ODA Committee Update
October 15, 2002

ONTARIANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT COMMITTEE UPDATE ODA Committee asked to provide input to government consultant on how to evaluate the effectiveness of the ODA 2001 October 15, 2002 SUMMARY The Ontario Government has retained a private consulting firm to design a process for evaluating the effectiveness of the ODA 2001. The ODA 2001 requires the Government to review the effectiveness of this legislation within five years. The private consultant has asked for input from the ODA Committee. The ODA Committee here gives some ideas of possible feedback we could give, and seeks your input on what we should tell the private consultant. A CLOSER LOOK Section 22 of the Ontarians with Disabilities Act 2001 requires that a review of the legislation be conducted within five years of the date of its proclamation (i.e. by September 30, 2007). To support this requirement and the effective implementation of the legislation, the Citizenship Ministry has acquired the services of Cathexis Consulting Inc. to develop an evaluation framework for the ODA 2001. The Cathexis team includes Martha McGuire (President), Rochelle Zori and Burt Perrin, all of whom have substantial experience in program evaluation and research to promote improved accessibility for persons with disabilities. We are very pleased to see that the Government is taking steps now to plan for the evaluation which it will be required to conduct. We also are pleased that the Government's consultant has sought our input. Here are the questions which the consultant has provided to us. We also set out below some possible answers to these questions, which the ODA Committee might give. We would appreciate your feedback on this, preferably by Friday October 18, 2002. Please email your feedback to: oda@odacommittee.net We will do our best to incorporate the feedback we have received in discussions with the Government's consultant. ***** Questions for Stakeholders 1. What is your understanding of the purpose of the Ontarians with Disabilities Act? Proposed ODA Committee Answer: The Government made 13 detailed promises in the fall of 2001 on what the ODA would achieve. We See fulfilment of all of these commitments as part of the ODA's purposes. These are posted at: http://www.odacommittee.net/13_Commitments.html While the specifics of all these commitments are important, we can summarize them as follows: Ontario will become barrier-free for persons with disabilities as soon as reasonably possible, far ahead of the U.S., at a point in time which the disability community will determine. This will make Ontario Canada's most inclusive province, with the ODA 2001 a key measure to achieve this. No new barriers will be created against persons with disabilities. Created under the ODA 2001 will be regulations imposing mandatory requirements, covering all sectors including the private sector. Ontario's disability community will be in the driver's seat, and the forefront of change, playing a pivotal role in setting standards under the ODA 2001. The Government will enforce compliance with the ODA 2001, will take on a leadership role and will set high standards. Specific accessibility results will be achieved in the Government, the broader public sector (e.g. schools, universities, colleges and hospitals), municipalities and the private sector. These will include e.g. improved and more accessible services and opportunities in all sectors, significant improvement in community accessibility, enhanced access to schools, hospitals, colleges and universities, greater ease in moving around communities safely, significantly enhanced ability to participate in community life, greater accessibility in the private sector, and increased retail job opportunities for persons with disabilities. 2. What are some of your hopes and concerns regarding the legislation and its implementation? We hope that the legislation will achieve all the things the Government promised. We are concerned that the final legislation was itself very disappointing to many, and did not include many of the ingredients that the ODA Committee and the broader disability community recommended. We are also concerned that 10 months after this legislation was passed, the Government has not appointed all the members to the provincial accessibility council, and that no consultations have been commenced to develop standards and enforcement mechanisms which the Government promised to enact under the ODA 2001. 3. What type of role do you feel is appropriate for your organization in the conducting of an evaluation of the legislation and the implementation strategy? The ODA Committee is eager to play a central role in these activities in these ways: (a) We wish to be directly consulted as a coalition, being the broad-based, province-wide, grassroots organization that led the charge for this legislation; (b) We wish to play a role in helping facilitate the gathering of input from the broader disability community, so that the broader disability community can voice its views directly to the Government; (c) We wish to see the results of this evaluation process as they are gathered and analyzed. 4. What could the Accessibility Directorate do to assist your organization in participating in the evaluation? The Accessibility Directorate could link its website to the ODA Committee's website, and include direct reference to the ODA Committee in all its ODA implementation materials as a helpful resource for the broader disability community and other stakeholders. The Accessibility Directorate could post information on its website on recommendations it has made to various organizations on steps to become barrier-free and information it obtains on whether this advice is acted upon. The Accessibility Directorate could be sure to obtain copies of all accessibility plans and policies made by any organization under the ODA 2001, and could make this information available in accessible form e.g. on its website. The Accessibility Directorate in conjunction with the Accessibility Council could conduct public consultations in this context across Ontario to enable all to have a chance for direct input. 5. What do you see as some of the challenges in evaluating the legislation and its strategy? How might those challenges be addressed? The most important feature in evaluating this legislation is tracking what actual removal and prevention of barriers occurs in the public and private sectors over the next years. If opportunities to remove and prevent barriers are missed, it will be critical to track why this happened. For example, it will be important to track whether organizations include in their accessibility plans all the barriers that persons with disabilities bring to their attention, and to track whether organizations actually take the steps that they set out in their accessibility plans. In the end, the measure of the success or failure of this legislation will be the extent to which Ontarians with disabilities can fully participate in all that Ontario has to offer, including employment and the enjoyment of goods, services and facilities. 6. Is there anything that we have not covered that you believe is important to consider in designing the evaluation? It is very important that the evaluation not focus on bureaucratic measures ie. how many plans are made, or how many policies are adopted. Rather, the important question is whether barriers are being removed and prevented as soon as reasonably possible.

 

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Last updated November 8, 2002 7:02 pm