By Bob Montgomery
October 11, 2018
The Vice Chair of the Huron County Accessibility Advisory Committee says the committee is one of the few in Ontario that actually gets involved in the community.
Speaking at an Accessibility event Wednesday in Clinton, Debbie Kerley pointed out they do site evaluations on a regular basis, strictly in an advisory role; look at their building plans; and if they’re doing renovations to an older building, they send them a report and recommend what they should do for best practice to make their place accessible.
“A lot of people think a lot of it is just a mobility issue when it comes to a physical disability, but there’s lots of unseen abilities too like the hearing impaired, sight impaired and there’s just other kinds of disabilities out there that people don’t see on a daily basis or don’t recognize.”
Kerley adds legislation now requires the province to be completely accessible by 2025 and says the situation has improved considerably but there’s still a lot of work to be done.
Another presenter at the Clinton session was Louie DiPalma, Vice-President with the Ontario Chamber of Commerce.
“We at the Chamber have been involved in providing awareness presentations to businesses and organizations across Ontario for probably the last seven years, talking about the business case for hiring persons with disabilities. We’ve been trying to dispel some of the myths regarding hiring persons with disabilities and it’s really resonating.”
Wednesday’s event was hosted by the Chamber of Commerce.