ODA Committee Update
October 17, 2002

ONTARIANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT COMMITTEE UPDATE ODA Committee submits Brief to Ontario Human Rights Commission on Barriers to Education facing People with Disabilities October 17, 2002 SUMMARY The ODA Committee has submitted a detailed brief to the Ontario Human Rights Commission on barriers to education facing persons with disabilities. The Commission announced this past summer that it was holding a public consultation on this topic, and invited people to submit briefs. Below is the 8-page text of the brief itself. We describe many barriers to education that our membership has told us about over the year. It makes specific recommendations based on previous briefs we have submitted to the Legislature. Our brief was intended to help the Commission by showing how our work in the ODA area might help them. It also seeks to share with them our knowledge that comes from past consultations we have ourselves conducted. We did not do a new, separate consultation to prepare for this brief. This is because this brief is in essence a compilation of our past work, as it relates to the Commission's area of interest. Our brief also includes over 30 pages of "schedules," i.e. appendices to our brief. We are not setting these out in this email. If you want to see the schedules, either visit the ODA Committee website in a few days, where they will be posted, or email us to ask for them at: oda@odacommittee.net The ODA Committee has also encouraged one and all to submit their own briefs. As well, the Commission will be holding public hearings around Ontario. We encourage you to contact the Commission and arrange to make a presentation yourself about the barriers to education facing persons with disabilities. Contact the Commission for more information on their public hearings. We have received an email from the Commission thanking us for our brief. We hope this will be yet another example of how the ODA Committee is trying to share our knowledge and expertise in a positive and constructive way with organizations and agencies that are working towards a barrier-free Ontario. Send us your feedback at: oda@odacommittee.net ***** Ontarians with Disabilities Act Committee c/o Marg Thomas 1929 Bayview Avenue, Toronto ON M4G 3E8 Tel: (Voice direct) 416-480-7686 Fax: 416-480-7014 Voice mail: 416-480-7012 email: oda@odacommittee.net TTY: c/o Susan Main 416 964-0023 ex. 343 Web site: www.odacommittee.net October 7, 2002 Ontario Human Rights Commission Education Consultation Policy and Education Branch 180 Dundas Street West, 8th Floor Toronto, Ontario M7A 2R9 Fax: (416) 314-4533 BRIEF OF THE ONTARIANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT COMMITTEE TO THE ONTARIO HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION: PUBLIC CONSULTATION ON BARRIERS TO EDUCATION FACING PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES 1. INTRODUCTION The ODA Committee is a province-wide, grassroots, voluntary, non-partisan coalition of individuals and over 100 community organizations organized in 23 regions of Ontario. Founded in late 1994, we have united to achieve a barrier-free Ontario for all persons with disabilities through the prompt passage and effective implementation of a strong, effective Ontarians with Disabilities Act. We include over 100 organizational members and many individual members, both with and without disabilities. Our membership includes people of all ages, and includes many parents of children with disabilities. Our organizational members are listed on our website. We have extensive experience and expertise with the wide range of disabilities. Through our volunteer efforts we have brought our message to the Ontario Government, the opposition parties, the public and the media. Our activities are amply documented on our website whose address is listed above. 2. OUR INTEREST IN THE COMMISSION'S CONSULTATION ON BARRIERS TO EDUCATION FACING PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES For almost eight years the ODA Committee has led the charge to achieve a barrier-free Ontario for persons with disabilities through the enactment and effective implementation of strong and effective new provincial legislation. Your review of barriers facing persons with disabilities to equal educational opportunities addresses directly a range of some of the barriers which we had addressed in connection with the Ontarians with Disabilities Act. To the extent that the Ontarians with Disabilities Act 2001, passed by the Legislature last December, may not sufficiently and effectively address those barriers, and to the extent that they could be addressed within the potential purview of your current consultation, we have a direct and strong interest in your consultation. The ODA Committee commends the Ontario Human Rights Commission for undertaking this important consultation, and welcomes the opportunity to share its expertise in removing and preventing barriers facing people with disabilities.. 3. BARRIERS IN THE EDUCATION SYSTEM The ODA Committee has heard over and over again across Ontario during our activities that Ontario's education system at all levels is full of barriers. These impede persons with disabilities from enjoying equal educational opportunities. These barriers hurt students with disabilities, teachers and other educational staff with disabilities, and other members of the public who would benefit from the provision to all persons with disabilities of equal educational opportunities. No one benefits from these barriers. Ultimately everyone suffers from these barriers. The ODA Committee has not undertaken a specific review of barriers in Ontario's education system for purposes of making this submission to the Commission. However, the ODA Committee has in the past undertaken very extensive efforts at collecting and documenting barriers facing people with disabilities in all facets of Ontario life. One major product of this effort was our April 22, 1998 Brief to the Ontario Legislature entitled "MAKING ONTARIO OPEN FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES: A BLUEPRINT FOR A STRONG AND EFFECTIVE ONTARIANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT." That brief included a very extensive appendix, Appendix 1, entitled "LIFE IN A PROVINCE FULL OF BARRIERS." It listed all the many barriers in various aspects of Ontario life that we had heard about through an extensive series of public forums, surveys, discussion groups and other information-gathering efforts which we undertook across Ontario from 1995 to 1998. Among other things, in that appendix is a detailed list of barriers in the education system facing people with disabilities. It is not an exhaustive list, but we believe it to be an informative and helpful compilation. We include as Schedule A to this brief the relevant part of that 1998 Brief's appendix. We also know that barriers to education were mentioned by a number of presenters who appeared in the fall of 2001 before the Legislature's Standing Committee which held public hearings on the proposed Ontarians with Disabilities Act. While the Government rejected a large majority of the recommendations which came forward from the disability community at those hearings, we encourage the Commission to consider those submissions as they apply to your current consultation. We are pleased to assist by letting you know that all the public hearings are posted on our web site at the addresses listed below. Our website is equipped with a search engine to assist in sifting through the large quantity of materials on the web site. To see all the transcripts of the public hearings on the ODA bill, go to: http://www.odacommittee.net/ODA_Bill_125_hansard26.html Nov. 29, 2001 - Procedural Issues http://www.odacommittee.net/ODA_Bill_125_hansard27.html November 30, 2001 - Ottawa hearings http://www.odacommittee.net/ODA_Bill_125_hansard28.html December 3, 2001 - Windsor hearings http://www.odacommittee.net/ODA_Bill_125_hansard29.html December 4, 2001 - Toronto hearings http://www.odacommittee.net/ODA_Bill_125_hansard30.html December 5, 2001 - Toronto hearings http://www.odacommittee.net/ODA_Bill_125_hansard31.html December 6, 2001 - Thunder Bay hearings http://www.odacommittee.net/ODA_Bill_125_hansard32.html December 7, 2001 - Sudbury hearings http://www.odacommittee.net/ODA_Bill_125_hansard33.html December 11, 2001 - Clause-By-Clause Debate and Votes on Amendments http://www.odacommittee.net/ODA_Bill_125_hansard34.html To read the entire presentation made on behalf of the ODA Committee in Toronto, visit: http://www.odacommittee.net/ODA_Bill_125_news11.html We also encourage the Commission to review and take into account the written briefs which were submitted to that Standing Committee, to the extent that their contents apply to barriers to access to equal educational opportunities. To assist you with this, we would be pleased to email to you if you wish all of the briefs that the Standing Committee received in electronic form on Bill 125. The Standing Committee's clerk was kind enough to provide these to us in electronic form. We also encourage you to review the briefs which the Standing Committee received in hard copy form only. To obtain these hard copy briefs, please contact: Ms Susan Sourial Clerk of the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs Standing Committees Branch Room 1405, Whitney Block Queen's Park Toronto ON M7A 1A2 Tel: (416) 325-7352 The Standing Committee's staff prepared a very helpful 75-page analysis of all the recommendations that the Standing Committee received. We recommend that you review this. You can obtain it from Ms. Sourial or download it from our website. In addition, the ODA Committee recommends that the Commission review the report which the Ontario Liberal Party's then-Disability Critic Steve Peters prepared on barriers facing persons with disabilities in Ontario, released November 23, 2000. That report, which is posted on our website, summarizes barriers about which Mr. Peters learned about in his multi-city public consultation tour, conducted in the spring of 2000. The ODA Committee, being non-partisan, has offered to help any party that conducts a public consultation in this area. We assisted Mr. Peters' efforts by publicizing the consultation process, and encouraging individuals to come forward to participate in it. 4. THE EFFECTIVENESS OF CURRENT LEGAL PROTECTIONS There are a number of protections now available in law for persons with disabilities to try to get the Ontario Government and local school authorities to remove these barriers, and to prevent the creation of new barriers. Regrettably, none of these measures have been sufficiently effective to date. These protections include: (a) The Ontario Human Rights Code: The Code imposes a duty on educational authorities to remove barriers facing people with disabilities, and to prevent the creation of new ones. Yet after 20 years with this legislation in place, Ontarians with disabilities still face far too many barriers. Under the Code, they have to fight these barriers one at a time. Even with reduction in the time for processing human rights complaints, the prospect of fighting those barriers undoubtedly deters many from resort to this avenue. (b) The Charter of Rights: Under the Charter, educational authorities have a constitutional duty to accommodate the needs of students with disabilities, and to remove and prevent barriers to equal educational opportunity. (Eaton v. Brant County Board of Education, [1997] 1 S.C.R. 241; Eldridge v. British Columbia (Attorney General) [1997] 3 S.C.R. 624) Yet the cost, delay, and personal hardships that an individual or family must bear to bring a constitutional law suit against educational authorities provides a similar deterrence to battling barriers one at a time. The experience of the Eaton family is symbolic. Even after they had a major victory in the Ontario Court of Appeal, the Supreme Court of Canada overturned it. (c) Special Education Appeals: This avenue under the Education Act deals only with a limited range of education issues, and does not provide a comprehensive way to ensure that existing barriers are removed and new ones are prevented. (d) The Ontarians with Disabilities Act 2001: This new legislation was enacted amidst Ontario Government promises that it would achieve a barrier-free Ontario for people with disabilities as soon as reasonably possible. It contains some tools that may help. School boards are required under it to make annual accessibility plans. However they are not obliged to ensure that those plans are effective, nor are they obliged to implement them. The ODA 2001 includes a power on the part of the Ontario Government to make standards in sectors such as education for the removal and prevention of barriers, and to create effective enforcement mechanisms. The Ontario Government pledged last year that they would do this. However no steps have been announced towards this end in the 10 months since the Legislature passed this legislation. Included as Schedule B to this Brief is a list of the 13 important commitments which the Ontario Government made in the fall of 2001 regarding the Ontarians with Disabilities Act 2001, and the Government's official statements in which those commitments were made. These commitments apply with equal force to the education sector, and provide a good standard against which to measure the actions taken to implement the ODA 2001. In June 2002, the ODA Committee submitted a proposed workplan to the Ontario Government, with detailed suggestions on steps it should take to implement the Ontarians with Disabilities Act 2001. In it we recommend, among other things, the following: "15. By August 2002, the Accessibility Directorate should release discussion papers on standards and time-lines for removing and preventing barriers in public transit and in education (including in public schools, private schools, colleges and universities). These Discussion Papers should among other things set out examples of standards and time lines for barrier removal and prevention which are used now in other jurisdictions. ... 17. Full province-wide public consultations on the topics of public transit and of education should begin by October 2002. Draft regulations in these areas addressing standards and time lines for barrier removal and prevention should be proposed and published by March 2003, with a view to final regulations being enacted four months later." When the Ontario Human Rights Commission announced its public consultation on barriers in education facing persons with disabilities earlier this year, the ODA Committee made the following public statement on its website: "The Ontario Human Rights Commission's initiative bolsters our call for priority action by the Ontario Government in the field of education under the Ontarians with Disabilities Act 2001. We recommend that the Ontario Government, including the Accessibility Advisory Council, seek to coordinate efforts this summer and fall with the Ontario Human Rights Commission. We emphasize the importance of developing regulations under the ODA 2001 to set standards for achieving a barrier-free education system along the lines recommended in our proposed ODA Workplan. The time is ripe for this, since the Ontario Government is now reviewing its entire funding formula for education. The Ontario Human Rights Commission will be holding province-wide hearings this fall. This would provide a great opportunity for the Accessibility Advisory Council to hold join consultations at the same time, to avoid a duplication of efforts." To date, we have received no indication from the Ontario Government that it has adopted these recommendations. 5. OUR RECOMMENDATIONS The Ontarians with Disabilities Act 2001, enacted last fall, did not incorporate many of the important recommendations that we and many others made to the Ontario Government in connection with that legislation. Many of those recommendations are relevant to the removal and prevention of barriers to education. We submit for your consideration the specific blueprint for the Ontarians with Disabilities Act which we initially submitted to the Ontario Legislature back in April 1998.(See Schedule C) To the extent that the Commission finds these helpful as a model for how to deal with barriers to educational opportunities for persons with disabilities, we recommend that the Commission endorse and act on them. The Ontario Government did not accept our recommendation that the ODA establish an independent enforcement agency under the ODA 2001. As well, as mentioned above, the Ontario Government has not yet acted on our recommendation that it make as a priority the setting of standards in the education sector. We therefore recommend that the Commission consider using its mandate to fulfil these roles to the extent that it can. This could include the Commission itself developing standards for barrier-free education in Ontario as a "policy guideline," after consultation with interested parties and stakeholders, including persons with disabilities and parents of children with disabilities. The Commission's current consultation may provide a good foundation for this. As well, the Commission could use its power to initiate human rights complaints to bring forward cases which will enshrine such standards in law. In the Commission's consultation report on barriers to public transportation facing persons with disabilities, released earlier this year, the Commission called for the province to establish provincial standards for accessible public transportation. The ODA Committee applauded the Commission's recommendation. We built upon that recommendation by ourselves calling for such standards to be developed under the ODA 2001. We regret that the Ontario Government has not acted on either recommendation in that sphere. This is the case despite the fact that the Ontario Government gave itself power to set such standards in the ODA 2001, and committed last fall to set standards in various sectors under the ODA 2001, with input from the disability community. Accordingly, we recommend that it would not be sufficient at this stage for the Commission to simply call on the Ontario Government to set standards for barrier-free education under the ODA 2001. We fear that none will be forthcoming in the foreseeable future. It is advisable that the Commission set about developing such standards itself in the education sphere. We recommend that those standards comply with the 11 principles for the Ontarians with Disabilities Act which the Ontario Legislature unanimously adopted by resolution on October 29, 1998. That resolution is set out in Schedule D to this brief. We are aware that at present that large law suits are underway in Ontario in relation to such matters as the provision of special education. The establishment of strong and effective standards in this area could relieve from parents and families the financial and emotional hardships associated with conducting such litigation. There is particular concern about the prospect of new barriers now being created in Ontario's education system against persons with disabilities. For example, it has been widely reported that the Ontario Government's take-over of the Ottawa school board earlier this fall has led to the elimination of a significant number of special education positions. This constitutes a new barrier. It breaches the Ontario Government's pledge made on December 13, 2001 in the Ontario Legislature that no new barriers will be created in Ontario. There is room for confusion on how the school boards which have been subject to provincial action this fall will discharge their duties to develop accessibility plans under the Ontarians with Disabilities Act 2001. Will these be undertaken by the Ontario Government, or the local school boards? The need for strong and effective provincial standards is even more pressing in light of this situation. The forthcoming new funding formula for education in Ontario will require special scrutiny by the Commission for its impact on the removal and prevention of barriers in education against persons with disabilities.. It is critical that the new funding formula facilitate the removal and prevention of such barriers. It must not itself serve as a barrier to such activities. Finally, we wish to emphasize an important principle which the ODA Committee set out in its April 22, 1998 brief to the Ontario Legislature. There we stated: "To have equal educational opportunity, it is vital that people with disabilities have the right to choose between the options of integrated schooling in the mainstream, and education in specialized classes and schools. In either case, they must have the appropriate supports to accommodate their disability. Certain segments of the disability community, such as the Deaf community, have emphasized the importance of protecting and preserving specialized educational programs, and emphasize the needs for schools for the deaf, as well as appropriate support services that come from organizations such as the Canadian Hearing Society." 6. CONCLUSION We again applaud the Commission for undertaking this consultation, and would be pleased to do whatever we can to assist in its success.

 

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