David Lepofsky in Toronto in December, 2025. Mr. Lepofsky is blind, a lawyer, and has fought for disability rights for decades.Laura Proctor/The Globe and Mail
Nearly 21 years ago, MPPs across all parties at Queen’s Park pledged to make Ontario completely accessible to people with disabilities by the beginning of 2025. But with that date now well past, advocates say the process has been a failure and that there is no sign the current government intends to change course.
A full calendar year has now passed since the Jan. 1, 2025, deadline embedded in the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA), which was passed unanimously under the then-Liberal provincial government of premier Dalton McGuinty in 2005.
The act influenced similar legislation across the country. It obligated the provincial government to strike committees made up of people with disabilities and representatives of different sectors of the economy, in order to draft new accessibility standards for “goods, services, facilities, accommodation, employment, buildings, structures and premises.” And it gave Ontario 20 years to adopt and enforce them.
More than two decades on, five standards have been approved, covering communications, employment, transportation, customer service and outdoor public spaces. They require, for example, buses to have ramps for wheelchair users, and for large companies to make their websites compatible with software that reads text aloud.
But proposed standards for the province’s health care and education systems – which include demands for new staff training to change attitudes toward people with disabilities and provisions to ensure buildings are accessible – have sat in limbo since 2022 under the Progressive Conservative government led by Doug Ford.
David Lepofsky, a lawyer and long-time advocate for those with disabilities who was among the activists who led the charge for the original 2005 bill, said the province quickly lost momentum after setting its 2025 goal and failed to properly enforce the rules it managed to bring in.
“They have passed some regulations, some accessibility standards. But they are way too weak, way too narrow, and they don’t cover the vast majority of barriers we face,” said Mr. Lepofsky, who is blind and leads an advocacy group called the AODA Alliance. “The bottom line is they failed.”
Mr. Ford’s government, in office for nearly eight years, has neglected the AODA like no other, he said. Unlike previous Liberal premiers, Mr. Ford has never met with his group, Mr. Lepofsky said. And he said he hasn’t been able to formally meet with Mr. Ford’s Minister for Seniors and Accessibility, Raymond Cho, either, for at least five years. Plus, no new accessibility standard has been approved since 2017, the year before the Ford government first came to power.
Mr. Lepofsky says the design of the bike path near Eglinton Ave and Avenue Road is dangerous for blind people like him.Laura Proctor/The Globe and Mail
In a review required by the legislation two-and-half years ago, Toronto accessibility consultant Rich Donovan excoriated the government’s progress on the AODA, bluntly concluding its efforts had been an “unequivocal failure.”
The report, finished in June, 2023, but not released by the government until that December, recommended declaring the situation facing Ontario’s 2.9 million people with disabilities a crisis.
Mr. Donovan demanded that the Premier and Cabinet Secretary Michelle DiEmanuele, Ontario’s top civil servant, strike a special committee and come up with an action plan within 30 days. And he called for the creation of a new accessibility agency to oversee efforts.
But his report also said responsibility for private sector entities should be handed to the federal government, which has its own overlapping accessibility legislation. This would allow Ontario to focus on itself and areas it funds, such as hospitals and universities.
In a recent interview, Mr. Donovan said that other than briefing an assistant deputy minister when he submitted his report, he has heard no response from the government since.
“It’s a shock to me,” he said of the silent treatment, given his report’s contents. “Nothing’s changed. That should be disturbing to Ontarians.”
However, Mr. Donovan is also critical of the AODA process. He said its standards are drawn up after a collective-bargaining-like negotiation between disability advocates and industry stakeholders, resulting in rules that are too often divorced from the day-to-day needs of people with disabilities.
Asked to respond to criticism on the government’s progress on the AODA’s goal, Mathew Varsava, a spokesperson for Mr. Cho, said the province recently updated the Ontario Building Code’s accessibility standards.
Mr. Lepofsky and other advocates dismiss these changes as insufficient.
Mr. Varsava said the proposed AODA standards on health care and education had “led to improvements,” including renovations to schools and hospitals and $55-million in grants this year to support postsecondary students with disabilities. Those annual grants long predate the current government. But the Progressive Conservatives increased them to $54-million in 2022-23 from $48-million, after they had remained flat for a decade.
Mr. Varsava also said the ministry has implemented some recommendations from Mr. Donovan’s report, including reviewing emergency evacuation procedures for all government buildings for people with disabilities.
According to the government’s most recent annual report on the AODA, from 2024, ministry staff performed more than 1,000 audits to check whether organizations were following the existing AODA rules. They issued 19 orders to fix problems, and one that came with an undisclosed administrative penalty. The act allows for fines of up to $50,000 for individuals and $100,000 for corporations.
NDP accessibility critic Lise Vaugeois said she agrees with Mr. Donovan’s prescription that a crisis mindset is needed.
“It’s certainly frustrating for people with disabilities, because there are so many barriers,” Ms. Vaugeois said. “It’s also frustrating that it’s not seen as a priority for the government.”
Liberal MPP Stephanie Smyth said Ontario has broken the “clear and unequivocal promise” it made on accessibility by 2025, and called on the government to release a comprehensive plan to meet its obligations under the act.
“Ontarians deserve transparency, honest reporting on progress, and a clear path forward,” she said. “Above all, they deserve a government that treats accessibility not as an afterthought, but as a fundamental human right.”