Letter to the Hon. Helen Johns
Minister of Citizenship, Culture and RecreationJanuary 14, 2000
Here are two letters which were sent to Citizenship Minister Helen Johns on behalf of the Ontarians with Disabilities Act Committee.
The first letter is from ODA Committee Chair, David Lepofsky. It calls for the Government of Ontario to immediately announce its plans and timetable for developing and enacting the Ontarians with Disabilities Act. It explains why the Government has had ample time to be able to now fulfill this request.
The second letter is from ODA Committee legal counsel Patti Bregman. That letter responds to the Citizenship Minister's December 23, 1999 letter to Ms. Bregman, which had asked for the ODA Committee to give the Minister a letter permitting her to speak to a public opinion survey firm, Thomson Lightstone, regarding a poll which had been conducted for the ODA Committee in 1997.
By way of background to this second letter, in 1997, the Thomson Lightstone public opinion research firm was kind enough to agree on a "no charge" basis to conduct a public opinion survey on support for legislation to remove barriers facing people with disabilities. The ODA Committee was and is very much appreciative of their doing this. That poll showed strong public support for the need for such legislation.
The ODA Committee released that poll to the public in May of 1997, posted its results on its web site at www.indie.ca/oda/oda.html and provided it to the Government.
For two years, the Ontario Government made no inquiries of the ODA Committee regarding this survey. Then, when ODA Committee representatives had their first meeting in person with the new Citizenship Minister Helen Johns on September 28, 1999, the Minister asked for a letter permitting her to ask the polling firm for certain specific background information regarding the poll.
The ODA Committee obtained a package the information requested, and forwarded it directly to the Minister's office and confirmed this in writing. We received no further response from the Minister's office at the time.
Then, some time later, on November 23, 1999, when ODA Committee representatives from around Ontario were present at the Ontario Legislature for the debate on the Liberal Party's resolution fixing a 2 year deadline for enactment of a strong and effective Ontarians with Disabilities Act, Minister Helen Johns came to speak to ODA Committee representatives. This was after several Opposition MPPs had urged her to do so.
During the Minister's exchange with the ODA Committee representatives at the Legislature, ODA Committee Chair David Lepofsky asked the Minister whether she would commit to hold her promised ODA public consultations by adopting the ODA Committee's proposal of an all-party Select Committee of the Legislature, which would hold public hearings across Ontario. The Minister's response was to state that she had not received the information about the public opinion poll that she had requested. David Lepofsky responded that she had had this information for a month.
The next day, the Minister wrote the ODA Committee asking for a letter permitting her to speak to the polling firm and for the specific background information on the poll previously requested. Shortly afterwards, ODA Committee legal counsel Patti Bregman re- send to the Minister's office all of the background information which the polling firm had kindly provided to the ODA Committee. Verbal confirmation was obtained from the Minister's office that this material had in fact been received.
Having now received all the information requested at least once, the Minister then wrote Patti Bregman on December 23, 1999, asking for a letter of permission to speak to the polling firm. The second letter set out below is Patti Bregman's response to that inquiry on behalf of the ODA Committee.
January 14, 2000
The Honourable Helen Johns
Minister of Citizenship,
Culture and Recreation
400 University Avenue, 6th Floor
Toronto, Ontario M7A 2R9Dear Minister,
Re: Ontarians with Disabilities Act
It has now been more than seven months since your government was re-elected and we are still awaiting concrete action on the Ontarians with Disabilities Act. We have now had a number of different statements from the Government about your plans for an Ontarians with Disabilities Act apart from the Premier's clear promise made in May of 1995. The statements made in the last year alone include:
- a commitment in the April 22, 1999 Throne Speech that the Government would undertake new consultations before introducing a new Bill;
- a statement by you in the September 11, 1999 London Free Press stating the ODA is a "huge priority for you" and that you expected that the consultations would have begun if not completed by Christmas 1999;
- a commitment in the October 21, 1999 Throne Speech that the government would release an action plan in this session;
- your government's support of the November 23, 1999 Opposition resolution calling on the government to enact an Ontarians with Disabilities Act within the next two years.
People with disabilities need to now know what you actually intend to do and when you intend to fulfill your commitment for a strong and effective Ontarians with Disabilities Act. Your government's words do not remove barriers for people with disabilities, nor do they prevent the creation of new barriers every day.
We are writing to ask you to release your action plan immediately, indicating how the government intends to keep its commitment to pass an Ontarians with Disabilities Act before November 2001, 22 months from now. The government has now had almost five years to produce concrete action on an Ontarians with Disabilities Act. Surely our request is not unreasonable. We have not even received an answer to our October 27, 1999 letter asking you to explain what was meant by the "action plan" announced in the Throne Speech.
We have patiently waited for you, the third Minister in this portfolio, to work out your strategy. We have made it clear that we are prepared to assist you in making sure the Government's commitment is met; however, to date you have not followed through in a meaningful way on our concrete offers of assistance. On September 10, 1999 we did provide you with written recommendations with respect to the consultation process. We gave you our proposal at that time that an all-party Committee of the Legislature be established to hold public and accessible hearings leading up to the development of and enactment of an Ontarians with Disabilities Act. Both the Liberal and New Democratic Parties promptly accepted this proposal. You have not responded to this proposal in the four months since you received it, nor have you raised any specific concerns with us about that proposal.
We appreciate that you have joined with us in our efforts to get Premier Harris to finally meet with us. We regret that even with your voice added to ours, he continues to refuse to even meet with us. This has consistently been his approach since taking office in June of 1995.
In our view, your Government has had more than ample time to move forward on these commitments. Your government has had over four and a half years in office, and has assigned three successive ministers to work on this project. Yet we have seen no concrete action from your Government since the day, over one year ago when the toothless, 3-page Bill 83 died on the order paper, and certainly no concrete action since your Government voted for the Legislature's November 23, 1999 resolution requiring that a strong and effective Ontarians with Disabilities Act be enacted within two years.
This delay is working real and substantial hardships on one and a half million Ontarians with disabilities. It is also leading to further waste of taxpayers' money, as new barriers are unnecessarily continuing to be created that impede persons with disabilities.
In order to make sure that this legislation benefits all Ontarians it is essential that an open and inclusive consultation process begin immediately that gives Ontarians a real opportunity to tell the members of all three parties what is needed to make this legislation truly create an Ontario that is barrier free for Ontarians with disabilities.
Despite all of the unfortunate events that have occurred in connection with this important issue, we again wish to offer our assistance. We ask that you now announce your specific plans and schedule for consulting, developing and enacting this legislation within the time frame to which you are committed, and that you get this project onto the Government's front burner. We remain eager to make a fresh start at this with you and your Government.
Sincerely,
David Lepofsky, CM,
Chair, Ontarians with Disabilities Act Committeecc: Name:
Hon. Mike Harris
Norman Sterling
Dalton McGuinty
Dwight Duncan
Steve Peters
Howard Hampton
David Christopherson
Marilyn Churley
ARCH
40 Orchard View Blvd, Suite 255
Toronto, Ont. M4R 1B9
416-482-8255
416-482-2981 (fax)
416-482-1254 (TTY)
January 14, 2000
The Honourable Helen Johns
Minister of Citizenship,
Culture and Recreation
400 University Avenue, 6th Floor
Toronto, Ontario M7A 2R9
Dear Minister,
Re: Ontarians with Disabilities Act
I am writing in response to your letter of December 23, 1999 which I received when I returned from vacation in January.
First, you asked that we give you consent to speak to Thomson, Lightstone about the poll that was conducted on our behalf in 1997. We have now provided you with all the information we have on this poll including information that we requested from Thomson, Lightstone specifically to respond to the request you made in your letters to David Lepofsky, chair of the ODA Committee, dated September 28 and November 24, 1999. The information we provided includes "the questionnaire in its entirety, the demographics and sample size of the poll, the raw data obtained, and the compiled information from this poll".
We have always operated in an open manner and in fact gave the poll results to your government two years ago. In response to your recent request we provided you with the background data that would not normally be released. In the interest of being open and cooperative we are prepared to consider your request to have further discussions directly with Thomson Lightstone about the poll. We will agree to consent provided that you are prepared to make a similar commitment to us allowing us access to the same information, including background information, relating to any polls relating to your government's strategy with respect to the Ontarians with Disabilities Act. This includes polls done by your Government directly or for the benefit of your government by your party.
Finally, you responded to a request we made in Mr. Lepofsky's October 1, 1999 letter to you about polling data by saying, "...this ministry has not conducted any surveys or polls since 1995 on the issue of barriers or discrimination against persons with disabilities." In fact the request was for "the data from any and all surveys or polls that the Government has conducted since 1995 or will conduct touching on the issue of barriers or discrimination against people with disabilities." We would appreciate it if you would review the polling done for your Government to see if there are any polls that fall into the scope of our original request, whether they were done by your Ministry, or anyone else working on behalf of the Government or your party. If there are any, would you please provide them to us.
We also must emphasize that Thomson Lightstone was kind enough to conduct this survey for us on a pro bono basis. If we consent and if they are willing to speak with you, you will have to work out your own arrangements with them regarding any associated costs.
I look forward to your reply.
Sincerely,
Patricia Bregman
Barrister and Solicitorcc: Name:
Hon. Mike Harris
Norman Sterling
Dalton McGuinty
Dwight Duncan
Steve Peters
Howard Hampton
David Christopherson
Marilyn Churley
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