The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - David Lepofsky: A Lifetime of Crusading for People with Disabilities

Episode Date: June 4, 2025

The Agenda has welcomed to this studio this country's perhaps best known and most tireless advocate for the rights of the disabled over the years. David Lepofsky has been blind since he was a teenager. And he'd love it if this province were just a bit more mindful of its nearly three million citizens who are dealing with some kind of disability. Here's David Lepofsky, author of "Swimming Up Niagara Falls! The Battle to Get Disability Rights Added to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms." He's also the chair of the AODA Alliance and joins Steve Paikin.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We have been pleased over the years to welcome to this studio this country's perhaps best known and most tireless advocate for the rights of people with disabilities. David Lepofsky has been blind since he was a teenager, and he'd love it if this province were just a bit more mindful of its nearly 3 million citizens who are dealing with some kind of disability. Here is David Lepofsky, author of Swimming Up Niagara Falls, the battle to get disability rights added to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He's also the chair of the AODA Alliance, and we're delighted to have you back in that chair. David, how are you?

I'm doing great, except I wish we'll get more opportunities to do this. Well, you never know what the future holds. But anyway, let's start here. We're in the year 2025. You and I both know a long time ago, the Ontario legislature, in a really rare moment, voted unanimously to do something for the province's disabled community.

What did they decide to do? They decided to pass a law which we, people with disabilities, had fought for for a decade. I had the privilege of leading that campaign, which would require this province to become accessible to all people with disabilities and which set a deadline, which was 20 years. That deadline? 2025. So here we are and how close are we to what they promised?

We are miles and miles away, not even close. Why do you think we are not even close? We are not even close because successive independent reviews that the government itself appointed said we need stronger leadership from the government at the very top, but successive premiers, including the current one, have not provided that leadership. The law has not been effectively implemented.

It has not been effectively enforced. And all Ontarians, those who have a disability now and everyone else who's bound to get one later in life, they they've all they're all going to suffer as a result of this failure. Can you just give us an example of something that if Ontario were going to be more sensitive to people with disabilities, here's something we would have but we don't. We have in our schools two million students, our publicly funded schools, of those, one out of every six,

a third of a million at least, are students with disabilities. Our education system is designed principally for students without disabilities. Yeah, we have special education as an afterthought. But we do not have a comprehensive strategy to make sure our school system is fully accessible and barrier free for students with disabilities so they'll equally benefit from it.

So it's difficult just as a parent, and I know this as a parent of a student with a disability to find out what's available in the schools for our kids, much less to navigate the Byzantine education bureaucracy to fight when your child isn't getting what they need. What we need under the Disabilities Act is an education accessibility standard that sets and enforces provincial standards to make schools and school boards not only physically accessible but program accessible. The Ontario government's had an independent expert report on its desk for a third of a decade on what that regulation should include.

They've enacted nothing. We've had in my count I think five premiers since the original promise was introduced and voted on by the Ontario legislature. Five premiers. Who's been, in your view, the best on these issues? I'm going to give you three because McGinty made the promise, so it's been McGinty, Wynn, and then Ford. I think McGinty gets the top marks for promising to pass the Disabilities Act and then for

delivering a good one on time, on target, which set the requirements that we knew we needed. Where things fell apart is when we went from passing the law to implementing the law. And what happens, government kind of went back to a business as usual, politicians moved on to other things, and things slowed and slowed, and now they're kind of ground to very close to a halt. My math stinks because I went back 25 years instead of 20 years, so you're right, it's three not five. Okay, can you say who's been the worst of the group?

Well it's a tie between, well I'd say it's got it right now it's Doug Ford. And we're nonpartisan so I wish I was saying he was the best. But he's the only premier in two decades who's refused to even meet us to sit down and talk about what needs to be done. He's failed to follow the expert advice from an expert. He appointed, his government appointed, to give an independent review and assessment of how we're doing, a guy named Rich Donovan. Two years ago, Mr. Donovan, and I remember this

as Mr. Ford, the government's handpicked advisor, said that we're in an accessibility crisis. We need an emergency response that the premier leads. Since then, no emergency response, not even any government recognition that there is a crisis in terms of accessibility, and tons of missed opportunities to make things better. Just to be clear, had you met any of Mr. Ford's predecessors?

Met Kathleen Wynne several times, met Daunt McIntee several times. And let me be clear, they were roll up your sleeves business meetings where I was sitting there saying, here's what we need you to do, Premier. And they did some of it, and we congratulated them. They didn't do other parts of it, and we let them have it when they didn't do what we thought

they needed to be done. So this isn't all soft and cuddly. This is sitting down and trying to make Ontario better for some of its most vulnerable residents. I want to go through some of the irritants that you have been dealing with and as I indicated in the intro, this is hardly your first trip to the studio. You've been coming here for a long time and I want to play a clip here of a program you were on that we used to do here this is 30 years ago now it was called fourth reading because it was all about Queens Park you know

each bill gets first second and third reading before it becomes law we were the fourth reading. If it was a football show we'd have called it the fifth quarter anyway you get the idea. Here is that clip, that excerpt, and then we'll come back and chat. Sheldon, if you would. How accessible is this building for someone like you? Well, this building's a bit of a maze, but just as one example, when I got on the subway this morning, they were nice enough to announce all the subway stops between my home stop and the one where I get off, except the one where I get off. I had to, and I'm still doing, battle with the Toronto Transit Commission just to get

them to keep a commitment to announce subway stops so people who are blind or otherwise can't read print can know what subway stops to get off. It's just one example of a barrier that we face that's so easy to fix. But under current law, I'd have to go file a human rights complaint and litigate for five years to tackle. OK, have they resolved that yet? Well, partially. I had to fight for a decade or more

to get the TTC to announce all subway stops and then all bus stops. But I had to sue them twice under the human rights code. But now it's a requirement under the disabilities act for all municipalities, all public transit, but I get emails from people saying, oh they didn't announce my route or they didn't announce my stop and there's zero provincial enforcement. So it's a law that's voluntary and a voluntary law is not much of a law. How is it possible that 30 years later this is still not happening despite all of your efforts and despite the fact that this just seems like a very bottom of the barrel easy kind of thing to do? Welcome to our world.

Two years ago the Ontario government opened a brand new courthouse in downtown Toronto, a criminal trial courthouse. Billion dollar. Billion dollar courthouse in downtown Toronto, criminal trial courthouse. Billion dollar. Billion dollar courthouse. Made big promises about it being accessible. And yet when it opened, they had disregarded lots of important points of advice that we gave. And it's full of accessibility problems.

And people go to YouTube and search on billion dollar accessibility bungle, and you'll see me taking you through a tour of these. And some of these barriers have been independently verified by an expert the government retained after the fact. But it's advice that they could have followed. And it's not a matter of money, because the kind of things that they should have done if they had planned properly would have cost little or even nothing.

Does the disability community do better when it has its own standalone cabinet minister but who's probably fairly low on the food chain if you know what I mean? Or do they do better when you've got a senior minister responsible for the file, but it's not necessarily spelled out in the title of their job? We need a minister where it's federally and provincially where it's spelled out in their title. It's not a guarantee of success. We've had accessibility ministers federally and provincially where steps taken were inadequate.

We have that situation in Ontario right now. But for a decade we had a federal accessibility minister and the new prime minister, Mark Carney, just abolished that position which is a huge slap in the face to Canadians with disabilities. Well let me follow up. If he gave those responsibilities to a more senior minister and said, this is all part of your portfolio and I expect progress on this, even though it's not in your title, would that be something? It would.

Listen, we need somebody to have it in their portfolio. And it's good if it's a senior minister, but whoever it is, it needs to be identified. We need someone who in question period can have an opposition member stand up and say my question is for Steve Paken, the minister for disability issues, why haven't you done X? In the world of politics it's not just symbolism, it makes a difference. It makes a difference if a minister, if it's that important in their portfolio, it's in their title.

And if it's not in their title, it's clearly a message that it's not that important to the prime minister in their portfolio. Gotcha. Let's continue on. I want to circle back to education, which we talked about a few moments ago. The education accessibility standard, that is something you've been championing for a long time. How's that going?

Well, the good news is we know what it needs to include. The good news is a government appointment committee of experts, I had the privilege of being selected by the government to serve on that committee, rendered a not bipartisan report. It's a committee that was made up 50% of people from the disability sector and 50% from educators. So this isn't some kind of dreamy wish list. We had to hammer out recommendations that met our shared sense that we needed. And also the government required that nothing could be recommended unless we voted 75 percent in favor. So it's a strong consensus.

That consensus report, we know what needs to be done. We know what the barriers are. For example, name a few. Well, as I mentioned before, parents have a huge problem finding out what's available. Parents are entitled to students with disabilities to have what's called an individual education plan to plan out what is going to be done for their child, but the process of trying to get one is unduly bureaucratic and a lot of parents find it hard to participate in it. I'll give you another one. The special

education laws leave out some students with disabilities who are protected from discrimination by the Charter of Rights and Human Rights Code. That includes, for example, kids with ADHD and kids with mental health conditions that haven't arisen to the status of behavior problems. So get this, the Education Act says they're not entitled to special education. The Human Rights Code, which prevails, says they're entitled to equal education. But school boards are caught in the midst of this and their bureaucracies really leave these kids behind the eight ball. And that's not because teachers and principals don't want to serve them.

They want to serve all kids. And it's not just about funding. It's about an education bureaucracy that's stacked against them and that ties the hands of frontline teachers and principals. As a general principal, in the other use of that word, as a general principal, if a child needs a wheelchair to go to school, as an example, are schools pretty barrier-free these days? Absolutely not. In fact, people think that incorrectly. I'm the chair of the Special Education Advisory Committee for Canada's largest school board, the Toronto District School Board. We have 580 schools. I don't know the current numbers, but a few years

ago they told us that it was in the, the number of schools that are not accessible, that have internal barriers. And here's an example. The provincial government has been doling out billions, and I mean billions, for new school construction and renovation. But they have not required those new schools to be properly and fully accessible. We've asked them to, they don't answer, and they don't do it.

I mean disabled people are obviously represented by members of the legislature, members of parliament, presumably they make a stink when things are not going well. How is it that you don't have a good coalition or a good consensus at Queens Park to get this stuff done? Well, the opposition parties commendably, and we're nonpartisan, believe me, we blasted each of them when they've been in government if they haven't done the right thing. But the opposition parties have the February election asking for commitments in a bunch of disability areas, including this one. Bonnie Crombie for the liberals made the commitments to significant reform of the education system for students with disabilities.

So did Marit Stiles. Doug Ford didn't even answer the question. He didn't even answer the letter. And when we had an all candidates debate on disability issues, he did not even send a candidate to answer voters' questions. So that's unfortunately what we're up against. Now I would imagine if I was in a room with some of the caucus members, you know, behind closed doors, they would be sympathetic. They would be supportive. But the overall

party and the leadership is not with us on this. Instead, what they do is they make these standard form speeches. We're giving more money. We're giving more money. Now they give a buck more than the year before and then they go, we're giving more money, we're giving more money. Now they give a buck more than the year before and then they go we're giving more money and to use an indelicate reference you know for example with Toronto District School Board, the school board says we don't get enough money, we have a deficit in special education funding, the provinces says we're giving you more than ever, we're caught in the middle and what we know is the province isn't giving enough and the school board isn't doing what it should with the money it's got. So

they're actually both responsible for the mess and parents and kids are caught in the middle. You've been at this a long time and I wonder whether you are yet at the stage where you get tired of pushing this boulder up the hill, up the hill, up the hill and never quite getting to the top of the mountain never giving up you and I are Star Trek fans but they take off on Star Trek was was Galaxy Quest and the slogan from that never give up never surrender I can't and my my colleagues who are in this we're not giving up the fact is my memoir about the fight for to get disability of the Charter 45 years ago. Which I'm holding up now. Available for free for download. There we go. But if you want to get you don't need to get

a hard copy but if you wanted it's on Amazon. Picture on the back there you go. Okay. But I call it swimming up Niagara Falls because that was what it felt like to try to fight to get an amendment to the Constitution 45 years ago when we weren't organized, didn't have the tools like social media like we have now. We won. Okay, a couple of minutes to go here and I want to finish up on a few personal notes. What is Disability Rights and Wrongs?

I'll be starting a podcast this fall. No start date yet, but please search on your podcast apps when we announce it on social media. We're going to be doing a podcast, I'll be leading a podcast to, in fact I'd love to have you on it, to talk about what the barriers are that we face and how individuals, not just organizations, but individuals can take part in the battle against it. We're calling it Disability Rights and Wrongs, the David LePodcast. The David LePodcast.

Yeah. OK, cute title. Good. Now, David, you recently sent me an email in which you said, remind me to tell you about how it felt when I was in the Court of Appeal in November 2015, arguing what I knew to be the very last case I would argue there as a Crown, because you, of course, were a Crown

attorney in your former life. So OK, let's get that story. And I said it because I want you to think of it when you tape your last interview so I was on my last case it was a murder case and my opponent argued his side of the case and then we got to my part and it was and usually when it's ten minutes to go it's ten to four I know I got ten minutes I look at my watch how much time have I got left? How many points do I have to cover? But in this case, I looked at my watch and the only thought I had was, oh my God, I have 10 minutes left to be a lawyer in the Court of Appeal arguing as a crown.

And I took this huge deep breath. I'm sure my face showed emotions that the judges would have quite understood. It didn't correlate to the case. I struggled to remember what are my last two points. Let them rip and then I was done. And that was it. Yep. Do you miss being a lawyer? I absolutely miss being in the courtroom. I loved it, but I got wise advice from another community advocate who's a lawyer who said there are other platforms to use your skills and opportunities like this are one of them. Getting a chance to talk to you and to try to share with your audience now and in prior interviews it's a chance to do it. It's just let's just say a different jury.

And people go to our website by the way aodaalliance.org we will be today posting a list of the Paken interviews we're calling it. It's all the times the 23 times I or colleagues have been on your show. No kidding 23 times. 23 including tonight. Wow all right fantastic. Now one quick follow-up, because you said something there that I suspect our viewers and listeners are going to say,

what, what, what does he mean? You said, I looked at my watch to see how much time I had left. You're blind, David, how do you do that? First, we use sighted language, right? So I say looked at, but my watch, I show you, has Braille. Ah, there we go. So I can touch it.

And it's actually great, because while you're talking here, or when I'm in a courtroom, I could be tracking the time and how much time I got left, but I'm still looking at you. You don't know I'm checking the time. I did not know that. You photon dependent people have to look down so everybody knows you're looking. We're the disabled ones actually in that respect. I'm sure you'll be able to get over it someday.

Okay, we got 20 seconds left. What do you want to say? As a thank you for your coverage of our issues and to equip you to be able to handle the on-pully podcast against your nemesis JMM, I have a book here that will provide you with the expertise. Oh my gosh, the nitpickers guide for classic trekkers of which I am one to be sure. How about that? David, that's a very sweet gift.

Thank you very much. Thank you for your leadership in covering disability issues. We're just doing our jobs here, pal. That's it. Thank you for always answering the call when we've rung you up and said, come on in here, we need an update on what's going on. And here you are yet again, 23 times. Hey, that's pretty amazing. Anyway, it's great to see you again and you be

well and keep pushing that rock keep swimming up Niagara Falls okay do what we can thank you so much