In the fourth review of the AODA, Rich Donovan states that Ontario will not be fully accessible by 2025. In other words, the provincial government will not meet its own deadline under the AODA. Limited creation, implementation, and enforcement of AODA standards impacts the well-being and safety of Ontarians with disabilities. Therefore, Donovan recommends that the Ontario government should declare this lack of progress on accessibility a crisis. This crisis state should last six (6) months. During this time, the Ontario government should form a crisis committee to implement crucial accessibility improvements in the province. The Premier should act as the chair of this committee, and the Secretary of Cabinet should act as co-chair. Furthermore, Donovan outlines tactical recommendations the province should follow to fulfill its remaining responsibilities in the public sector. One of these tactical recommendations is auditing of built environments in the public sector of Ontario.
Auditing of Built Environments in the Public Sector of Ontario
The review concludes that most buildings and spaces in Ontario’s public sector are not physically accessible. A previous recommendation recognizes that physical accessibility is also lacking in the private sector. However, the public sector should begin to retrofit older buildings and make other accessibility improvements, as an example to the private sector.
Recommendations
Therefore, the review recommends that each ministry of the Ontario government should audit the accessibility of built environments in its sector. The review identifies education and healthcare as the sectors most in need of these audits. Moreover, the accessibility agency should support each ministry performing audits.
Furthermore, the government should publish each audit on the public dashboard of information about disability. In this way, the government will know how much more work it must do to make the public sector physically accessible. In addition, the public can hold the government accountable for doing that work.