Danny Steeves said Ontario has fallen well short of making the province’s buildings and businesses accessible by the first of this year.
“It is frustrating because we are supposed to be living in a barrier-free society and in many ways, people think we are - but we are not,” said the midwestern Ontario accessibility advocate.
The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disability Act, signed in 2005, was supposed to ensure every Ontario building, business, goods and service was accessible to all Ontarians regardless of their ability.
The goal to achieve that was Jan. 1, 2025.
Steeves did his part. 10 years ago, Steeves and some volunteers secured 16 temporary wheelchair “StopGap” ramps for Listowel businesses to use. Some remain, but only one business put in a permanent ramp, which was Steeves’ ultimate goal.
“Unfortunately, Dairy Queen is the only business that I know of that made a permanent ramp,” said Steeves.
“It’s definitely more efficient. It was a bit of an inconvenience to notice someone needing assistance to get into the door and it made sense,” said Listowel Dairy Queen Owner/Operator Amy Hamilton.
Steeves is happy to see Dairy Queen’s progress, but finds it’s frustrating that his ramps didn’t lead to as much concrete change as he had hoped.
Julie Sawchuk, an accessibility advocate based in Huron County, said sticker shock scares many businesses away from making meaningful changes.
“A lot of people are scared about accessibility because they’re afraid about how much it is going to cost. They’re afraid of doing it wrong, saying the wrong thing. But if you can kind of let go of that fear and just get curious about, you know, my space. How can I make my space better for my clients or my customers? Are my services that I’m providing as accessible as possible?” said Sawchuk.
Accessibility improvements don’t actually have to be costly, said Sawchuk.
“It could be something really simple, like putting a sign in the window that has the business phone number and says, ‘We do curbside pickup,’ for example. Right. We learned during COVID that we can actually do curbside pickup and that’s a really helpful thing for people with disabilities who can’t get into the building because of the infrastructure or because there’s three feet of snow out front,” said Sawchuk.
Steeves said he’d still love to see ramps and other accessibility improvements available everywhere he goes. It’s what was supposed to happen by the beginning of this year.
“It really means having access for everyone. Regardless of their ability,” said Steeves.
