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Brief To The Standing Committee Of The Ontario
Legislature On Social Development Submitted
By The Ontarians With Disabilities Act Committee
February 3, 1997 For Public Hearings Into The
Impact On Persons With Disabilities Of Provincial
Budget Cuts.Enact The Ontarians With Disabilities Act Before
Imposing Provincial Budget Cuts.Submitted by:
The Ontarians with Disabilities Act Committee,
M. David Lepofsky, C.M., Co-chair.1. INTRODUCTION.
As a result of an Opposition request, the Ontario Legislature's Standing Committee on Social Development has convened public legislative hearings into the impact of provincial cuts and downsizing on persons with disabilities. The Ontarians with Disabilities Act Committee ("ODA Committee") welcomes these hearings. It submits this brief to the Standing Committee to assist in its deliberations on this important topic. The ODA Committee's position in this brief is summarized as follows:
(a) Ontario Government budget cuts, downsizing, restructuring, and off-loading of provincial responsibilities onto municipal governments and the private sector all combine to have a serious and disproportionately harmful impact on the 17% of Ontarians who now have disabilities, and the many more who will acquire disabilities in the future.
(b) It is wrong and entirely counterproductive for the Ontario Government to impose these cuts, restructuring, and off-loads before it enacts the Ontarians with Disabilities Act which it promised in the 1995 provincial election. To do so will create many new barriers, making it even harder for persons with disabilities to participate fully in Ontario's mainstream.
(c) Some of these otherwise preventable barriers, impeding people with disabilities, will be impossible to fix after the damage is done. Others may be reparable after the fact, but only at significant public expense. This unnecessary cost to the taxpayer could easily be prevented by enacting the Ontarians with Disabilities Act before implementing the proposed cuts, downsizing, and off-loading.
(d) The Ontario Government should therefore develop and pass the Ontarians with Disabilities Act before implementing its program of cuts, downsizing, off-loading and restructuring.
2. WHAT IS THE ONTARIANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT COMMITTEE?
The Ontarians with Disabilities Act Committee is a voluntary coalition of individuals and community organizations, committed to the rights of persons with disabilities. We have united to seek the enactment in Ontario of a new law to protect the equal rights of persons with disabilities. The ODA Committee seeks the passage of an "Ontarians with Disabilities Act" to secure the goal of a barrier-free society for persons with disabilities in Ontario by the year 2000.
Coming from across Ontario, the ODA Committee's individual members, as well as its over 40 major organizational members, reflect a wide range of disabilities and a great deal of expertise in the disability field. In the two years since we formed, the Committee has brought its important message to the Ontario Government, the Opposition parties, the media, the disability community and the broader public through active work in the community. For example, in 1996 we convened highly successful public forums on the Ontarians with Disabilities Act in Toronto, Ottawa, Hamilton, Thunder Bay, London and Windsor.
3. WHAT IS AN "ONTARIANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT"?
The ODA Committee seeks the passage of an Ontarians with Disabilities Act which would guarantee to persons with disabilities the right to participate fully in all aspects of Ontario life. It would cover such important areas as employment, education and training, communication, housing, public transit and other services, facilities and goods, among other things. It would require the identification and timely removal of existing barriers which now impede persons with disabilities in these areas. It would also prevent new barriers from being created which would impede persons with disabilities in the future. It would include strong, effective and efficient methods for enforcement of these rights and duties.
There is a pressing need for this new law. People with disabilities are a large and growing group, now numbering fully 17% of the public. Existing laws and programs, while important, have not substantially reduced the many barriers which now impede us, nor have they stopped the erection of new barriers. Recent Ontario Government program and budget cuts, downsizing, restructuring and off-loading are making things worse for us. Ontarians with disabilities face unacceptably high rates of unemployment, poverty and social assistance dependency. This imposes on us, and on society, an enormous yet entirely preventable human and economic cost.
A strong and effective Ontarians with Disabilities Act will reduce this cost and make Ontario a better place for all Ontarians. Everyone in Ontario now has a disability, or has someone close to them who has a disability, or will at some time in their life acquire a disability. As our population is aging, the number of people with disabilities is growing. This is because aging is one of the greatest causes of disability.
4. WHAT IS THE ONTARIO GOVERNMENT DOING ABOUT THE PRESSING NEED FOR AN ONTARIANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT?
The compelling need for a strong and effective Ontarians with Disabilities Act is now beyond dispute in Ontario. All provincial political parties are on record as supporting it. During the 1995 provincial election, Mike Harris made a solemn written election promise to the ODA Committee by letter dated May 24, 1995. He committed that a Harris Government would enact an Ontarians with Disabilities Act in its first term. He stated that he hoped to direct funding to the accommodation of persons with disabilities through cost savings elsewhere. Mr. Harris further pledged in that letter to work together with the Ontarians with Disabilities Act Committee on the development of such legislation.
The Ontario Liberal and New Democratic Parties are also on public record as fully supporting the enactment of an Ontarians with Disabilities Act, and have pressed the Harris Government to get moving on its election promise to us. This strong bi-partisan support for the Ontarians with Disabilities Act was further demonstrated on May 16, 1996. That day, the Legislature unanimously passed a strong resolution which calls on the Ontario Government to keep its promise of an Ontarians with Disabilities Act, and to work with the ODA Committee to develop it.
Despite this broad public support, and with one third of its term in office already expired, the Ontario Government has made no real progress towards keeping its promise. No bill has been introduced or even drafted. No public consultations have been undertaken, planned or even specifically assured. No date has been announced for the introduction of a bill. No public process for its development has been announced.
Despite his personal written election promise to work together with the Ontarians with Disabilities Act Committee, and his repeated public assurances that he will keep all of his election promises without exception, Premier Harris has repeatedly refused in writing to meet with ODA Committee representatives since he took office. He has simply diverted all ODA Committee inquiries to Citizenship Minister Marilyn Mushinski. She, in turn, also refused to meet with the ODA Committee throughout her first year as Minister responsible for Disability Issues.
Only after the Ontario Legislature unanimously passed its May 16, 1996 resolution calling for the Government to keep its Ontarians with Disabilities Act promise did Ms. Mushinski finally agree to one introductory meeting with ODA Committee representatives held in June of 1996. She has since declined further requests for a formal follow-up meeting with her. She personally committed to respond to us by mid-summer 1996 with her reaction to ODA Committee proposals on how to publicly consult on and develop the Ontarians with Disabilities Act. Over half a year later, she has still given no response. She has avoided giving meaningful, direct and informative answers to any inquiries on the Ontarians with Disabilities Act. At most, she has indicated that a staff person in her Ministry had been assigned last Fall to look into barrier-removal issues.
There is no public indication that the Premier or the Premier's office support any meaningful action. Beyond vague rhetoric, there is no indication, through practical action, that the Ontario Government intends to keep its Ontarians with Disabilities Act election promise.
5. WHAT DOES AN ONTARIANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT HAVE TO DO WITH ONTARIO GOVERNMENT RESTRUCTURING AND BUDGET CUTS, AND THEIR IMPACT ON PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES?
People with disabilities are a highly vulnerable and disadvantaged group within Ontario society. Ontario budget and program cuts since June of 1995, combined with planned provincial cuts, downsizing, and program off-loading onto municipalities and the private sector, have and will cause dramatic and disproportionate harm to Ontarians with disabilities. They will lead to the re-creation and exacerbation of serious existing barriers which now impede people with disabilities from fully participating in Ontario's mainstream. They also will lead to the creation of new barriers which will make things even worse for us.
It is impossible for a volunteer community coalition to document comprehensively the magnitude of all of the harm which we will suffer. This is because the Ontario Government has not made clear and comprehensive disclosure of its plans and financial figures. This is also due to the fact that the Government has not taken needed steps to track and prevent the harmful impact of these plans on persons with disabilities.
Despite these difficulties in documentation, the ODA Committee has identified several specific areas of provincial cuts which run directly counter to the content and the fundamental direction of Premier Harris's May 24, 1995 written election promise of an Ontarians with Disabilities Act. These are some examples:
(a) HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION CUTS
It is quite likely that the Human Rights Commission will have a role to play in the implementation and enforcement of the Ontarians with Disabilities Act. Provincial Government actions regarding the Human Rights Commission, and regarding related government programs, create serious problems here, because:
(i) During the 1995 election, Premier Harris promised to increase funding to the Ontario Human Rights Commission. In a May 5, 1995 election release, Harris specifically committed as follows: "Specifically a portion of the money saved by winding down the (Employment Equity) Commission set up to enforce the quotas ($9.3 million) will be re-directed to the Human Rights Commission."
In breach of this, Citizenship Minister Mushinski has announced 6% cuts to the Commission. It is well-known that even before these recent cuts, the Commission suffered from chronic underfunding which impaired its ability to fulfil its existing mandate. These new cuts ensure that the Commission would be unable to effectively carry out any new responsibilities that the Ontarians with Disabilities Act may demand of it.
(ii) The Ontario Government's so-called "Red Tape Commission" Recommendations 33 to 37 would create new substantial, procedural and bureaucratic barriers which would make it harder for a person to file and succeed in a human rights discrimination complaint. This "Red Tape" group acted solely on employers' complaints about having to comply with the existing Human Rights Code's duty to accommodate the needs of persons with disabilities. It reflects no input from or sensitivity to the perspective of people with disabilities whose fundamental human rights are at stake. The Supreme Court of Canada has declared this duty to accommodate as central to the guarantee of human rights.
The Red Tape Commission recommends legislative amendments to constrain, and presumably to curtail, the protections which persons with disabilities now have under this fundamental duty. These counter-productive proposals would impose new and serious barriers in the path of persons with disabilities who seek protection for their basic human rights. They could well be unconstitutional. These proposals, which would create new barriers to jobs for persons with disabilities, are enumerated as "Priority Recommendations" in the Red Tape Commission report, which bears the ironic title "Cutting the Red Tape Barriers to Jobs and Better Government."
(iii) The Ontario Government repealed the Employment Equity Act and abolished the Employment Equity Commission. It thereby eliminating an important means for advancing chances for more persons with disabilities to get jobs. Although the Ontario Government objected to the legislation's hiring targets component, the law's wholesale repeal also took away from persons with disabilities important provisions which would require large employers to identify and plan to eliminate workplace barriers which impede people with disabilities.
(iv) Although the Ontario Government promised to replace the Employment Equity Act with a new and effective "equal opportunity plan", the centrepiece of this largely non-existent plan is nothing more than a new Internet Mushinski website. This public relations initiative mixes government self-publicity with some background information. It is doubtful that the Mushinski website will do anything practical to remove barriers confront persons with disabilities, nor is it likely that any unemployed persons with disabilities will get jobs due to the Mushinski website.
(b) PUBLIC TRANSIT AND PARA-TRANSIT CUTS
Public transit is a vital public service for all Ontarians. Yet Ontario's local public transit services are inaccessible to many people with disabilities. People with disabilities often must rely instead for public transit on previously underfunded and inadequate para-transit services, which were highly dependent on provincial funding. The Ontarians with Disabilities Act would impose provincial standards requiring access by persons with disabilities to public transit services on which all Ontarians are so reliant. Yet, Ontarians with disabilities now suffer from reduced access to public transit due to the following Ontario Government actions:
(i) In breach of written election commitments, the Ontario Government has failed to ensure maintained funding for accessible para-transit services such as Toronto's WheelTrans. There already have been well publicized provincially-originated para-transit cuts that have caused real damage and hardship to the lives of many Ontarians with disabilities who depend on these services.
(ii) The Ontario Government has also cut programs which would have helped municipal transit authorities acquire new accessible equipment in the future.
(iii) The Ontario Government's current plan to off-load public transit programs and finance entirely onto municipal governments contravenes the Finance Minister's firm commitment during his November 29, 1995 Economic Statement as follows: "Funding to municipalities for specialized transit services for people with disabilities will be maintained at current levels."
(c) ONTARIO PUBLIC SERVICE CUTS
The Ontario Government is among the largest employers in this province. It is also among the largest employers of those persons with disabilities who have succeeded in getting a job, despite extraordinary unemployment rates as high as 50% for working-age persons with disabilities. The Ontarians with Disabilities Act would require the Ontario Government to provide a barrier-free workplace for Ontario public servants with disabilities.
In addition, during the 1995 provincial election, Premier Harris promised to implement a zero-tolerance policy towards discrimination in the Ontario Public Service. Yet the Ontario Government has taken the following steps which run directly contrary to these commitments:
(i) The Ontario Government has implemented dramatic cuts to Ontario Public Service jobs. It has done so by using the same methods for layoff and re-deployment that the previous Government had used. Under the previous Government these practices led people with disabilities to lose their jobs in disproportionately greater numbers because of the discriminatory barriers built into the downsizing and layoff procedures. The new Government has accelerated this process of layoffs, and has left those discriminatory barriers in place.
As well, among the first areas of the Ontario Public Service which the new Government has targeted for cuts are those very programs where employees with disabilities had been more likely to be concentrated, due to past hiring patterns and practices. Thus, people with disabilities are having to bear more than their fair share of job losses as the Ontario Government downsizes. People with disabilities face extraordinary unemployment rates in the job market. Thus, this Ontario Government layoff pattern will tend to drive more persons with disabilities onto social assistance, when they would rather remain taxpaying employees;
(ii) The Ontario Government has also dramatically undermined its capacity to achieve a barrier-free and discrimination-free Ontario Public Service for persons with disabilities, because it eliminated many if not most of its staff positions in the various ministries which worked on disability workplace barrier removal. These positions had been filled by employees who had developed much-needed expertise in this field at public expense;
(iii) The Ontario Government has repealed important and specific human resources policies which had been designed to ensure that Ontario Public Service downsizing did not discriminate against Ontario Government employees with disabilities;
(iv) The Ontario Government has abolished a provincial fund for the identification and removal of systemic barriers in the Ontario Public Service workplace;
(v) The Legislature enacted an unprecedented law requiring the destruction of government data which could have helped achieve a barrier-free Ontario Public Service, and which was collected under the Employment Equity Act and program;
(vi) Since taking office in June 1995, the Ontario Government has failed to take any meaningful government-wide steps to remove workplace disability barriers which had previously been identified by various ministries' employment systems reviews. Under the previous Government, each Ontario Government ministry had undertaken an employment systems review, at public expense, as part of the Ontario Public Service employment equity initiative. Management Board has not directed the ministries to take any steps to remove barriers which these reviews discovered. Most of the reviews are believed to be collecting dust, ignored.
The Ontario Government's failure to take meaningful steps to eliminate systemic barriers within its own workplace is especially problematic, in light of the fact that in a May 5, 1995 election press release, Premier Harris promised to "help employers develop plans to ensure equality of opportunity in their workplaces and remove any systemic barriers to employment, particularly for persons with disabilities".
(d) PROVINCIAL OFF-LOADING ONTO MUNICIPALITIES
The impending proposal to off-load major provincial government programs onto municipalities involves a massive provincial withdrawal from some of the most important areas of provincial government activities which are important to persons with disabilities, such as social assistance, public transit and long-term care. The Ontario Government proposes to do this without guaranteeing provincial funding to maintain these programs. Municipalities do not have as large a tax base for paying for these important programs.
In 1995, the Federal Government contemplated a comparable move. It proposed off-loading major federal disability programs onto the provinces. The Federal Government is now retreating from this. It did so after major public condemnation. It also responded to a Federal Disability Task Force which documented the need for consistent and strong universal standards. The Ontario Government's proposed off-loading onto municipalities suffers from the same serious problems as had the proposed Federal Government off-loading. Just as the Federal Task Force recommended a strong federal presence in the disability field, backed by a proposal for a new Canadians with Disabilities Act, the Ontario Government also needs to maintain a strong provincial presence in the disability field, backed as well by a strong Ontarians with Disabilities Act.
(e) PRIVATIZATION
Ontario Government plans to privatize certain provincial services, programs and facilities similarly threaten to hurt Ontarians with disabilities, because:
(i) The Ontario Government has not announced as part of its privatization initiative any policies, procedures, safeguards or measures taken to ensure that the Ontario Government employees with disabilities who lose their jobs during privatization will enjoy private-sector retention of their services, a barrier-free work environment, or accommodation of their disability work-related needs;
(ii) The Ontario Government has not announced any policies, procedures or safeguards to ensure that those private sector bodies who are chosen to take on responsibilities for delivering off-loaded public services will plan to ensure that persons with disabilities will be able to avail themselves of those services in a barrier-free way; and
(iii) More generally, the Ontario Government has announced no steps to ensure that privatization will not create new barriers which impede persons with disabilities.
(f) PUBLIC EDUCATION, COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES CUTS
People with disabilities now face enormous barriers in gaining equal educational opportunity through the public education system, and the system of Ontario colleges and universities. The Ontarians with Disabilities Act would seek to implement specific measures to achieve a barrier-free education system at all levels. Contradicting this important goal, the Ontario Government has taken the following steps:
(i) The Ontario Government has cut funding for school boards, without ensuring by specific, enforced, and mandatory guarantees that local school boards take no money out of services for children with disabilities.
(ii) The Ontario Government has similarly cut funding for colleges and universities, without ensuring that these cuts do not have an adverse impact on students and staff with disabilities.
(iii) The Ministry of Education is contemplating a program for acquiring new computers for schools across the province. Yet it is not ensuring that any new computers will be accessible to and usable by children with disabilities.
(iv) More generally, the Ontario Government is now embarking on a massive re-organization of the entire education system. Yet it has not committed itself to any proactive measures to ensure that no new barriers will be created for persons with disabilities in the process.
(g) SOCIAL ASSISTANCE CUTS
Many of the Ontario Government initiatives referred to here will cause persons with disabilities to lose their jobs. This will force them to turn to social assistance to survive. Yet the Ontario Government has imposed major cuts to social services. It has not kept its promise in the so-called "Common Sense Revolution" that despite social assistance cuts, "Aid for seniors and the disabled will NOT be cut." For example, a welfare mother of a child with a disability has suffered the same cuts to her welfare as have all other welfare recipients. Her child with a disability suffers the direct effect of this welfare cut.
6. WHY MUST THE ONTARIANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT BE ENACTED BEFORE THE ONTARIO GOVERNMENT IMPLEMENTS ITS CUTS, RESTRUCTURING AND OFF-LOADING?
Each of the cuts, described above, will individually inflict serious harm on Ontarians with disabilities. When they are taken together, these cuts present an additional, broader impact which seriously concerns the ODA Committee.
As currently planned, The Ontario Government is going about its business backwards. Its overall program of cuts, downsizing, and off-loading will be especially harmful to people with disabilities precisely because the Government is implementing these initiatives before it develops and enacts the Ontarians with Disabilities Act. It should instead enact the Ontarians with Disabilities Act first. Only after this is done should it go about planning its cuts.
Many, if not most of the barriers which persons with disabilities now face exist because governments, private employers, public transit services and the like did not design and operate their services, facilities and programs with any prior regard to the needs of persons with disabilities. People with disabilities frequently point out the barriers that unnecessarily result from this. They are repeatedly told in response by the government or private sector organization that created the barriers, "We meant no harm. We just never thought about you!" Governments are at least as prone to this common blunder as anyone else.
Before implementing major changes to Ontario Government programs and budgets, it is vital that the Ontarians with Disabilities Act be developed, enacted and fully operational. Among other things, the Ontarians with Disabilities Act would set provincial standards to ensure that the needs of persons with disabilities are fully and properly considered before government programs are downsized, restructured or off-loaded. It would require existing barriers in these programs be identified and removed, and that any new or restructured programs be designed in a barrier-free way from the very start.
If the Ontarians with Disabilities Act is enacted only after the cuts and off-loads are implemented, the serious damage will already be done. Some of this damage will simply be irreparable. Only some of the needlessly created new barriers will be reparable. However, this will cost the Government, and hence taxpayers, far more to fix the problem after the fact. In contrast, if the Ontarians with Disabilities Act is passed first, it would prevent this anticipated waste of public resources. It is cheaper to prevent a barrier before government creates it. It costs more to remove a barrier after it has been built.
For example, the Ontario Government is now undertaking a massive, controversial restructuring of Ontario's health care system. Health services are especially vital for senior citizens and persons with disabilities. If the health care system is restructured before enactment of The Ontarians with Disabilities Act, there is an enormous risk that this re-organization will inadvertently produce new barriers and leave in place old ones.
It is cheaper, and better public policy, to avoid in advance the new barriers which the Ontario Government cuts and off-loads now threaten to create. It is also better public policy to enable persons with disabilities to fully participate in government planning that will effect their lives. In this way, the Ontarians with Disabilities Act can promote the Ontario Government's agenda towards greater efficiency in government.
7. WHAT ACTION IS NEEDED NOW?
Based on the foregoing, the Ontarians with Disabilities Act Committee proposes the following:
(a) The Ontario Government should now act promptly to keep its written election promise to enact the Ontarians with Disabilities Act. It should immediately announce the date for the introduction of a bill into the Legislature.
(b) Premier Harris should now agree to meet with representatives of the Ontarians with Disabilities Act Committee, consistent with his written election promise to work together with this important community coalition.
(c) Disability Minister Mushinski should forthwith agree to meet with representatives of the Ontarians with Disabilities Act Committee, to work out a prompt and effective plan for full, accessible and meaningful public consultations leading to the introduction of the Ontarians with Disabilities Act in the Legislature.
(d) The Ontario Government should put on hold major plans for downsizing, budget-cutting and off-loading of provincial programs until the Ontarians with Disabilities Act is enacted and in force.
(e) The Ontario Government should commit itself to ensure that any budget cuts, downsizing, restructuring or off-loading does not have any disproportionate harmful impact on persons with disabilities. It should appoint an independent body to ensure that this commitment is met, consistent with the aims and spirit of the proposed Ontarians with Disabilities Act.
For further information about the Ontarians with Disabilities Act Committee, contact: Mr. Steve Kean, Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus Association of Ontario, 35 McCaul Street, Suite 310, Toronto, Ontario M5T 1V7 or telephone (416) 979-5514, fax (416) 979-0894, or TTY (416) 964-0023.