From My Bottom Step

The Ontarians With Disabilities Act 2001 requires every municipality to have an Accessibility Committee. It further requires every city to create an accessibility plan for each new year, and to consult with it’s Accessibility Committee about that plan.

London’s 2009 plan was presented to the Community and Protective Services Committee on Monday (click HERE to listen).

London’s Accessibility Committee appears to be taking a long-term approach. Whether that’s because it’s constrained by resources or for some other reason, I don’t know. But in any event, the committee is approaching accessibility planning by focusing on a single main theme each year:

• 2008 - Decent Work for People with Disabilities
• 2009 - Public Health
• 2010 - Innovation

2009’s Public Health theme consists of the following 5 priorities and their components:

• Education and Awareness
  • Create a system to effectively post, update and evaluate the Accessible Advisory Committee’s website
  • Promote accessibility to the city at large and to city staff and elected officials.
• Facilities
  • Educational presentations on accessibility and universal design into educational institutions, University of Western Ontario and Fanshawe College.
• Non-Visible Disabilities
  • Partner with the local academic esablishment to design a survey to identify municipal barriers for those with non-visible disabilities.
  • Survey service providers and business community members to identify barriers they face in serving those with non-visible disabilities.
• Policy and Development
  • Work with the city and the community with respect to AODA standards.
  • Ensure that the Accessible Advisory Committee is aware of all AODA standards.
• Transportation
  • Continue to collaboratively work with the London Transportation Commission (LTC), the Environment and Transportation Committee (ETC) and the Community and Protective Services Committee (CPSC) related to the AODA Transportation Standard.

This is simply a very simple outline of what the document contains. It will be available on the city’s website and at branches of the London Public Library, and I encourage everybody to acquire a copy and review it. Because whether you are personally disabled or not, our community will undergo some fundamental and positive changes in the coming years because of the evolving disability legislation. Changes that I think are long overdue.