Description
Presenters: Jutta, Alastair McEwin
Notes
- AODA set goal of an accessible Ontario by 2025
- Tech is changing so fast that this is not a reasonable deadline, and
- Is it even possible to define what we mean by an accessible Ontario?
- Need to rethink the framework - therefore proposing the Accessibility Ecosystem
- Accessibility Ecosystem
- define the aspirations, not how you meet the aspirations
- systemic categories:
- 1 Education of accessibility at all levels and professional education systems
- 2 procurement - no government spending that introduces further barriers
- 3 participation of people with disabilities
- qualifying methods - allowable ways in which you can achieve those aspirations - in a separate body
- create an arms-length trusted authority to ensure that there are qualifying methods, as well as tools and resources
- receive proposals for innovative ways of achieving functional accessibility requirements from all parties
- most critical element - the community hub/platform - fragmented resources can be curated, critiqued - training and tools, identification of additional barriers, constructive review from public
- has a coherent place from which it can feed into trusted authority
- give the public a role rather than being passive witness
- anticipated a lot of push-back, but there has not been! (neither from tech companies nor obligated organizations)
- may be some push-back from disability community - justifiable distress about lost ground - so far, all are supportive
- who will support the trusted authority? multiple jurisdictions, possibly including the federal government
- often asking the wrong questions - e.g. looking at Uber in Australia rather than asking what about wheelchair users who can't get to the train station?
- what can we learn from the established trusted authority in Australia?
- enforcement and compliance - don't have the power
- can make recommendations, scrutinize government proposed laws, human rights investigations
- consult with members of parliament
- inquiries e.g. into employment of people with disabilities
- a voice for community concerns - not involved in individual issues
- independent of individual complaint mechanism (i.e. human rights commission)
- biggest proportion of HR complaints related to audio description
- jurisdictional oversight - CRTC in Canada - federally regulated
- manufacturer of ITC not regulated - global companies
- example - soap opera made in Austrailia (Home and Away) - viewers in UK can access audio descriptions, but those in Australia cannot
- Metrolinx - a means of coordinating across transit authorities - not an "arms length" organisation
- Government of Ontario has some control (Crown Agency)
- The various transit systems under the umbrella of Metrolinx have a say
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrolinx
- example of arms length orgs: Ontario HR commission, various environmental bodies, access board in US (although arms-lengthedness has become precarious of late)
- how do we redistribute the cost of AODA?
- shared funding across jurisdictions
- monitoring component of that compliance - reporting, monitoring/auditing, fining
- recruiting public to help with monitoring - not in the sense of lodging complaints, much more bottom-up, informal escalating to formal, using things like mapathons, or reveiew mechanisms that the public can provide to a service to say this is accessible or not, transparency of a11y reports (and to confirm or deny the reporting)
- what value are we placing on people with disabilities in everything we do?
- compare with environmental fines for polluting companies vs. services that are not accessible
- THE SHIP - is Ontario as a whole, navigating through uncertain ocean of change in global and national context
- barriers and opportunities will come up as we navigate the seas
- sails - directed by context change and innovation
- 3 components running ship:
- accessibility law is the compass showing you the way,
- trusted authority - the loop moving between TA and accessibility law - constant feedback and forward,
- community hub - provides training, resources, tools, research, guidance, innovative approaches to addressing a11y barriers
- accessibility as a process rather than a destination or product!
- the ship will sink if something moves - open to suggestions about the metaphor
- community hub modeled on our Big Idea - how do we turn Big Idea into community hub?