ODA Committee Update
October 1, 2002

ODA Continues Getting Media Coverage Over Summer And Early Fall SUMMARY Even while the Legislature was not sitting, and while many were enjoying their holidays over the summer, the campaign for a barrier-free Ontario through the ODA continued to secure media attention. That media attention continues, even more so now that the Legislature is back in session. Here are six examples, set out in full below. You will see in some of these articles how ODA supporters are effectively linking the ODA issues to particular barriers in their communities e.g. through letters to the editor. * The Toronto Star on Tuesday October 1, 2002 reported on a newly-renovated pizza restaurant in Toronto, which remained inaccessible to persons with disabilities even after the renovation. An event involving persons with disabilities focused attention on the fact that the newly-proclaimed Ontarians with Disabilities Act 2001 does not redress this. * A letter to the editor in the Saturday, September 28, 2002 London Free Press from ODA supporter Kathy Lewis, links the inadequate funding for children with particular needs to the need for a strong and effective Ontarians with Disabilities Act. * The Toronto Star, Friday September 27, 2002 reported on Paralympian Jeff Adam's climbing the steps up Toronto's CN Tower in his wheelchair. Noting that Adams is vice-chair of the Ontario Government-appointed Accessibility Advisory Council, the article stated: "Adams will donate the money raised from his climb to school outreach programs that educate children about the importance of a barrier-free society. He also hopes to pressure Queen's Park to pass tougher disability legislation. Last December, the provincial government passed the Ontarians with Disabilities Act, but the legislation does not set province-wide accessibility standards. "It was a watered-down version of earlier drafts and does nothing to address the real barriers faced by disabled people," Adams said during a news conference yesterday. ... In the U.S., the American Disability Act requires Braille menus, lower counters and larger washroom stalls to accommodate people with various disabilities. Abbas Qureshi, 25, said watching Adams succeed at his climb was an inspiration. "Hopefully this event will force the government to pass a law that will actually make a difference for someone like myself," Qureshi said." A subsequent item in the Toronto Star on October 1, 2002 reports that the Toronto Star in error attributed this quotation to Jeff Adams and reports that Mr. Adams "generally supports the 2001 Ontarians with Disabilities Act." * An article on the Toronto Star's website published on August 16, 2002 reported an incident where a blind person, acommpanied by a guide dog, was refused access to a Toronto restaurant. The article also stated: "David Lepofsky, chairman of the Ontarians With Disabilities Act Committee, said Berwick's treatment by police just illustrates that a lot more education is needed. Such discrimination against the blind happens all too often, he said. "They are refused access to taxis, restaurants. There has been a law against it for 25 years in this province, yet it still goes on." "It's a cruel irony. The guide dog provides blind people with a great measure of independence and mobility, but they are refused access to public places because of it." ... After a seven-year battle, Lepofsky and other groups successfully lobbied the Ontario government to pass an act that will ensure access to public and private spaces to people with disabilities. It will be proclaimed into law later this fall, but he said it wouldn't have done anything to prevent what Berwick alleges happened to him. "There is nothing in it that requires places like restaurants to draft a policy outlining how to treat people with guide dogs and communicating that to their staff." He said he wants to sit down with representatives of the restaurant industry to draft a policy to ensure access for the disabled that everyone can live with. "Right now, it's a lose-lose situation. The person with the guide dog doesn't get to eat at the restaurant, their friends don't either, and the restaurant doesn't get the business." * The July 11, 2002 Kitchener Waterloo Record includes a letter to the editor from London ODA Committee activist and regional contact Cathy Vincent Linderoos, linking the ODA issue to the need for better provincial funding and assistance for persons with disabilities. * The July 10, 2002 Toronto Star reported the horrific tragedy of a person with a disability being crushed to death under a bus, after his crutches got caught on a cobblestone curb. The July 12, 2002 Toronto Star included a letter to the editor by active ODA supporter Eddie Rice, expressed the need for better provincial accessibility legislation to prevent such barriers and their tragic results. Also below is the Toronto Star's July 10, 2002 article about this tragic fatality itself. ***** The Toronto Star Tuesday, October 1, 2002, p. B03 Disabilities law slammed New act doesn't force firms to provide access, critics charge Betsy Powell Toronto Star Three 15-centimetre-high concrete steps leading to the entrances of a recently opened Pizza Pizza highlight the shortcomings of the province's new Ontarians with Disabilities Act, say critics of the bill who gathered yesterday outside the Cabbagetown outlet. The building, at the corner of Parliament and Prospect Sts., south of Wellesley St., features an outdoor seating area and four parking spots. But access to the restaurant is not designed for wheelchairs, George Smitherman, Liberal MPP for Toronto Centre-Rosedale, told a crowd of onlookers, including several people in wheelchairs. "Our estimate is that for something like 2 per cent of the budget that they spent making this store so big and open and beautiful, they could have also made it accessible." What's even sadder, added Ernie Parsons, Liberal critic for persons with disabilities, is "they (Pizza Pizza) didn't break any law even though the bill is finally proclaimed today. There's no requirement in the bill that is applied to private business." The Ontarians with Disabilities Act, the final sections of which were proclaimed into law yesterday, spells out accessibility requirements for government offices and other public sector organizations such as public transit, school boards, hospitals, colleges and universities. Passed last December, the law also requires municipalities with 10,000 or more people to establish municipal accessibility advisory committees that will develop annual accessibility plans. But critics say the legislation doesn't go far enough because it does not force the majority of restaurants, banks, grocery stores, doctors' offices and pharmacies to make themselves accessible to everyone. While the Ontario Human Rights Code says that every citizen has an equal right to access public places, individuals must launch an official complaint, which can take years to work through the system. Silvia Marques, of the Hugh Garner Housing Co-op's barrier-free working group, likened the exclusion to segregation. "We know the history of racism and classicism around who could go where and who could not go where," she said. "There isn't a sign that says 'No dogs or wheelchairs here' (but) the barrier says you're not welcome." Many private companies elect to do nothing, said Smitherman, because "the law does not force us to it and therefore we will not." He called on Pizza Pizza, Ontario's largest pizza chain, and other businesses to comply "because it is the right just and moral thing to do." A man in the crowd demanded to know why Smitherman and the disability advocates were singling out Pizza Pizza. "This is not an attack on Pizza Pizza per se," said Terry Trafford, also a member of the co-op's barrier-free working group. "This is an attack on big business in general. We don't have a voice. Our rights are being stomped on. The human rights code is being ignored, without question." An official with Pizza Pizza said the company had no comment. Ontario Citizenship Minister Carl DeFaria said the bill gives municipalities the power to require a business be accessible to people with disabilities as a condition for obtaining or renewing a licence. He said the government will continue to work with hotels and restaurants to set up guidelines the industry will adopt. ***** London Free Press Saturday, Sept. 28, 2002 Letters to the Editor Incident reveals need for disability act It is not only those of us with children struggling with learning disabilities who should be alarmed by the current cutbacks that have eviscerated the special education programs these students need so badly. The article, Violence linked to school cutbacks (Sept. 24), from North Bay, which reported the attack of one special needs student by another, because of a lack of classrooms for those with behavioural disabilities, is another reminder of the urgent need for a strong Ontarians with Disabilities Act to be implemented. The provincial government must consult publicly to develop standards and enact regulations for the ODA 2001 to be strong and effective. Without the ODA promised us, we continue to risk the safety and development of young persons -- with and without disabilities -- who share integrated classrooms. Lack of trained teachers and a range of special programs for students with disabilities represent unnecessary barriers which impede the present, but also future well-being of all students. Let's see the province put a high priority on the education of special children for the benefit of all. Kathy Lewis Ontarians with Disabilities Act committee member, London ***** The Toronto Star Friday, September 27, 2002, p. A03 Athlete tower of power climbs 1,776 steps Sonia Verma Toronto Star When Jeff Adams emerged, flush-faced and still sweating from his climb to the top of the stairwell at the CN Tower, the crowd was already clapping. "We surprised ourselves today. It was a lot easier than we thought it would be" Adams, 31, told those gathered on the tower's look-out level yesterday afternoon. Adams climbed 1,776 steps in a specially designed wheelchair to raise awareness about the barriers faced by people with disabilities. The climb took Adams about five hours to complete, in a chair built with wheels that roll in only one direction. "The hardest part for me was pacing myself. When we got to the halfway mark I had to slow myself down because we were way ahead of schedule," he said. When Adams was 9 he was diagnosed with transverse myelitis, a rare virus that caused his spine to swell, choking off the supply of nerve fibres to his lower limbs. The disease was swift and the damage was permanent. Adams lost all feeling in his legs and would be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Rita Adams, Jeff's mother, recalls how her son coped with his disability. "He was always a very determined kid and now here he was facing the hardest thing he'd ever faced. It was like fuel to a fire. He became even more determined," she said. She can list her son's accomplishments in a single breath: two-time Olympian, four-time Paralympian, six-time World Champion and at one time a world record holder in the 1500- metre men's wheelchair event. He was appointed vice-chair to the new Accessibility Advisory Council of Ontario and also chaired the accessibility committee for the Toronto 2008 Olympic Bid. "Sports has given me so much and this was my way of giving something back," Adams said after his climb. Rita Adams worries when Jeff competes because of the outside chance he might lose to another athlete. Yesterday she wasn't nervous. "We weren't worried for a moment that he would fail. His only competition today was his own will," she said. Adams will donate the money raised from his climb to school outreach programs that educate children about the importance of a barrier-free society. He also hopes to pressure Queen's Park to pass tougher disability legislation. Last December, the provincial government passed the Ontarians with Disabilities Act, but the legislation does not set province-wide accessibility standards. "It was a watered-down version of earlier drafts and does nothing to address the real barriers faced by disabled people," Adams said during a news conference yesterday. A few years ago, Adams was asked to leave a downtown bar because his wheelchair was deemed a "fire hazard." Yesterday, others who had come to support Adams spoke of similar experiences. Joe Slaski, a 35-year-old music producer from Syracuse, N.Y., was in Toronto in June for the NXNE music festival. At a downtown club, bouncers refused to carry his wheelchair up the stairs. "The owner said none of his employees would assist me and I got really upset. The fact is that never would have happened in the U.S. and I was quite shocked," Slaski said. In the U.S., the American Disability Act requires Braille menus, lower counters and larger washroom stalls to accommodate people with various disabilities. Abbas Qureshi, 25, said watching Adams succeed at his climb was an inspiration. "Hopefully this event will force the government to pass a law that will actually make a difference for someone like myself," Qureshi said. ***** The Toronto Star Tuesday, October 1, 2002, p. A02 Adams backs Ontario disabilities law Jeff Adams, vice-chair of the Accessibility Advisory Council of Ontario, generally supports the 2001 Ontarians with Disabilities Act. A story on Friday about Adams climbing the CN Tower in a wheelchair to raise public awareness of disability issues wrongly attributed a critical remark about the law to him. ***** Toronto Star Web Site Friday August 16, 2002 (Not published in print version of the Toronto Star) Guide dog turned away by downtown eatery - City of Toronto promises to issue summons to Le Commensal Amy Carmichael Canadian Press A blind man says he was turned away from a popular downtown restaurant today after being told by the manager his guide dog couldn't be accommodated inside, despite a 25-year-old law barring discrimination against the animals in eateries. "While we were waiting and looking at the menu, one of the staff members came over and told us we would have to leave because dogs weren't allowed in the restaurant," said Jeff Berwick, a public affairs administrator with the Ontario Medical Association. He said the manager of Le Commensal, a vegetarian restaurant that caters to people with food allergies, said he could sit with his dog on the patio but not inside. The manager, Iris Benitez, said the restaurant was too packed during the busy lunch-hour period to seat Berwick inside. "There were so many people in line, some were complaining about the dog," she said. "If it was less busy and I could have found a corner to seat him in, where somebody could control the dog, but today in specific, the restaurant was too full." Benitez said she never asked Berwick to leave, but told him that if he wanted to eat inside, he would have to wait on the patio, or simply eat there. "This is a very specific kind of restaurant for people with a special diet, I didn't know if the dog would bother them," she said. Berwick, appalled at the treatment, immediately filed a complaint with the City of Toronto and police. He said the police told him it was a by-law issue, but in fact two provincial laws, the Blind Persons Rights Act and the Ontario Human Rights code, prohibit discrimination against blind people with guide dogs. David Lepofsky, chairman of the Ontarians With Disabilities Act Committee, said Berwick's treatment by police just illustrates that a lot more education is needed. Such discrimination against the blind happens all too often, he said. "They are refused access to taxis, restaurants. There has been a law against it for 25 years in this province, yet it still goes on." "It's a cruel irony. The guide dog provides blind people with a great measure of independence and mobility, but they are refused access to public places because of it." Brad Ross, a spokesperson for the City of Toronto, said the city takes infractions to the municipal bylaw that allows guide dogs in eateries very seriously. "The licensed establishment will receive a summons to appear in court. If guilt is proven, the establishment could lose its licence." Other penalties include a fine of up to $5,000 or a licence suspension. After a seven-year battle, Lepofsky and other groups successfully lobbied the Ontario government to pass an act that will ensure access to public and private spaces to people with disabilities. It will be proclaimed into law later this fall, but he said it wouldn't have done anything to prevent what Berwick alleges happened to him. "There is nothing in it that requires places like restaurants to draft a policy outlining how to treat people with guide dogs and communicating that to their staff." He said he wants to sit down with representatives of the restaurant industry to draft a policy to ensure access for the disabled that everyone can live with. "Right now, it's a lose-lose situation. The person with the guide dog doesn't get to eat at the restaurant, their friends don't either, and the restaurant doesn't get the business." ***** Kitchener Waterloo Record July 11, 2002 Letters to the Editor Disabled are penalized Cathy Vincent-Linderoos Johanna Weidner's July 2 article, Family Fears Funding Shortfall Will End Tot's Integrated Care, provides more evidence that the Conservative government is intent upon a most appalling course. Adequate, indexed assistance to those people with disabilities, their families and organizations who require public funding is being eroded continually. This is neither an isolated situation, nor an acceptable one. The government proclaimed a brave, new vision for people with disabilities in November, rushed through a weak Ontarians with Disabilities Act 2001 in December, and 6 1/2 months later hasn't got the appetite to even proclaim all the provisions of the act "in force." Unnecessary barriers to more than 1.5 million Ontarians with disabilities, which prevent us from living life to the fullest, have taken on new and hideous dimensions. Here in London, supporters of people with cognitive disabilities had to plead their cases publicly, hoping the cash-strapped paratransit system will somehow find a way to relax its discriminatory eligibility requirements. Anticipated school board funding shortfalls necessitated that parents of students with special needs beg the local board to pass a deficit budget and spare the vulnerable. Summer school programs for developmentally disabled students were shelved. Parents with disabled children are reporting their own health and abilities to earn incomes are severely jeopardized. The ever-growing list should horrify us all. I don't see vision here. I see myopia. Something has to be done. Cathy Vincent-Linderoos a member of the Ontarians with Disabilities Act Committee, London ***** Toronto Star July 10 Disabled man crushed under bus - Library worker stumbles, falls on cobbled curb Dale Anne Freed Staff Reporter A 38-year-old disabled "computer whiz" was killed after falling under the wheels of a TTC bus yesterday. Jon Thomas Kameoka stumbled on his elbow crutches after reaching the cobble-stone curb at Hoskin Ave. and St. George St., then lost his balance, witnesses said. Kameoka was left disabled after surgery for a brain tumour as a teenager but never wanted to be a burden on society. So he lived on his own, worked as a computer technician at the University of Toronto and chose to take TTC instead of Wheel-Trans. He had gone home to get a backpack during his lunch hour and was returning to his job as adaptive technology technician at the Robarts Library, where he worked for four years, friends said. "His main focus was to be treated like everybody else," Kameoka's mother Patricia Kameoka said from her Mississauga home last night. "Instead of taking Wheel-Trans, he wanted to take TTC." "He was very independent," said Jane Kraemer, one of Kameoka's three sisters. "He came a long way from being half paralyzed," said his cousin Karin Kameoka. "After his surgery he managed to do his thing and still not be a burden on society or his parents. He was amazing," his mother said, her voice breaking. "Jon was just very proud to be doing his thing in spite of it (his disability)," she continued. "He went through such horrible circumstances at a young age. He was 18 when he developed a brain tumour which necessitated neurosurgery to remove the tumour ... that's what caused his handicap." An athlete throughout his youth and teenage years, Kameoka wanted to stay independent, to hold down a job and live on his own in Toronto, his mother said. Prior to his surgery, Kameoka played hockey, skied, and played tennis, lacrosse and baseball. His mother Patricia said she and her husband Robert were happy their son had played those sports "so he knew what it was all about." But his disability didn't stop him from leading an active life, she said. He went on to Brock University and got a B.A. in business administration with a minor in economics. Four years ago, he went on a 10-day Outward Bound trip for the disabled. "It was the best time I ever had," Kameoka wrote on a University of Toronto Web page where he posted photos of the canoe trip. "He was the most physically handicapped of the people there and yet he managed to do everything that was required. ... He enjoyed it very much because before (the surgery) when he was a teenager, that was the kind of life he would like to have led," Patricia said. Staff at the Robarts Library were overcome with grief yesterday and councillors were provided to help them talk through their distress, a staff member said. "In spite of his physical problems, his strength of character and special sense of humour got through to a lot of people," his mother said. Kameoka worked behind the library counter at the Adaptive Technology Resource Centre, looking after the computers in the workshop area, maintaining the computers on the third floor, lending technical support to the vision technology service program "and trying to fix any other problems with the computer systems before they got out of hand," as he wrote on a U of T Web page. Lucinda Martins was in a car behind the TTC bus at about 12:40 p.m. when she saw Kameoka exit and stumble as he reached the sidewalk. "I saw the poor guy. He fell on the cobblestones. He was nearly on the sidewalk but he stumbled on the cobblestones ... his crutches got entangled ... the guy's head fell right under the wheels ... it was horrible," said the 47-year-old Mississauga high school teacher. The city must "get rid" of the cobblestones, she added. "That piece on the concrete needs to be fixed. It cost a young man his life." The bus driver was not at fault, she said. "He was not rushing. He was waiting, letting passengers in and out of the bus." Fellow library worker Carol Schiavetto, 63, was getting off the bus and saw Kameoka reach the sidewalk. But when she turned away she "heard him crash to the ground, heard his crutches hit the ground." She ran to the bus driver and told him to call 911. "It was not the bus driver's fault ... the bus was stationary (when Kameoka got off)," she said. The distraught bus driver was treated by ambulance services for anxiety yesterday before giving a police statement. The accident investigation is continuing, Toronto police Sergeant Ken Trotman of traffic services said. It was the 48th traffic fatality of the year. Police had cordoned off the area while they investigated the accident and interviewed witnesses in the hot sun yesterday. "We're still in shock," his mother Patricia said. "We just saw Jon at a family reunion ... at a lake up north," added his cousin Karin. "He was mostly sitting in a chair. We talked about what he's doing, how he's feeling. "He was very optimistic. He never complained about his disability. He never said anything about his disability. We tried to treat him like everybody else," Karin said. "Sometimes he was a little harder to understand. He spoke slower and his voice wasn't as clear because his face was partially paralysed too," she said. "It was hard for him to form the words. But he was as bright as anybody else. "It must have been very frustrating for him. But he really made an effort to come as far as he did." ***** The Toronto Star Letters to the Editor Friday, July 12, 2002, p. A23 The disabled put at risk Re Disabled man crushed under bus, July 10. Being a person with a disability, I was greatly saddened and frustrated reading of Jon Thomas Kameoka's death. I and many other people with disabilities have been urging the Ontario government to make good on its 1995 promise to make access requirements law. Unfortunately, even with the December, 2001 passing of the Ontarians with Disabilities Act, the asked-for requirement for an enforceable standardization of design is still not included in law. The sidewalk that caused the accident is an example, as it was constructed after 1995. Naturally, we realize that not every accident can be avoided. But blatantly obvious design flaws, such as cobblestone sidewalks, in this day and age, must be eliminated. Unknown to most people, the recent passage of updated building codes still do not meet minimum requirements. The government's inaction contributed to the unfortunate fate that Kameoka suffered. Edward Rice Toronto

 

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Last updated October 6, 2002 6:12 pm