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Ontario Government's
New ODA Bill 125
First Day of Second Reading Debate on Bill 125
November 8, 2001

ORDERS OF THE DAY

ONTARIANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT, 2001

Mr Jackson moved second reading of the following bill:

Bill 125, An Act to improve the identification, removal and
prevention of barriers faced by persons with disabilities and to
make related amendments to other Acts.

Hon Cameron Jackson (Minister of Citizenship, minister
responsible for seniors): I will be sharing my time with the member
for Mississauga East and the member for Haldimand-Norfolk-Brant.

I am pleased to commence second reading debate on Bill 125, the
Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2001. With this bill, the
government is proposing the most far-reaching and comprehensive
legislation to date in our country for persons with disabilities.
This bill reflects the desire and determination of the people of
Ontario to support the rights of every person with a disability to
live as independently as possible, to enjoy equal
opportunities and to participate fully in every aspect of life in
our province. If passed by this Legislature, the Ontarians with
Disabilities Act will create more inclusive communities and improve
accessibility for the 1.6 million persons with
disabilities who live in our province.

The government can demonstrate leadership, and it can inspire
change. When the Premier appointed me as Minister of Citizenship
just nine months ago, my first goal was to find out specifically
from individuals from within the disability community across our
province and from the leaders and advocates in their own
communities who had inspired some of the most profound changes in
their own communities and changed the lives of the disabled in a
very meaningful way. Meeting these individuals and seeing first-
hand the kinds of things they had done in their communities helped
us formulate the framework that exists in this
legislation. It is unique, but if you understand what we are
witnessing across Ontario, the way the disability community in some
municipalities has done such a profound job of change, we saw in
that an instrument to create permanent, lasting change in our
province and to elevate that standard to every community in our
province.

It was from these individuals that I understood for the first time
the concept of full citizenship, something the disability community
has only aspired to but been unable to achieve in our province
because of the existence of barriers. Unfortunately we as a society
continue to construct these barriers in the way of disabled
persons. But we needed to engage the disability
community and ask them how we would make that change and create a
vision and a path from which we could develop the all-important
legislation they have patiently been waiting for for many years.

When I talked to these individuals and listened to what they wanted
to see happen in our province, it occurred to me that we really
share the same vision and the same goals, and we know we can get to
the same outcomes. Simply put, they wanted legislation that would
do two things: create no new barriers in our province
and have a plan whereby we would be able to systematically go back
and remove all the existing barriers in our province. Those very
simply were the two things they said we needed to have in this
legislation.

If we were to listen only to the opposition parties in this debate,
they would have us believe we are starting from scratch and that
nothing really good has been going on in this province. I would
disagree. We have a very strong foundation on which to build. We
have tremendous examples of leadership in every sector and in every
corner of this province. What we need to do is ensure they become
the new standard, not the one we've been coping with for all these
years.

In 1995 our government made a very firm commitment to increase
opportunities for persons with disabilities by investing over $6
billion annually in services and programs for the disabled
community: respite support service, technology assists, assistive
devices, education, transportation, accommodation, income
support, attendant services -- a whole range of support services.
This was a significant investment in the quality of life in our
province and, quite frankly, in the course of the last five years
while this government has had the responsibility of governing,
we've increased that amount by $1 billion, a significant increase
and a commitment.

We also have an outstanding framework in which to work in this
province, something our American friends to the south do not have.
We, as Canadians, are fortunate to have the Charter of Rights and
Freedoms. We, as Ontarians, are fortunate to be the first
jurisdiction in North America to have human rights
legislation. These are powerful instruments if they are used
effectively, and do the job they're supposed to do for citizens who
feel they've been discriminated against. Make no mistake, one of
the challenges the Americans are facing with their
disabilities legislation is that they do not have the kinds of
rights and privileges we enjoy as Canadians.

There are a number of municipalities and private sector
organizations that have already been developing proactive
approaches to ensuring that their communities are more inclusive
and more accessible. I want to take a few moments to tell my
colleagues about the things I learned about these very
progressive communities and what I learned from the disabilities
community during my province-wide consultations.

The city I started with -- and I've told this story in the House a
couple of times -- was the city of Windsor, because I was led to
believe, and rightly so, that they are doing some of the most
progressive things in Canada, let alone in Ontario.

I went to meetings with Mayor Mike Hurst and the Windsor Advisory
Committee on Disability Issues, which is this year celebrating its
20th anniversary. It's 20 years that they have been linked in
partnership with their municipality and their councillors, making
decisions about making Windsor a more inclusive community. Today
they are so far ahead of most communities in our province that
they're actually beyond auditing public buildings. They're now
auditing private buildings and publishing information to their
citizens about which businesses are accessible and which ones are
not, helping them and working with them to remove barriers and
setting up a system of identification for the disabled community,
because they will take their business and their needs to those
businesses and services that are accessible. It was a very
powerful experience for me to see it working in the province of
Ontario.

Each year the committee, in partnership with councillor Joyce Zuk
and the rest of city council, sets priorities and implements the
removal of barriers, and they develop their annual accessibility
plans. If you were to ask Carolyn Williams, the chair of the
Windsor Advisory Committee on Disability Issues, she would
proudly tell you about the accessibility of the Sheridan Hotel, the
Windsor casino or the arena, all of which didn't get their building
permits until they had been examined by the committee and given
considerable input about ways that barriers could be removed. To
the credit of city council, they did not let those projects proceed
unless that was done.

It can be done, and it is being done. We want every community to
operate in a fashion similar to Windsor. Even though Windsor may
have the highest standards in Ontario, we think that should be the
new floor. The rest of the province should come up to that level,
and from there we can go further.

Here's what Carolyn Williams says about the approach of working
with the private sector, the municipal sector and the
disabilities community: "The city of Windsor has demonstrated
leadership and a long-term commitment to promoting accessibility.
We are thrilled that the proposed legislation," Bill 125,
"mandates committee involvement in municipalities of 10,000 or more
residents across the province. The Windsor Advisory
Committee on Disability Issues is prepared to work with the
government to achieve a vision of a more inclusive Ontario and
independence and opportunity for all persons with disabilities."

Windsor is proof that accessibility committees are taken
seriously by municipal councils. They give sound advice, which is
followed, and they do create permanent change and prevent new
barriers from being created, one of the primary objectives of this
legislation.

We know that the successful model in Windsor, if repeated and
mandated across the whole province with even stronger guidelines
than the ones that Windsor is operating under, shows that we can
achieve the kind of success in co-operation with municipalities
never before achieved by any community or any province in our
nation.

The story was repeated in several other communities. In our
investigations we were only able to find about 18 communities, of
all the hundreds of communities across Ontario, that had these
accessibility advisory committees. But I tried to meet with each
and every one of them during the course of our province-wide
consultations, because in each community we were learning about
things they were doing municipally, bylaws they were changing, that
were leading to a very clear decision by those
municipalities that they were not going to create new barriers.

I went to Niagara Falls, where my colleague Bart Maves and I met
with members of the disabilities advisory committee. An article in
yesterday's Niagara Falls Review highlighted the section of the
proposed legislation that requires all new construction built with
government funding to be accessible, and praised the
accessibility planning that was going into the legislation.

This government, with taxpayers' dollars, has committed about $1.8
billion in infrastructure, transit, new hospital
construction and new university and college construction. This
legislation says those projects must be accessible to the higher
standard in this province. We believe that's an important element
of this bill. We believe it fulfils our promise that we will not
create new barriers with taxpayers' money, something that the
disability community has said makes no sense -- using their own tax
dollars to create environments that create barriers for them. We
clearly can do a better job, and it should be the law that we
cannot create those barriers in public spaces.

Paisley Janvary-Poole, chairperson of the disability advisory
committee in Niagara, gave full marks to Casino Niagara. She said,
"We're very pleased that the casino is working with us over and
above what the building standards are." These are the kinds of
outcomes they're achieving when access advisory committees are
working in municipalities.

Other communities told me they had not been as progressive but had
been awakened to the need for improved accessibility. This was the
case in Owen Sound, where I visited with council and with leaders
in the disability community. I met with a councillor
there who said to me, "We were told by the architects that we could
never make this old building of ours accessible." One night at
council, this council member had a heart attack. He was a very big
man. They found out that they could not get him out of the
building with a stretcher. Fortunately the councillor survived and
there was no damage. He's back, he's healthy and he's
contributing. But guess what? They found a way to get elevators
into that older building and now their seat of democracy in Owen
Sound is fully accessible. It can be done.

Ontarians want to do what is right. Municipalities want to do what
is right for the disabilities community in this province, but they
need to be directed on their journey. That is why this legislation
was drafted in the way it was, and it is what this legislation
intends to do, to create a framework for continuous change and work
with all sectors of our society --all levels of government,
municipalities, universities, schools, hospitals and the private
sector -- to plan for the removal of barriers.

Ottawa was another city that saw the benefits of both an
accessibility advisory committee and mandatory accessibility
planning. Following a para transit strike in that city last winter,
the city recognized the importance of full accessibility. They have
actually forwarded to me, as the minister, a profile
and a council resolution on how they'd like to see their access
committee. It goes further than I've seen any others go. This is a
willing effort on the part of the municipality.

It was these best practices and the work of these individuals that
helped shape the proposed legislation before the House today. The
most valuable lesson I learned was how powerful change could occur
if the disabilities community was front and centre,
was listened to, was asked for their input and it was
acknowledged and acted upon. It sounds simple, but you'd be amazed
how many communities don't even consider doing it. But those that
do it are doing a tremendous job and getting lasting results that
their entire community can be proud of.

Even the disabilities community impressed upon me that they needed
a flexible approach with respect to time frames and by mandating
the various sectors in our society. It's something they were very
clear about. They knew change would not occur
overnight. What they were adamant about was that they did not have
the tools to force the kinds of changes that were needed in our
province. They wanted flexibility, but on the other hand they
wanted the authority, the capacity and the infrastructure to
support prescriptive measures. They knew it couldn't be done
overnight, but they knew they needed a framework in order to make
them change.

This point was made by David Lepofsky, chair of the Ontarians with
Disabilities Act Committee, when he said this week on Studio 2 on
TVO, "We would like to have the barriers that we face
identified and eliminated over time. People need to have the time
to do it." That's exactly what this legislation does. It gives
municipalities, universities, schools, hospitals and the private
sector time to identify these barriers and to plan to remove them
within the reasonable time frames that will be set out in
regulations and which will be enforced by the government, but those
time frames will involve the disabilities community sitting down
with each of their institutions and their communities.

My colleague Ernie Parsons, the Liberal disabilities critic, agrees
with the fundamental approach to this. I'm quoting from an article
that appeared in the Picton Gazette on November 7. Mr
Parsons said this about this legislation, Bill 125: "It does
require municipalities to reduce barriers and there is a time frame
for it."

There has been a lot of discussion around the 11 principles put
forward by ODAC that have been approved unanimously in this House,
in 1998. They were forwarded by the member for Windsor, Mr Dwight
Duncan, in support of these 11 principles. We firmly
believe these 11 principles have been addressed in this bill. Let
me tell the members of this House the challenges we face.

I want to compliment my colleague Steve Peters, who did a
wonderful job travelling across the province consulting with
disabilities communities --I have read his report; I tend to keep
a copy in my desk, as you can see --and very well documenting all
the challenges we have in our province.

But not one single recommendation is contained in the work of the
opposition party Liberals. In fact, after all that research and
work, they came to the conclusion that this would be a great place
to start the dialogue and talk to the disabilities
community. In fairness, I will be here the balance of the
afternoon to hear the debate and the discussions from the Liberal
Party as to what they are offering the disabilities community and
what promises they are prepared to make, but we have not heard any.
We've not heard any commitment, other than the 11 principles that
we know are contained in this bill.

The Liberal Party failed, in my view, some of the outstanding work
of its own members by not taking their document one step further
and saying, "This is what we would do." There was a lot of work. Mr
Peters, Mr Levac and Mr Parsons all worked very hard on identifying
the problem. But we knew much of this information. What we needed
was concrete proposals. We needed recommendations
and we needed suggestions on how the legislation would work. Not
one word.

There is an issue that really needs to be brought forward in this
debate, because the disabilities community knows this better than
anyone else. We who are not facing disabilities take our daily
activities for granted. For us, there are no standards not being
met. We can walk out of this building, and we can get into our cars
and drive home tonight with not a care and with little difficulty
at all. But the disabilities community knows that there are no
standards and no guidelines that exist in this province for the
accessibility barrier removal. We have a
building code that is a minimum standard and it needs to be fixed
and upgraded and updated.

We unfairly, in my view, condemn the Human Rights Code because it
goes in and it finds that when a movie theatre in Ontario denies a
disabled person access, they get the ruling, they know the
individual is right, that they've been wronged, and that the
company, whatever the theatre company, broke the law, but then when
the lawyer for the theatre company says, "Tell me what the standard
is we're supposed to meet, Your Honour, and we will then go out and
do it," the Human Rights Code says, "Sorry, but not
only are there no standards in Ontario, there are no standards in
Canada."

In fact the Americans with Disabilities Act has taken 10 years to
develop their standards, and they're still not into the first phase
of their implementation. I'll put on the record right now that the
Americans with Disabilities Act has a 30-year window for compliance
and has hundreds of pages of exemptions. We do not want to go down
that road. We can achieve a barrier-free Ontario far sooner than
the Americans will because we already have those instruments of the
Human Rights Code and the Charter of Rights. What we're missing is
the guidelines such that, when we impose them on a business, they
have the right in law in this province to go before a court and
say, "Your Honour, I understand that I may have been wrong to bar
an individual from my property, but tell me what my guidelines are
that I have to follow." His Honour says, "You know, it's not my
job," and it isn't.

So we have this work to do and we have to get this work done
immediately. The government shouldn't be the instrument to do it
alone. We need the disabilities community to come to the table and
say, "These are the standards. These are the barriers we face every
day." I don't face them. Why would I, as minister, sit
there and say, "That sounds reasonable to me. A 36-inch-wide door?
I guess that sounds fine." What's the difference between that and
a 32-inch door? Don't say four inches. The difference is that you
won't be able to manoeuvre a wheelchair or a mobile
scooter or whatever. We need to understand that and there's lots of
information about this, but we don't have the guidelines in place.

The disability community said, "Minister, we do not have the
guidelines; we do not have the standards. You can't put someone in
jail for non-compliance with your law when the law doesn't exist.
You can't close a business that hasn't done its job of making
itself accessible if you don't have the guidelines. You can't fine
a business $100,000 because it barred some individuals from getting
inside the door if you don't have the guidelines in
place." So we simply must get these in place. We must get them in
place immediately. That's why the disability community has been
suggesting to opposition members that they want this legislation,
as amended, passed before the end of the year. They want to get on
with the business of making Ontario a barrier-free province. That's
what they want.

ODAC, the Ontarians with Disabilities Act Committee, talks about
principles. Yet they have been unable to tell us exactly what form
the legislation should take, nor at any time did they table
specific legislation or a framework -- and Mr Lepofsky is a very
brilliant lawyer. I know; he works for the government of Ontario.
He works for the Attorney General's office. He's a civil servant.
He does a very good job for the government and the taxpayers of
Ontario. He understands the law. He works with the law every day
and frames laws every day of his life. Yet I have been unable to
get any specific wording from ODAC.

My colleagues, the NDP, have been unable to articulate a plan
either. They simply think the solution lies in making a
commitment of more money. Well, you ran up a $50-billion deficit in
this province over five and a half short years. But we can't
identify how much of that $50 billion was spent to help remove
barriers facing Ontarians when you were the government. Now your
leader says he thinks we should spend $1 billion to help the
private sector remove private sector barriers. Well, that's noble.
Imagine: we have him wanting us to reduce taxes, and now he wants
us to help the private sector remove barriers with $1 billion of
taxpayers' money.

Oddly enough, I spent a lot of time with a former NDP MPP of this
House. Several members would remember Gary Malkowski, himself
challenged as a deaf person in our province and a member of the NDP
caucus. He tabled his own bill, which was never passed by the then
government.

We are prepared to proceed, because we are confident in the process
and the legislation we have brought forward. It is a framework for
change. It deals with the issue of a lack of
infrastructure, and it gets the guidelines in place before we
impose penalties on people that will never be sustained in any
court because we don't have guidelines in place.

Our legislation will work toward a barrier-free Ontario as soon as
reasonably possible, which were the exact words in principle number
1 -- as soon as reasonably possible. That's what this legislation
says. And do you know who is going to decide whether it's
reasonable? The disabilities community, who sit on the access
advisory council of Ontario working on the regulations and meeting
with the private sector to say, "You tell us how you're
going to become compliant with this legislation." If that isn't
reasonable, then what is reasonable in our province?

This legislation will achieve principle number 1 through the
creation of mandatory advisory committees at the municipal level;
an accessibility council for the province; for the first time in
legislation in our province's history, a disabilities
directorate, which will coordinate a whole range of disability
issues, including the establishment of the guidelines and the
framework. It will mandate government to create accessible Web
sites, publications, workplace policies and practices through
having accessibility as a requirement for all future capital
investments in this province. That's the short list of the
changes.

Ontario and Canada have stronger human rights legislation than any
other place on this continent. The code must retain primacy over
any other laws as it protects the rights of all our
citizens, not just the disabled but persons of colour and persons
of different faiths. It's a very important piece of legislation,
and I thought long and hard about the notion in principle 2 that we
would find a way to have primacy over this legislation. I think
we've achieved the intention of this principle, because we believed
that principle 2 was to ensure that a proposed ODA would set the
bar higher than it had ever been before in terms of
achieving accessibility. That's why this legislation would amend
municipal powers, for example, so that municipalities can make
accessibility a consideration when issuing municipal licences. It
will be a very powerful instrument for municipalities to be able to
deny a business to operate in the community unless it meets certain
accessibility standards. That's why the legislation was written to
ask the disabilities community, in partnership with government, to
work toward universally accessible standards that may exceed the
standards set in the Ontario building code.

Principle 3: the proposed legislation must apply to all sectors.
Bill 125 applies directly to all provincial government
ministries, to all municipalities of 10,000 or more residents, to
all hospitals, school boards, colleges and universities, public
transit providers and private transit providers who have
contractual arrangements with municipalities. It contains
regulation-making authority that affects the private sector --the
first of its kind in Canada -- because we need the
flexibility to first set sectoral standards in consultation with
the private sector. I know that may not be an issue of concern for
the third party, but I know the official opposition
understands this issue.

We're not going to be able to make the province of Ontario
barrier-free next year. We don't have the standards, and we need to
give business time to convert. We need to close the loopholes in
the building code when you're doing major renovations. There are
many things we can be doing, working co-operatively and within a
prescribed time frame. We need the flexibility to set those
standards. For the first time, we need to entrench in law that the
disability community will be pivotal in creating those new
standards and assisting in developing the new regulations.

The proposed legislation, Bill 125, gives the government the
authority to set time frames for compliance with this legislation -
- principles 4 and 5. But we need the flexibility. Even the highly-
touted Americans with Disabilities Act has a 30-year period for
implementation. We're not asking for 30 years. But each sector will
be different in terms of its ability to convert, and there are some
that are essential for the disabilities
community to have removed immediately.

I have said all along that the Ontario Human Rights Commission
provides an effective means of enforcing the rights of persons with
disabilities, which is principle number 6. In addition, the
creation of an accessibility directorate and the Access Council of
Ontario provide an oversight mechanism to review accessibility
plans and ensure that barrier removal is taken seriously in this
province. The disabilities community has many members who deserve
a voice. There are many people in the disabilities community who
deserve a voice on these issues. One person alone cannot
represent the entire disabilities community. There are many voices,
many needs and many unique challenges facing a broad range of
citizens of all ages who are challenged by their
disabilities. The council will be composed of their voices to
ensure that this province listens, understands and acts in
accordance with the regulations we would create together.

Principle number 7: this will be achieved through many deserving
individual appointments to local advisory councils and the
provincial access council. The proposed legislation, Bill 125, also
recognizes the importance of overcoming attitudinal barriers and
the need for the public to have a proper education and for
promoting existing programs and services that remove barriers. The
disability community consistently said, "Will there be public
education? The public just doesn't get it. They don't understand
the needs of the disabled."

We don't have to try to negotiate through our communities on a
daily basis the way they do. That's why, when I presented this to
cabinet, I insisted the legislation provide a mechanism for them to
tell us how the barriers should be removed, when the barriers
should be removed and what the barriers really are. We've had very
well intentioned people in planning departments and
municipalities and enlightened leadership at the municipal level,
but we still make mistakes because we don't see through their eyes,
we don't walk their path and we don't have to hear how services are
not administered in our province.

Principles 8 and 9: one of the key functions of the directorate and
council will be marketing a new program called "Opening doors is
everybody's business." When this legislation becomes law,
we'll be pleased to provide more details. The legislation also
addresses accessibility compliance as a condition of funding and
purchasing goods and services. It's specifically a principle; it's
specifically in the bill.

Principle 10 imposes this requirement on the government and the
municipalities, and also mandates accessibility as a requirement
for all capital funding. It's mandated in the legislation.

Finally, principle 11: the proposed legislation does make
meaningful improvements to the lives of all Ontarians living with
disabilities. As the March of Dimes publicly stated this week,
"Laws unto themselves aren't enough. People have to embrace the
concept, and that means changing or expanding the way we think."
The Ontarians with Disabilities Act, Bill 125, is a good first step
toward achieving a barrier-free Ontario.

Our government pledges to work in partnership with Ontarians to
build on what we have already achieved together. We will move
steadily toward a province in which no new barriers to persons with
disabilities are created and where existing ones are
removed. That's why we published our documents, Independence and
Opportunity, and Framework for Change for Persons with
Disabilities, on our government Web site. Persons with
disabilities can ask for these and we will send them to them.

The government's framework for change, as demonstrated by Bill 125,
would directly affect the four key sectors of our society: the
Ontario public service, municipalities, the broad public sector and
the private sector. By working in conjunction with the private
sector in establishing standards of accessibility, we can
successfully forge lasting and valuable partnerships that will
increase opportunities and full citizenship for persons with
disabilities. This government believes this is the correct
direction. However, make no mistake about this: there is
regulation-making authority in this legislation to ensure that
existing barriers are identified and removed and that no new ones
are created. That is not a threat; it is a part of our action plan
to remove private sector barriers. These regulations will be
developed and implemented within the prescribed time frame if, in
the opinion of the government and the Accessibility Advisory
Council, compliance is not happening fast enough in our province.

This comprehensive bill will challenge all people of Ontario to do
the right thing and provide the resources with voluntary and
mandatory measures. It will also contain the power to increase the
mandatory requirements when required. Some of the
legislation's critics have gone out of their way to say that its
supporters within the disability community should be put on the
back burner. We disagree.

The disabilities community will tell us when our cities will become
fully accessible, because they will finally have the tools and the
authority to determine the time frame, something ODAC was unable or
unwilling to do during the debate in the last nine
months. The new inclusiveness of which I speak is set out in this
legislation, not as a set of promises; it is clearly, though, a set
of challenges. It sums up not what this government or what I as the
Minister of Citizenship intended to offer the disabilities
community, but what we as a government intended to ask the
disabilities community themselves to do to change our province. By
working together, I'm confident that we will achieve full
citizenship for Ontario's 1.6 million persons with disabilities.

Mr Carl DeFaria (Mississauga East): I stand today to voice my
support for the proposed Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2001. It
is my pleasure and privilege to be able to speak today about this
groundbreaking legislation.

You have heard the Honourable Cam Jackson, Minister of
Citizenship, talk about the full scope of this bill. I'd like to
add some comments of my own about the bill because I truly
believe, and I am proud to stand here today to tell you, that this
proposed legislation would make a difference to Ontarians with
disabilities.

The bill is made for Ontario. It is a made-in-Ontario bill. In
Ontario we believe in partnership, co-operation and shared
responsibility, an inclusive process for becoming a truly
inclusive province. Our framework for change is unique in that we
are involving the disability community and the private sector in
setting the standards rather than imposing and dictating
standards.

Since Monday's introduction of this proposed legislation, we have
heard from some opposition members that the legislation does not
have teeth and that it would not affect the private sector. This
bill affects the private sector. We are raising the bar. We know
that the private sector is ready and willing to partner with us to
make Ontario accessible, and the bill does have teeth in the
regulation-making authority that would be used if necessary and
with the input of important stakeholders such as the disability
community.

Yes, we could have imposed arbitrary standards on the private
sector, but that would lead to one standard for all. A standard
that would be applicable to all sectors would soon be outdated.
With our approach, innovative solutions would be created for
specific circumstances and the standards could continue to evolve
and to improve. That's because the process is bottom-up and driven
by the people who are most affected. So we have put
forward a bill that seeks the involvement of stakeholders in
setting standards before we adopt those standards as regulations.

The private sector wants to remove and prevent barriers to
persons with disabilities. In the future, the most sustainable
companies will be those that create environments in which all
individuals are able to contribute their skills, energies and
experience toward success. They will be companies with the
capacity to employ persons with disabilities, serve customers with
disabilities and compete in an increasingly diverse market.

Before this legislation, there was no formal way of establishing
standards and shared views. The private sector wants to do the
right thing but says it needs more access to information and advice
on how to do it. With this bill, the private sector will know what
to do to get the business of every Ontarian. Through the
Accessibility Directorate of Ontario, the government would create
and administer an incentive program to encourage the participation
of all sectors in identifying and removing barriers and setting
standards.

One of the first goals would be to encourage businesses to remove
obvious barriers such as entranceways to make businesses
accessible to persons with disabilities. A number of sectors, like
tourism, have already begun to develop their own standards. They
are ahead of the government because they realize the
importance of getting business from all different walks of life.

The accessibility council and directorate would help such
organizations by targeting sectors, setting strategic priorities
and developing and building consensus on the development of
standards. Once such standards are in place, government could use
its regulation-making authority to make these standards into law.

The requirement that the provincial and municipal governments would
have to consider accessibility when purchasing goods and services
would help to provide incentives for the private sector to make
those changes.

The province alone spends billions of dollars on procurement each
year. Municipalities would have to take accessibility into
consideration when approving, for example, subdivision plans and
upon issuing licences. All of these things taken together would
help to drive the change.

Mr Tony Martin (Sault Ste Marie): On a point of order, Mr
Speaker: This is an important piece of business for this
province. I was just wondering if there was quorum here to hear the
words of the member across the way.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr David Christopherson): Would the Clerk check
for quorum, please?

Clerk Assistant (Mr Todd Decker): Quorum is not present, Speaker.

The Deputy Speaker ordered the bells rung.

Clerk Assistant: Quorum is now present, Speaker.

The Deputy Speaker: The member for Mississauga East may continue.

Mr DeFaria: It's unfortunate that we had to interrupt my line of
thought on such an important bill.

The plan, our framework for change, recognizes that real success is
never achieved overnight. People and organizations need time to
adjust and to respond appropriately. It takes time to develop
expertise, develop infrastructure and build a capacity for
change, but we will not rest until we have fulfilled our vision.

The regulation-making authority in the bill would also give the
government the power to specify a time period in which any
organization mentioned in the bill is required to comply with its
obligations. This bill does have teeth. The teeth are in the
regulation-making process.

But fundamentally the bill is based on a different approach to
social change. I'd like to say also that the government is not
alone in believing in this approach. We didn't invent this
approach. We looked at municipalities, for example, that have made
huge progress in accessibility. We looked at industries like the
hotel industry that on their own initiative have made huge
progress and we have based our approach on what we learned. We
looked at trends that show that governments all over the world are
beginning to explore a more strategic, comprehensive approach based
on shared responsibility as a new solution to many
difficult problems such as environmental issues, for example.

We talked to people in all sectors, especially people with
disabilities, and we asked them what they think works. We heard a
few words over and over again: "involvement," "partnership," "co-
operation," "inclusion," "balanced," "reasonable,"
"comprehensive." Those words describe this bill and our entire
framework for change. That's why I believe we are doing the right
thing the right way.

Mr Toby Barrett (Haldimand-Norfolk-Brant): I'm truly pleased to
have an opportunity to address this piece of legislation.
Minister Jackson this afternoon used the expression "barrier-free
Ontario." At first blush I would think, is this possible or is this
truly an insurmountable task? I think we all agree that a gap
exists between where we are now and where we should be. I don't see
this as one gigantic challenge, something we can bite off in one
chunk. It will take time. I see it as a series of very small
challenges.

I think of the example of the step in front of so many stores and
commercial establishments. In the first place, usually, through
design a step like that need not be built. By and large, it's
fairly simple to take out a concrete step and redesign the
doorway. You have an accessible commercial establishment and the
proprietors of that store have access to a new cadre of
customers.

This legislation and the results to be achieved truly are
possible. I would ask the members present to reflect on the motto
of the school for the blind, the W. Ross Macdonald School in
Brantford. Their motto is, "The impossible is the untried." If I
have time, I wish to talk a little bit about that school. I'm a
little familiar with that building.

Most of us in Ontario are lucky enough not to face barriers in our
everyday life. I look around at members of this House. We are truly
blessed. However, there are 1.6 million people in our
province for whom barriers are a fact of life. It's a constant
frustration, preventing these people from experiencing the same
fullness of opportunity, of experience, of participation that we
take for granted. Something as simple as going into a store, as I
mentioned, or something as simple as crossing the street for
someone who is visually impaired, or reading a newspaper,
obviously is an arduous task for more than 15% of the people in our
province.

Who are these 1.6 million people? They are teachers, lawyers,
someone's employer, a secretary, an athlete, a coach, children and
parents. They're no different than anybody else in this province.
They're no different than the 85% of us who may be more able.
They're hard-working, contributing members of our society
and they deserve better than to have doors closed to them because
no one has had the forethought or the wherewithal to make
buildings and services more accessible. This is a challenge not
only for the province of Ontario, but for its municipalities.

I'm proud to speak to this proposed Ontarians with Disabilities
Act. I'm proud of the inclusive process, of the consultation, which
was mentioned this afternoon, that has created this
legislation.

This province has had a history of working to remove barriers for
the disabled and I'm proud of our government's vision for an
Ontario where such barriers cease to exist. I compliment Minister
Jackson for his work in bringing this legislation forward.

Persons with disabilities represent a significant and also a
growing part of our population. As I mentioned, 1.6 million people
in Ontario have disabilities. Of course as people in Ontario age,
the proportion with disabilities will increase. Two decades from
now it's estimated that nearly 20% of the population will have a
disability. That would be one in five persons.

That's just the people with disabilities. Accessibility
challenges also affect millions of parents, grandparents,
children, friends, neighbours and co-workers who are involved with
disabled people on a daily basis. I think we all realize that
disabilities affect all of us and affect all aspects of our
society.

I think we are cognizant of the challenge before us, but no more
difficult a challenge than is being faced by our disabled
population as they strive to make their way in a limited access
world. But just as persons with disabilities overcome these
challenges, so too will this government. This province and its
municipalities will succeed in achieving the goals set out in the
vision outlined by Minister Jackson. The vision is both simple and
ambitious. We want to work steadily toward an Ontario in which no
new barriers to persons are being created and the old ones are
removed, but we realize this requires the support and participation
of people from all sectors within our province.

Fortunately, we do have a solid foundation on which to build: each
year the governments commits billions of dollars to a wide range of
programs and services; we have a strong Human Rights Code which
provides all Ontarians with protection from
discrimination; and we have the will, we have the commitment of our
government to make this change happen. There is much to be done.
The proposed Ontarians with Disabilities Act is the
essential legislative element to achieve this vision. It would
instruct the provincial government and municipal governments, as
well as the broader public sector, to create plans for greater
accessibility: greater accessibility to buildings within that
jurisdiction and greater accessibility with respect to services. It
would create the basis for a valuable long-term partnership that
would include -- and more importantly would depend on -- the
knowledge and input of people with disabilities. I think we all
recognize the wisdom is out there, the guidance is out there within
that community. It would create a framework for the
adoption of codes and standards in all sectors of our society. In
fact, it's been the government's goal to ensure the disabled
community has a full voice in developing and going forth with this
legislation since day one.

To effectively create a barrier-free society in all aspects of our
daily living, one must apply "a disability lens". This is a quote
from the president of the March of Dimes, Andria Spindel. "A
disability lens": it reminds me of an expression that my son uses
on occasion, especially when we lose power when the lights go out
at our farm and he's running around finding candles and things like
this. He explains to me to use my blind skills when there's no
light in the evening. My son is very skilful at moving around in
the dark, whereas I am not.

This is where I wish to refer to the W. Ross Macdonald School, the
school for the blind in Brantford. This proposed act seeks to build
on steps that Ontario has taken in the past. As far back as the
19th century, this province can be seen as introducing
measures for the disabled. Just outside of my riding, in the city
of Brantford, stands a bricks and mortar testament to the forward
thinking of our forefathers. It was on the recommendation of Dr
Egerton Ryerson, the chief superintendent of education in Ontario
from 1844 to 1876, that the Legislature of Ontario established a
residential school for the education of blind students on 65 acres
overlooking the city. This important work of Dr Ryerson is of
course well known in that area. Dr Ryerson was from my riding. He
has an island named after him in Lake Erie. He has a pub named
after him in Toronto. I'm sure there's other facilities -- I think
of the community college by way of example -- but it's his
contribution to the education of the blind that I wish to talk
about today.

Since W. Ross first opened its doors in 1872, thousands of blind
and low-vision students have received their elementary and
secondary school education at what came to be known as the
Ontario School for the Blind. A new school was built in 1973 and
renamed W. Ross Macdonald School. This was in honour of Ontario's
Lieutenant Governor, who was a lifelong resident of Brant county.
This year, there are about 222 blind, deaf-blind and low-vision
students at the school. One of them is my son Brett, who can attest
to the good work that continues to be done at this
important facility after 125 years.

As I mentioned earlier, the school's motto, "The impossible is the
untried," is a phrase I think we can all take to heart as we
discuss the introduction of this legislation. I feel that our
government echoes this sentiment and will continue working, will
continue trying to make the possibility of a barrier-free world a
reality.

There are other examples of this province's commitment to provide
the disabled with educational activities. The Ontario Ministry of
Education, for example, operates four anglophone provincial
schools, including three schools for the deaf and three
anglophone demonstration schools for students with severe
learning disabilities located across our province. I'd like to make
mention: the Ernest C. Drury School for the Deaf in Milton, Robarts
School for the Deaf in London, Sir James Whitney School for the
Deaf in Belleville, the Trillium School, the Sagonaska School,
Amethyst School in London.

I can further quote, and I do wish to quote, the March of Dimes
president: "If we all work together, particularly governments and
the private sector, persons with disabilities will no longer be on
the sidelines, but rather full participants." It is essential that
those affected by this legislation be directly involved, and our
government has attempted, in my view, to apply a disability lens
and has made certain that this involvement will occur.

Over the spring and summer the minister has consulted with close to
100 organizations. Further meetings, as we hear, will
continue. The goal is to achieve a general consensus both on the
vision and also on the plan to achieve it. Our government hopes to
further solicit input from the public, stakeholders and
disabled people through public meetings if the leaders of the three
parties represented in this Legislature agree. I have suggested
that if hearings are held, perhaps we could spend a day at W. Ross
Macdonald.

To conclude, a partnership is essential if this proposed
legislation is to succeed in realizing the vision. Municipalities
and people with disabilities are being asked to team up with the
province to work together so that we'll be able to implement the
necessary changes to break down these kinds of barriers that people
with disabilities confront every single day.

The Deputy Speaker: That concludes the government's leadoff debate.
Members now have up to two minutes for questions and comments.

Mr Mike Colle (Eglinton-Lawrence): I was listening to some very
interesting comments. I know the minister has attempted to bring
forth a bill to rectify a gap in the rights and privileges of
people with disabilities in this province. As you know, we on this
side feel at this point the bill is not strong enough, it's not
adequate enough, given what the American legislation has been for
the last 11 years. It's really not good enough. We think it should
be much stronger. I want to echo the words of our critic from
Prince Edward-Hastings, Ernie Parsons, who will continue to
advocate for a complete Ontarians with Disabilities Act; this one
needs a lot of work, a lot of improvement.

I would also like to mention that in my past days with the TTC we
worked very diligently with Torontonians with disabilities, trying
to get them proper transit accessibility. We created one of the
best paratransit systems in the world, Wheel-Trans. It wasn't easy.
It's a very challenging thing to do. It's expensive; it's complex.
I know they still haven't put all the elevators in the stations
that we advocated or certainly the community was advocating. So
there's a lot of work to do.

I also want to comment on the references my colleague from
Haldimand-Norfolk-Brant made about the visually challenged. My wife
and I do a lot of work with the Foundation Fighting
Blindness, and we know the challenges they have. There are a lot of
great volunteers out there who every year raise over $1
million in the Ride for Sight, where they have a motorcycle ride
all the way up to Collingwood. John McBride is one of the
leaders; Mike Gorman. So that's another community that can
certainly benefit from more support.

The Deputy Speaker: The member's time is concluded.

Mr Martin: This afternoon we heard the minister say to the people
of Ontario that he wanted to ram this ODA through by Christmas
because he wanted to get started on tearing down barriers.

My challenge to the minister this afternoon here in the House is
that he could get that process going immediately. He could direct
all of his ministries to create their accessibility plans and have
them ready for action by Christmas. All he has to do is snap his
fingers, talk to the Premier, talk to the other ministers and that
would begin to happen, if he was really serious about
getting this through and getting barriers down before Christmas.

If he's such good friends with the head of the Association of
Municipalities of Ontario, why doesn't he call her up and ask her
to get municipalities to agree to get those accessibility plans in
order immediately as well, get the municipalities moving, tell them
to get their plans in order and to put them in place? Why doesn't
he ask the private sector to do that right away, too? If he's such
good friends with the private sector and he's so
convinced that they'll jump to it and start moving on this
immediately and work with him on their plans, why doesn't he just
call them up this afternoon and say, "We want those plans in place
by Christmas"? He doesn't need legislation to get
ministries and the broader public sector to file accessibility
plans by Christmas; all he has to do is ask them.

Why doesn't the minister stand up today and say that Ontario won't
spend a penny of SuperBuild money erecting new barriers? He doesn't
need legislation to do that. He just has to talk to his
colleagues in cabinet. Why doesn't the minister send a memo to his
fellow ministers changing procurement policies to be barrier-free?
He doesn't need legislation to do that. He could do that right now.
He has had six years to tear down barriers, and his government did
absolutely nothing. If the minister truly wants to tear down
barriers in this province, why doesn't he lead by
example and start today?

Ms Marilyn Mushinski (Scarborough Centre): I'm very pleased to join
in the debate with respect to the wonderful speeches made by the
Minister of Citizenship, my good friend Cam Jackson, and also my
esteemed colleagues from Mississauga East and Haldimand-
Norfolk-Brant, who I know are very passionate about the whole issue
of disability and ensuring that the dignity and worth of all
Ontarians are respected and valued. Indeed, I think it's important
that we remind those on the other side of this House of the vision
that the minister and indeed our caucus have with
respect to our government's commitment to disabled people's rights.

We're introducing an important piece of legislation, and we believe
that the people of Ontario support the right of every person with
a disability to live as independently as possible, to enjoy equal
opportunity and to participate fully in every aspect
of life in our province. We believe that the dignity and worth of
all Ontarians should be respected and valued. Further to that, this
year's annual report of the CNIB is titled It's Respectable to be
Blind. That's contained within this document. The
government of Ontario is pleased and pledges to work in
partnership --

The Deputy Speaker: Thank you. The member's time has concluded.

Mrs Marie Bountrogianni (Hamilton Mountain): First, I'd like to
congratulate my colleagues, Mr Parsons and Mr Peters, for their
work the last two and a half years in going across the province and
consulting with the disabled community on what should be in a bill
for the disabled.

According to the ODA committee, on first read of the bill it
appears to include all physical, mental and sensory disabilities,
including invisible as well as visible disabilities. However, a
main thrust of the bill's provisions appears to focus on barriers
faced by persons with mobility disabilities. I suppose I have a
bias, given that I worked for nearly 20 years with people with
mental disabilities, with children with learning disabilities,
sensory disabilities, that this act doesn't go far enough to
advocate for that population, and I'd like to lobby for that part
of the population as well.

Very recently, the Hamilton-Wentworth District Health Council did
a study on the need for housing for the mentally ill in Hamilton.
Up to 3,000 units are needed in Hamilton alone to address the need.

Research has shown that the mentally ill can live independently,
with assistance, given the right supports. I do really wish, if not
this government, any future government would look at the needs of
the mentally handicapped, look at the needs of the perceptually
handicapped, the sensory handicapped, as well as the learning
disabled, because at times their disability is not very
visible and they don't seem to us as being as needing of support,
but they are and sometimes even more than those with physical
disabilities.

I look forward to perhaps another time in the next few weeks to
discuss this further, because now is the time to bring this to the
fore, when there is a bill for second and, in the future, third
reading. This is a group that has been ignored by
governments, and I'd like to bring their plight to the
Legislature.

The Deputy Speaker: One of the original three speakers now has up
to two minutes to respond. The Chair recognizes the minister.

Hon Mr Jackson: I want to thank all members of the House for being
here today and for participating in the debate. I want to
particularly thank my parliamentary assistant, the member for
Mississauga East, for his support, and the member for Haldimand-
Norfolk-Brant.

We're about to embark on a very important debate on the future of
how we can work together as a Parliament and how we can work
together with all sectors on how we will make Ontario the most
accessible province in our nation. I believe this legislation is a
powerful instrument with which we can do that, because for the
first time in Ontario's history, we're putting the disability
community into the framework of the legislation and asking them to
be our partner in driving it.

I was interested in listening to the Liberals make reference that
they will strengthen this and they want the ADA model. I want to
ask the Liberal Party to please do their research on this. We've
studied what has gone on in the US. I have just one quote from a US
justice document.

"Given discrepancies associated with implementing the ADA
nationwide, a plethora of suits by private law firms has been
filed." They quote a Miami Beach law firm, which worked with a non-
profit group called Advocates for the Disabled. It filed
approximately 200 lawsuits in 18 months. They won over US$340,000
in fees, but not one penny went to members of the disability
community. Clay Shaw, one of the people who voted in the
Legislature for this in 1990, said, "What these lawyers are doing
in the name of the ADA is wrong, and if it continues, I fear that
support for this important law will begin to decline."

We do not need a litigious environment which is rife with
conflict in the absence of standards. We need the disability
community to come forward and work co-operatively with all
sectors. It's something this government pledges to do with the
disability community and with the opposition to ensure that this
law becomes the law for persons with disabilities in our
province.

The Deputy Speaker: The floor is now open for further debate.

Mr Ernie Parsons (Prince Edward-Hastings): One of the stressful and
disappointing things I find when I knock on doors during an
election campaign is people who say, "I don't vote." It struck me
today, at Remembrance Day, that I've always explained to them how
important it is and what price was paid for our freedom to vote.

But people are cynical. With this bill before us, I can
understand why people are cynical and sceptical of politicians. It
in some ways requires Hansard to put a little asterisk beside each
time we've heard the statement that applies to everyone in Ontario.
The asterisk at the bottom could state, "Well, not really," because
it doesn't benefit and it doesn't apply to every organization in
Ontario by any means.

I feel badly for the disability groups over the past few weeks.
They have shared with me that the minister has in fact, to his
credit, met with a large number of them and shared with them what
the legislation was going to look like or possibly look like.
What's disconcerting is that it appears there were different
versions, or certainly the groups misunderstood or understood
differently what the bill was going to look like. Then, on
Monday, the minister holds a media conference; has about 30
disability groups there to support the plan. What I found
fascinating was not what the minister said, but following his
presentation the media said to these groups, "What specifically
about the plan do you like so much? What is so good about the
bill?" Their response was, "We don't know. We haven't seen it yet."

I feel bad for these groups, that they were a part of a sham, that
in fact they did not know what the bill was going to look like.
They very sincerely said, "It would be inappropriate for us to know
until it's actually introduced in the House." I would
suggest it is inappropriate to ask groups for support until you've
told them what it is they're going to support.

Even the March of Dimes has indicated in its press release that
this is a good first step -- not that it's the answer, not that
they have the legislation they want. The group that's been most
supportive still puts a little restriction on it, that there's more
work needed, that it's just a good first step.

I really feel bad, though, that the groups came here Monday
afternoon to support a bill and they didn't know what it was. But
imagine the pressure on them to be here. Imagine the pressure on
them to participate in the media conference. These are groups that
need funding from the provincial government. They need the
provincial government as a partner to make services possible for
their community. They need the government to pass the bill. They
are desperate to see an ODA passed, so desperate they would come
and take part in a non-media conference.

They are also very aware that there is a distinct possibility this
House will prorogue at the end of December, or through December. So
they know only too well -- whether they've been told or whether
they've assumed it --that if this bill doesn't get
through by then, there is no bill. Sometimes it's awfully
tempting to grab half a loaf rather than the full loaf. But this
government promised six and a half years ago, in writing, to pass
a bill. It is a false sense of urgency to come and say it has to be
through in the next two or three weeks. There were six and a half
years of broken promises to do it. They have now become victims of
the charade, "It must be through by Christmas. This is such a high
priority, we want to ram it through in the next three weeks." They
had six and a half years.

They're feeling a fear that this is a take-it-or-leave-it bill.
They either have to take it in this form or not have one at all.

It is somewhat ironic that as Christmas approaches it's almost like
Scrooge giving a Christmas present. It is a wonderfully wrapped
gift, but when you get inside, it's a piece of coal. There is no
real gift. There is no real commitment in delivering on the
commitment to Ontarians with disabilities.

In the six and a half years that this government has stretched out
and not honoured their commitment, there are children now in grade
2 in our schools who were not born when this commitment was first
made. Those Ontario citizens have had a full lifetime with
barriers not only remaining in place, but additional barriers
constructed against them over the six and a half years. That must
bother the members on the other side. They have to be receiving
calls.

The entire process on this bill is shameful. Ontarians with
disabilities --even the human rights commissioner last year
indicated the number one issue in his mind, and I'm not sure we
should rank it as number one because every disabled person has a
different number one issue, but certainly the human rights
commissioner identified the difficulty as transportation. They
can't hop in a cab. They can't drive a car. In far too many cases,
they have to rely on WheelTrans. They need to rely on interpreters.

They were looking forward to being part of this debate today. When
did this government make known to the disabled community that
second reading of this bill was going to start today? Well, kind of
by accident, at 4:30 yesterday afternoon. No one actually contacted
the groups representing those with disabilities and
told them. They were simply not able to be here today on
something that tremendously affects their lives.

Was it an oversight? Was it an intentional desire to not consult?
We can only speculate. But I and much of Ontario are offended that
a barrier was constructed to Ontarians with disabilities even
coming and being part of this process today. A process that talks
so much about inclusion in fact excluded the disabled from the
debate today.

One interesting thing in your bill is that one of the points
requires that Web pages be made accessible to citizens with
disabilities. Well, I think the minister now knows that it was
posted on the Internet but not in a format accessible to those who
have disabilities. The minister's own posting of the new ODA was
not accessible to the disabled. It wouldn't have taken a rocket
scientist to say that if any bill should have made sense and should
have been available to Ontarians with disabilities, this was it.

That to me is reminiscent of some years ago when a cabinet
minister in this government went around Ontario and actually went
to a group of blind individuals to do a presentation with an
overhead projector so they could see what her bill would look like
at that time. We still don't get it, that we need to include them
in every aspect of our life.

Minister, I believe that this government is afraid to really go and
talk and listen to the 1.6 million Ontarians who have a disability.
You have offered four days of public hearings across Ontario and
one day here. Based on what's happening here today, when will you
tell them about the hearings? The night before? The morning of?
This should have been at your media conference on
Monday, that it would be in the House. Surely you're better
organized than it appears and you in fact knew the second reading
was going to be today. So if you're not going to tell them about
the debate, I have to infer that you're not going to tell them when
the public hearings will be, because for so many of our citizens --
I met with an individual who is deaf-blind and it was described to
me how difficult it is for her to simply travel from Huntsville to
Toronto, what is required to have the supports in
place. That's the type of person we should be listening to. We
didn't want them here today, evidently. Are we going to provide the
format for them to be at the public hearings? I don't know.

You talk repeatedly about the disabled community being in charge
with this, that they're able to guide, they're able to set the
direction. I would flip that challenge back. If you really want
them in control, will you let Ontarians with disabilities write a
bill? They know exactly what should be in it to remove their
barrier. They could have produced a bill for you to fine-tune. But
no, you ignored the expertise and the advice that exist within. I
challenge you to let the disabled community produce a bill that
would be meaningful.

Let's compare this bill with another one that's been before this
House, and that is the nutrient management bill. With that bill,
your government referred it to committee after first reading. That
infers to me that it's a pretty important bill. I've got members
here with more experience. I don't think that's a normal process
for it to go after first reading. You have scheduled nine days of
hearing --
The Deputy Speaker: I'm sorry. Take your seat for a moment, please.
Government members, could I remind you that the
opposition members were respectfully quiet while your minister did
your leadoff speech. I'd ask you to show the same respect to the
representative of the official opposition. Sorry for the
interruption, member. Please continue.

Mr Parsons: Thank you, Speaker.

For the nutrient management bill, you referred it to committee
after first reading. You've allowed nine days of public
consultation and you've agreed to public consultation on the
regulations. I compare it to this bill, which will not go for
public consultation till after second reading. It will have only
four days outside of Toronto and there's not even an offer to allow
public consultation on the regulations. It's very difficult to not
conclude from this that this government values cows ahead
of the disabled community. Nine days versus four? There's
something fundamentally wrong in that when we have 1.6 million
Ontarians who are having their lives adversely affected by this.

And what better example of your lack of commitment than the fact
that you've provided zero funding for it to happen. Not one penny
has been put into the budget of this province to make sure
barriers are in fact taken down or to make changes for it. But you
know, you could do it without increasing taxes; you could do it
without putting a burden on. This government has put a higher
priority on massive corporate tax cuts than it does on the very
quality of life of its most disadvantaged citizens.

If they simply cancelled or deferred the corporate tax cuts, they
would be in a position to fund the cost of removing the barriers.
Cancel the corporate tax cuts for your friends. Make the ODA an
effective bill. There are costs associated with it in that the
municipalities, whether they be cities or towns, whether they be
townships, whether they be school boards, have the potential to
have increased costs.

They've already struck their budget. There's not going to be
anything happening in November, December, January, February or
March, because they won't have their new budget till April. If
they're not going to have their new budget till April and there is
no funding available to implement anything, then why not defer this
and do a real, genuine, open public consultation, so open
that you will fund the transportation, that you will fund the
interpreter services, that you will advertise it in sufficient time
that the people can make arrangements to be there?

I'm afraid that one symptom of your lack of support for the ODA is
the Ontario disabilities support program. The maximum that a
recipient of the ODSP can receive is $930 a month. Many receive
less. I want each of you to try to picture living in Toronto,
Hamilton or Ottawa -- in fact, I can say anywhere -- on $930 a
month, paying for a rental apartment or paying taxes on a house --
though basically sentenced to poverty, I don't think the house is
a big issue -- and buying food. There is absolutely no money in
that. When was the last time the ODSP was raised? In 1990. That was
11 years ago. Inflation has not been rampant but it has run around
2% a year. That means, for our most vulnerable
citizens, that they have had a decrease in spending power of 22%.
They've had a fifth of their money taken away by inflation.

We still have money for corporate tax cuts in this province, we
still had money for the $200 cheques last year, we still have money
for all kinds of media ads, but we don't have money for the
disabled who are among us.

Mr George Smitherman (Toronto Centre-Rosedale): Shame.

Mr Parsons: That is an absolute shame. You're passing the costs on
to municipalities because of downloading. You're already being
forced to increase taxes. School boards are struggling. A public
school board in my riding has got enough funding to run their
school buses until about the end of February. Now you want them to
assume extra costs that truly are a provincial issue.

This bill focuses primarily on mobility issues. That's an
important issue. I don't want to downplay that. There's been lots
of publicity over the $5,000 fine. That was a brilliant strategy to
get front page: there'd be a $5,000 fine for parking in a
handicapped parking spot. First of all, what does that mean to
someone who's blind, deaf, developmentally handicapped or
mentally ill? Absolutely nothing. The whole premise of this bill is
focused on that $5,000 fine.

Will that fine ever be levied on anyone? Many of you have
municipal backgrounds. You know when somebody gets a $10 parking
fine how they react to it, and they call their councillor. I'm
trying to picture that phone call when the $5,000 fine is levied.
The answer is, it won't be. No one will ever levy that. Even worse,
that fine applies at city hall but not at the mall. You'll still
see people misusing and abusing the handicapped parking spots. If
they're on private property, it means nothing.

If this government wanted to do something about the parking
problem, they would deal with the substantial number of
counterfeit parking permits that exist right in this very city of
Toronto. I have talked to representatives from the Toronto police
who say that thanks to colour photocopiers, there is quite an open
market for people buying. I find it abhorrent, but there are people
buying counterfeit parking permits. Go and tackle that, because if
there's a wrong car parked in that handicapped parking spot and the
city got the $5,000, that does nothing for the handicapped who
can't park there. It doesn't solve their problem. It produces
revenue for the city. Will that money taken be used to help an
Ontarian with a disability? I don't think so. Making it sound like
it is going to help an Ontarian -- it doesn't. It generates more
revenue for a municipality.

The minister refers with some pride to the Ontario Human Rights
Commission, and rightfully so. We have an Ontario Human Rights
Commission that we should be proud of. But they are not the answer
to an Ontarian with a disability, because when there is an
injustice done, when they are not permitted to take a guide dog
into a restaurant, for example, they can appeal to the Ontario
Human Rights Commission, which may take a year or two or longer to
produce a decision, and it applies only to that individual. It does
nothing for anyone else. The Human Rights Commission is
intended and mandated to deal with one issue at a time and not to
do a blanket decision affecting everyone in the same situation.
That's why we need an ODA, something that provides rights to
everyone across Ontario, not just the particular individual who has
to lodge that complaint.

Some disability groups may have used the expression, "It's a good
first step." I don't want to hear that. I don't believe that's a
fair way to go at it. What we need is not a good first step; we
need a giant leap. If we said "a good first step" -- a good first
step would be making the Premier's riding office in North Bay
accessible to someone in a wheelchair. That's a good first step,
but it does nothing for the other 1.6 million Ontarians who need a
service. We don't need a small symbolic gesture; we need a massive
overhaul of our thinking about how we will treat our fellow
citizens with dignity and respect and how we will include them in
everything that we do. Small first steps don't make it.

For all of the talk about the planning and the recommendations that
will be made in this, we also need to be reminded that there aren't
commitments that it will happen in a month or a year or 20 years.
It's all pretty open. But the fundamental flaw that needs
the asterisk in Hansard to say "not really" about it applying to
everyone is it truly applies only to the public sector. For all of
the talk that we've heard from this government about wanting to put
people back to work, the jobs that the disabled community want to
access are private sector jobs. This government talks about taking
people off the government roll and putting them into private sector
jobs. This doesn't apply to the private sector. It does nothing.

It can be made to apply. The legislation says that the cabinet or
the government can at some time have it apply. But is that going to
be another six and a half years? Will that be 10 years? Will the
current members be around to make it apply? It really is so open
that it doesn't drop one single barrier to the private sector.

In fact, thinking of the public versus private issue, this
government has introduced and passed a bill that will provide
funding to private schools. As I read it, the public schools have
to make plans to be accessible; private schools don't. This bill
doesn't apply to the private schools. So they're going to get money
from the taxpayers of Ontario, but they won't have a
commitment to remove a barrier or to provide service to an
Ontarian with a disability. We worry about two-tier health care;
we're well on the way to two-tier education services.

You can ask any one of your constituents, "Which do you go to more
often, city hall or your shopping mall?" and the answer is pretty
clear. There are people who will never, ever have need to enter a
civic building but they need to go to restaurants and need to shop.
This bill doesn't apply there at all.

I don't think the costs for it to apply to the private sector are
terribly onerous. We've had indications of the costs in the US
where they have removed the barriers under the Americans with
Disabilities Act, and over 70% of the businesses said they spent
$500 or less. I think Sears indicated they spend on average about
$42 per employee to make their workplace accessible and provide the
supports. Many owners do it now. I don't think private
industry is opposed to treating Ontarians with dignity. Many owners
voluntarily do it.

There has been a craziness for a blind individual who wishes to
make application to the Ontario disability support plan. The system
we have now -- because we love computers with this
government -- is to do it over the telephone, and they need
instructions on how to do it. This government doesn't produce a
Braille card of instructions on how to access the funding. Yet that
person can go to a restaurant chain -- I won't name them but
they've got golden arches out front -- and they can get a Braille
menu. They can walk in and they're assured of a Braille menu so
that they can order a hamburger. So they can get a hamburger in
Ontario if they're blind, but they can't access government
services. Hopefully, this bill will deal with that at some time.

Industry says to me, "We want to make the accommodation. We want to
be accessible, but we want a level playing field. If we spend the
money, we want all of our competitors to spend the same money so
that competitively we're in exactly the same position as we were
before." Now, I'm not sure about that, in the sense that most, if
not all, of these 1.6 million Ontarians with
disabilities want to come into the store and spend money. They want
to go in the restaurant and spend money. I hear from the Americans
with Disabilities Act people that it's good business. Even if we
weren't talking about humanity and compassion, it's good business
to be accessible.

We have a tremendous market, particularly of Americans, who want to
travel north to our wonderful country. I receive calls in my
office, often on a Monday, from Americans who have been somewhere
in Ontario and realized that we're nowhere near the level of
providing services to the disabled that the United States is. They
come assuming that they're going to be able to get into hotel
rooms.

Last year the Metro Toronto hospitality industry, to their
credit, voluntarily initiated a program because, they said, "It's
good business; it's good neighbours. We're going to make our rooms
accessible." But whether it's an Ontario person travelling
somewhere around Ontario or whether it's people coming from outside
of the province or country, we need to provide an
assurance to them that they will have all of the services
available that they need.

Minister, just a piece of very friendly advice: I've had calls from
your very community, your constituency, indicating -- and I haven't
gone and tried them -- that the doors on your office are of such
weight that some disabled have trouble opening them to get in.

Hon Mr Jackson: You know that's not right.

Mr Parsons: Well, I can only go with the callers, Minister. I'll
make a run out and we can do it.

I know as government members you've been under great, great
pressure to get a bill through. You've read the media, you've had
calls from constituents, you've seen editorials and you know that
there is pressure for you to pass an ODA, and it must bother you
that you made the promise in writing in 1995 to pass it. I know
you're under pressure, but I know there has been a concerted effort
to not pass one. I'm asking you to stand up for your constituents
on this and recognize that this bill is not the bill your
constituents asked for. This is not the bill that your
community truly wants. It has a great title, but it lacks
profoundly in terms of substance.

As we travel around Ontario, as we talk to people, I absolutely
believe now that every one of us here and everyone in Ontario has
a friend, a neighbour or a relative who's disabled. I have heard it
said that there are two groups of people in Ontario: those who are
disabled and those who are waiting to be. I have glasses that I
didn't have five years ago. Each of us will require additional
support from our communities and from our province as we age, or
because of a car accident or an industrial accident. Every one of
us is unfortunately at risk of it and we know someone who would
benefit from a meaningful ODA. Every one of us can tell a story
about someone.

I spoke with one of the authors of the Americans with
Disabilities Act and they said that was a driving force for them
when, one day, among the elected people, they started to talk about
who they knew and who needed the protection of an Americans with
Disabilities Act, and each person in their elected chamber
realized that they knew someone who was not being well served at
the present time.

This bill simply doesn't do it. It's window dressing. While
purporting to apply to everything, it applies to a very, very small
segment of where a person with disabilities spends their day. It's
not winter yet, but we had our first snow job when this bill was
introduced. I can understand that the Premier is afraid
of offending his business friends. He doesn't want them to spend
money. At least, he doesn't mind them spending it at fundraisers,
but he doesn't want them to spend it to serve Ontarians with
disabilities. But I really, truly believe that most people want it.

I would like to read some information on that. A report submitted
to the Ministry of Citizenship, Culture and Recreation by the
Roeher Institute in 1997 showed that people in Ontario want an
Americans with Disabilities Act. In the States, it noted that
improvements in participation in post-secondary education and
accessibility to public transportation improved with it. The report
also observes "that accommodation of the particular
requirements of persons with disabilities seems to be good
business practice" -- those are the words you should like to hear -
- "with a significant return on investment, and that the
educational and technical assistant services rendered to
implement the act has been useful and well-received." This is an
act that applies to everyone, covers every minute of every
citizen's day. It says that it's good business, useful and well
received.

The average cost to US businesses to comply with the ADA has been
fairly modest. The US Job Accommodation Network reported that more
than 70% of businesses reported accommodation for $500 or less, as
I mentioned. Twenty per cent of US businesses reported there was no
cost to implement the ADA. For Sears, I said $42, but the average
cost was $45 to implement it.

A 1995 Harris poll found that 70% of respondents in a national
survey of senior corporate executives -- these are your friends --
supported the Americans with Disabilities Act and did not favour
weakening it any way. Ours is such a diluted version of the
Americans with Disabilities Act that it runs against what senior
business officials say. The poll also found that 80% of these
senior corporate executives felt that the ADA had increased the
cost of accommodating people with disabilities only a little or not
at all.

A recent Ontario government poll -- this is your poll of 801 adults
released December 22, 2000 -- indicated that 61% of
Ontarians surveyed believed the government is uncommitted to an
ODA. You haven't fooled the people. You truly haven't. That same
poll indicated that 77% of people believe that an ODA should also
regulated private industry, so the majority of people recognize the
role of private industry in this, and 71% said that they believed
the legislation should be mandatory -- required rather than
voluntary.

You're running counter to polls. It goes against everything you do
when you ignore your polls. You've got to get back in line and get
with the message. The polls say the people in Ontario want
you to do the right thing. They're expecting you to do the right
thing. Don't disappoint them. Don't continue the hurt.

This whole concept of "voluntary" for private industry -- we don't
ask the people of Walkerton to count on voluntary testing of their
water. You've got regulations saying it's so important to the
quality of life and to life itself that it's mandatory. I suggest
to you that for an Ontarian with a disability, in many cases it is
profoundly important to their quality of life and their very health
that they have access. For an Ontarian with a disability, simply
getting to a doctor may be such an obstacle now that it doesn't
happen when it should. The user fees you have created puts them at
risk in other issues.

The approach too that each municipality will have some authority to
do their own thing provides no assurance to an Ontarian with a
disability who wants to travel from one community to another.
Whether they have access to a public building should not depend on
what is the tax base for that community. Even where you're making
the province of Ontario buildings more accessible, it only happens
when there's going to be a major renovation or you're
constructing or leasing a new building. So they cannot travel to
another community with any assurance that that building will be
accessible, because if it has been operated by the government in
the past and continues to be, it's not.

This building is a pretty fair example of that. A blind
individual cannot come and get into the elevators in this
Legislature. There's no Braille on the buttons, and as the
elevators move up there's no bell to indicate the number of floors
they've come up. From time to time, even those who are not blind
will get off at the wrong floor. Can you imagine a blind
individual on a wrong floor and absolutely lost? This building
doesn't provide service to Ontarians with disabilities. How many
individuals with wheelchairs can we accommodate in this chamber?
Two, and that's all. That's a disgrace for the groups that want to
come and hear the debate regarding this bill. We have no quota for
any other group, but we have a quota of two if they require a
wheelchair. We should all be ashamed of that.

The House unanimously approved, and that means every one on the
government side approved, 11 principles that were to be adhered to
in the new ODA. The minister has said, "What has the Liberal Party
offered? What would they do?" We have committed that we would pass
a meaningful Ontarians with Disabilities Act after full public
consultation, not just in a few selected cities, and that we would
adhere to and follow the 11 principles all three parties agreed to.
It's as simple as that. You couldn't even follow the principles you
voted for.

There is such pressure to rush it through that I have to think of
the saying that says, "There's never time to do it right; there's
always time to do it over." You tried once before and you didn't do
it right and you had to do it over. We can't play games with the
lives of our citizens and have it done over again. This is it. You
have the opportunity to do something right. We have the opportunity
together, as elected people, to leave a legacy of opening doors to
1.6 million Ontarians. We can positively affect their lives for the
better. We should not and absolutely must not abuse the power we
have in this chamber.

But there is power here. You know and I know that the majority of
the power rides on that side. The government can approve or kill
any bill they wish. We need to look at the track record of this
government to say, "Should we be optimistic that they will put
through a meaningful bill?"

I've shared with this chamber the track record for Ontarians who
are deaf at Sir James Whitney School in Belleville, the abuse that
took place there, and this government is saying to each of them,
"Sue us. We set aside $8 million. We've given it out. We weren't
even really accountable for it. We didn't require any proof that
abuse took place. We gave it out and when the $8 million is gone,
well, that's it. For the rest you can sue." These are Ontarians who
are blind and vulnerable, and the
government is forcing over 125 of them to sue for justice.

For the group that got the money, this government was extremely
good in that it even said, "As part of the settlement we agree in
writing to provide counselling services," because for deaf
individuals counselling services are rare and expensive. Once the
agreement was reached, the government said, "We're not going to
provide counselling services. We're just not." They didn't say it
was money. They didn't say it was lack of services. They just said
they're not going to.

An issue that has become extremely close to my heart is age-related
macular degeneration. These are seniors who are
experiencing the growth of extra blood vessels in their eyes that
will burst and they will go blind. There was no cure for that until
about two years ago. In February 2000 the federal
government approved a process called Visudyne that can cure and
prevent these individuals from going blind. This government that
purports to care for blind individuals will not fund it. What is
it? A money issue? It can't be a money issue. It costs about
$16,000. That may look like a lot of money, and I'll tell you,
that's a lot of money to a senior citizen.

Last Saturday I went to a fundraiser a community put on to try to
raise enough money for a senior citizen so she would not go blind.
She had used every penny of her savings to pay for the first two
treatments of $4,000. She did not have the money for the next
three. The first two do nothing; you need all the
treatments. We had a community out fundraising to keep an
Ontarian from going blind. What kind of province do we live in that
will let a senior citizen go blind when there's treatment
available?

Now, if you don't fund it -- and you're making no move to; since
February 2000, you've been procrastinating on funding it -- and she
goes blind, bless you, you'll give her up to $930 a month from the
ODSP. If you do the math, after 16 months it actually was a very
bad financial decision. But members, this isn't a financial
decision. We have Ontarians going blind and we don't care.

The $6 million that was wasted on education ads to try to fool
parents would have prevented 400 seniors in this province from
going blind. You had your priorities. Do we do partisan ads for $6
million to try to fool the parents or do we take 400 citizens who
have paid taxes all their life, have contributed and built this
province, and do we save their sight? No. We went with the $6
million in glitz. And instead, we've got seniors having bake sales,
selling their valued possessions, neighbours holding dances to try
to keep people from going blind.

I struggle to accept that this government cares about the
disabled when they're actually creating disabled through their
unwillingness to fund macular degeneration treatment.

The ministries are absolutely separate entities that don't even
want to talk to each other. I mean, we've got the Ministry of
Education. And this bill -- well, this bill's going to make sure
that the doors open and that the wheelchairs can get in. That's
great. The fact is that it probably already exists in our
schools, because I don't know of a school board that hasn't bent
over backwards to accommodate the needs. But once that door's open
and the student in a wheelchair gets in, there's no
educational assistant for them any more. There's nobody to help
them get around. There's no one to help them lift the books.
There's no one to help them open the doors. So I wish this
minister would also talk to the Minister of Education and say, "You
know, we need to get some funding to you so that not only can we
get the students in the building but the students can actually
participate in education."

We have a parks system in Ontario that I think we're rightfully
pretty proud of. How many camping spots do we have for Ontarians
with disabilities? I looked through eastern Ontario and I
actually found that within my immediate vicinity one park had one
campsite. Here's the interesting thing about that campsite: if no
one's rented it by 2:30, they'll rent it to anyone. They won't hold
it. So if you don't have a disability, you can still show up at 6
o'clock and, assuming the spots aren't full, you'll get a spot. But
if you're an Ontarian with a disability, you'd better be there by
2:30 or you're not going to get a camping spot
because why hold it just for someone's disability? Absolutely
shameful.

The most fascinating part of my role as critic for the area of
Ontarians with disabilities has been meeting with Ontarians who
have disabilities, who come into my office -- not aggressive,
looking for help -- and describe to me their life. I had a
gentleman come in who is 100% blind, who used to have 5% vision.
What fascinated me was he said to me, "You know, Ernie, if I could
get that 5% vision back, the world would be mine." Where we would
think he'd be terribly handicapped, he thought, "If I get
5% back, I can do anything." He actually operates his own
business. He repairs small motors. He says to me it's pretty
important that you don't come in his workshop and move his tools,
because he has absolutely no vision. But he had 5%. He was told
that an operation would restore it. It didn't. He lost it.

He comes in and he says, "I have to live on a routine, as a blind
individual. I like to walk downtown and for some reason buy
groceries. And that's a pretty good day for me, except when my
municipality has a sidewalk sale I can't leave my house." He can't
go downtown because the sidewalk has all of the tables and the
displays. He said, "I cannot make my way with a cane through the
downtown area because of the sidewalk sale." I never thought about
that, and I suspect most of the members here never thought about
that.

He also humorously pointed out to me that they came up with what he
thought was a less-than-brilliant idea, which was to hang
flowerpots in the front of stores. He said, "The pots are exactly
this level. I know where each of them is now. I didn't feel them
with my cane; I felt them with my forehead." But again, what was a
wonderful gesture on the part of the community to brighten up their
downtown area for the summer was for that blind individual a
significant problem. To go out and meet with council or with one of
these committees is not an easy job for him to do; very difficult
for a person who's blind to do it.

Another interesting thing I found was about having a guide dog.
Some blind individuals use a cane, but it takes evidently about a
year for them to learn how to use a cane. I would challenge any of
us to try closing our eyes and walking around this building. I
tried and I cheated; I opened my eyes. These are individuals who
are truly blind. They can take their dog with them into a store,
they can take their guide dog with them, but they can't take their
guide dog with them into work. They can go in as a
customer, but they can't go in as an employee. This government
wants to get people back to work. Well, then, make some
legislation that will allow individuals with guide dogs to go to
work.

Assistive dogs: something not all of you may be familiar with.
Assistive dogs are dogs for people in wheelchairs who perhaps have
only very limited use of a wrist. The dogs will open doors, will
help push or pull the wheelchair, will do any number of jobs. What
legislation do we have in Ontario to allow assistive dogs into
stores? Absolutely nothing. They're recognized as if they are a
family pet, and they are not. They are an animal that makes quality
of life possible for these individuals. I don't see anything in
this bill that would mandate the right of people to
take an assistive dog into a store or restaurant.

What does this bill do for individuals who are deaf? Not a lot. The
government that wants to put people back to work in the private
sector needs to know that the unemployment rate among the deaf runs
between 85% and 90%, needs to know that 85% to 90% of
deaf individuals are unemployed. We have provided education for
them either in the regular school system or at one of the three
provincial schools. Unfortunately, if they want post-secondary,
they've had to go to the US for it at considerable expense, but
they can't get a job.

When I talk to them, they say, "The first obstacle is" -- I'm going
to talk about my community -- "we need to take an
interpreter with us. So we actually get contacted by a firm that
wants to interview us and usually when they want to interview us
for a job it's the next day or a couple of days or some time that
week." Because there are two interpreters who serve the three
counties inside and outside of my riding, they have to book a
couple of weeks, maybe three weeks, ahead for the interpreter. So
they can't get an interpreter to go to the job interview and they
don't get the job.

We also need to educate private industry as to the strengths, the
skills and the work ethic that come from the deaf individuals in
our communities. I don't see anything in here to help educate the
rest of Ontario in order to give these people their opportunity. It
has got to be so distressing to be fully competent, to be eager to
go to work, and the government will do nothing to remove a barrier
to get them in.

A young man came to me who is deaf and conveyed to me, through an
interpreter, that when he has to go to see his family doctor he has
to take his mother with him. When they go into the examining room
his mother has to go in with him, because when he is ill he cannot
wait two or three weeks for an interpreter. To say it is
embarrassing is an understatement. His mother has to be there while
the doctor examines him and translates for the doctor. We have
almost no doctors in Ontario who are able to do American sign
language.

Then he said to me, "One time I decided I wouldn't do this any more
and I went on my own. I gestured and moved and touched and pointed
and did everything I could to convey what was wrong, and the doctor
gave me a prescription. I took it to the drug store, I gave them
money and they gave me the prescription. I got home and I thought,
`Boy, I hope he understood what was wrong with me. I
hope these pills are actually the right ones for that problem,'
because there was very little communication between us and I hope
he understood the symptoms I was trying to describe," but he wasn't
sure. Surely he's entitled to better service than that. Surely he's
entitled to the assurance that there will be
interpretation available for him at the doctor and at the
hospital.

Say a deaf individual is in an automobile accident, heaven
forbid, and ends up in an emergency ward. One of the rights that
all of us have as citizens is to make an informed decision when the
medical community offers advice as to what should happen. Well,
there are not many emergency departments in Ontario that have the
translation ability available. Certainly they try. It may be on
call. They may have to phone someone who is on call who could be 10
minutes or half an hour coming in, but that may be
too long. Sometimes no action is itself an action. So we're not
seeing the hospitals, much as they want to, able to provide the
interpreters, because there has been no impetus from this
government to train interpreters, to fund interpreters and make
them available to our deaf citizens.

We mentioned transportation and the difficulty that individuals
face, particularly in rural areas. Almost all their
transportation needs require a special vehicle, booking ahead. They
simply can't get in and go for an appointment or job
interview quickly.

I had a woman call with what I thought was a very simple request
that's not going to be solved for her in this bill. She said, "I'm
in a wheelchair. I like to go to restaurants, but I like to sit at
a restaurant table with my friends. Because of my
wheelchair -- it won't fit under what is a standard size table in
a restaurant -- I have to sit back and eat my food on my lap
because there is no requirement for there to be accessibility at
maybe just one table in one restaurant so that I could go in and
put my chair underneath and sit and enjoy a meal with my friends.
Instead, I'm isolated."

This bill won't apply to restaurants. It won't cause them to have
to make that table available, though again I think good business
would require that they provide that. But she is very clearly
identifying a problem. I've started looking around to see if that
is a problem that exists. I am impressed to note that downstairs
here in the Legislature we do have a table for that. Granted, it's
difficult for an Ontarian with disabilities to get here and I'm not
sure I'd recommend the food. Nevertheless, we need to encourage
people in other industries, in private industry, to provide a
service to the people.

What has this government done for the developmentally
handicapped? It has not recognized at all the increase, the growth
in funding for special services at home. This bill will do
virtually nothing for the developmentally handicapped or the
mentally ill community. This bill has focused on the very visible
challenges of those with wheelchairs while ignoring the others.

Speaker, I realize I have some time left but I'm also conscious of
the clock. That looks pretty close to 6 o'clock.

The Deputy Speaker: Thank you. It is quite close enough to 6
o'clock. Therefore, this House will stand adjourned until Monday,
November 19, at 1:30 in the afternoon.

The House adjourned at 1758.