minister for Accessibility, Raymond Cho, says it's working. Well, he's the minister responsible, but unfortunately his track record on enforcement has been respectfully abysmal. Now we need to get in place accessibility standards so people know what they got to do. There are a few that have been passed but no new ones have been passed since 2012. For example 250,000 or more students with disabilities in Ontario funded schools face incredible barriers that impede them from getting a good education and you need a good education to

get a good job. So what happened was the government committed to enact an accessibility standard for education. That's good. The government had in place an expert advisory committee to recommend what it should include. I had the privilege of serving on that. I'm honored to do it. But over three years ago, it rendered its report and subsequently the government's done nothing. So we need an education standard for them. Finally, I mean there's lots more more but just in brief, it is absolutely

important the government not use public money to create new accessibility barriers. Two years ago the government opened a brand new courthouse in the heart of downtown Toronto, a criminal trial courthouse, cost almost a billion dollars. Well it was a billion dollar accessibility bungle because we released a video last August, which has gotten thousands of views, which shows that this building was replete with accessibility barriers and that we warned the government about these well before any shovel went in the road, in the ground.

I invite our viewers to go online and just search on billion dollar accessibility bungle and you will see in vivid detail what I'm talking about. Alright, I want to talk about something that has been discussed on the campaign trail. Ontario Disability Support Program, ODSP, I think it was the Liberals who got out there first promising to double payments, ODSP. I think it was the Liberals who got out their first promising to double payments for ODSP. What are your thoughts on that? Well, the three opposition parties, Liberals, Greens and NDP have now said that they will all double ODSP.

This is really important because people with disabilities disproportionately live below the poverty line and are dependent on social assistance. Well the social assistance they get, which is the Ontario Disability Support Plan or ODSP, it is legislated poverty. It leaves you well below the poverty line. So doubling that amount would be a major step forward for people with disabilities. Now the federal government back in 2020 said they would enact the Canada Disability Benefit to top up these provincial benefits, but unfortunately what they ended up enacting

is going to max out at maximum 200 bucks a month and it hasn't even started to flow yet. We don't know what's going to happen if there's a spring federal election. So the provincial action is absolutely essential to reach out a hand to many people with disabilities who are languishing in poverty and whose escape from poverty is impeded by the barriers to get a good education and the barriers to get a good job that the barriers to get a good job that the failed disabilities act was supposed to fix. All right, David, can you rank what's on offer from the four major parties best to worst?

Well, in terms of the accessibility requirements and needs, it's simple. The three opposition parties have made detailed commitments. There are minor differences between them, but I wouldn't characterize it as major. And the conservatives who have promised nothing, there's still time. If they promised that tomorrow we'd be cheering and we'd be publicizing it as widely as we can. In fact, if any conservatives are listening to us, please get to your party leader and tell him to make the Accessible Ontario pledge. I would have made the pitch to him personally, but unfortunately, Doug Ford's the only Premier in the past two decades who's refused to even meet us.

All right, David, I'm going to ask, you kind of have given us, you know, sort of a year by year look at sort of the PC government's record. Can you evaluate Doug Ford's record on disability over the years? Well, I would say that it has been, I mean, we've characterized it in terms of accessibility as being abysmal. I will say that other disability advocates have raised major concerns in other areas. Now, if you think back to the last election in 2022, if memory serves, and correct me if I get this wrong, but we went into the 2022 election with the province announcing

a budget and the budget included no ODSP increase at all. Now that became a campaign issue right at the start of the campaign and to their credit the Tories then came forward with a commitment to an increase to ODSP and that increase is of course important and helpful but it is nothing like what we've got right now. Is it, has the, has Doug Ford done anything to make Ontario more accessible? I can't say they've done nothing. What I can say is they've done far less than they should. And that in key ways, they've made things worse.

By building new infrastructure infrastructure like the new Toronto courthouse with barriers, they've made things considerably worse. Remember we had a big fracas last fall about bike lanes? Well, unfortunately a number of municipalities are building new bike lanes on top of sidewalks, not at street level. This is very dangerous for blind people like me who can't know that the sidewalk that we thought was safe is actually a dangerous bike path. So we wrote the Tories, the Doug Ford government, when they had this bike lane legislation before the legislature and said could you, we didn't

take a position on whether we supported or opposed their bike lane legislation, but we said, if you are regulating bike lanes, could you please forbid municipalities or anybody else from building bike lanes at sidewalk level that endanger people with disabilities, personally I will say, like me? Well, they didn't. So they actually missed huge opportunities and in a number of key ways have made things worse.

David, we have about 30 seconds left and I want to ask you one more question. If a party wanted to be responsive to disability issues here in this province, tell us three things that they have to have in their platform. Enacting an accessibility standard in health care to tear down barriers facing patients. And an education standard, an accessibility standard in education tearing down barriers facing students with disabilities.

Implementing effective enforcement of law so we don't reward lawbreakers or leave them at liberty to be lawbreakers and finally a comprehensive strategy so that we never again use public money to make things worse by creating new barriers. David, thank you so much. Always a pleasure to have you on the program. Take care. Thank you very much for including me. Thank you.