ODA Action Tip ONTARIANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT COMMITTEE ACTION TIP May 26, 2002 Send New Citizenship Minister Carl Defaria Your Feedback And Ideas On Selection Of Membership For The Provincial Disability Advisory Committee

Here's a great way to help on the ODA front. The Ontario Government has already appointed five members to the provincial Disability Accessibility Advisory Council. It also plans to appoint more members to complete the Council. The Government has not announced when it will make these appointments. We have received feedback from a number of ODA Committee supporters expressing concern about the fact that the Government's first five appointments to this Council include no women, and include only people with mobility or visual disabilities. The Government had said that its criteria for selecting people to appoint to this Council would include, among other things, gender and a range of different disabilities. We encourage you to now email the new Citizenship Minister, the Honourable Carl DeFaria at: carl_defaria@ontla.ola.org Give him your feedback on his appointment process. Let him know your thoughts on how he should go about making the rest of his appointments. You might want, for example, to comment to him on: * Ensuring equitable reprsentation of both sexes; * Ensuring a wide range of different physical, mental and sensory disabilities, including both visible and invisible disabilities; * Ensuring that that the people appointed to this Council are committed to mandatory removal and prevention of barriers in all sectors, including, for example, through making strong and effective regulations under the Ontarians with Disabilities Act 2001; * Ensuring that the disability community has a say in who the Government selects to appoint to this Council from among those who have applied or been nominated; * Ensuring that the rest of this Council is appointed as soon as possible, since the Government has been dealing with the selection of this Council for over five months; * Ensuring that the deliberations and recommendations to the Government by this Council are all open to the public, including the disability community. Get others to send in their feedback to the Minister too. Let us know what response you get. As always, you can contact us at: oda@odacommittee.net

 

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Last updated May 27, 2002