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ODA Committee Update
October 1, 2002


ODA Continues Getting Media Coverage Over Summer And Early Fall

SUMMARY

Even while the Legislature was not sitting, and while many were enjoying their holidays over the summer, the campaign for a barrier-free Ontario through the ODA continued to secure media attention. That media attention continues, even more so now that the Legislature is back in session. Here are six examples, set out in full below. You will see in some of these articles how ODA supporters are effectively linking the ODA issues to particular barriers in their communities e.g. through letters to the editor.

* The Toronto Star on Tuesday October 1, 2002 reported on a newly-renovated pizza restaurant in Toronto, which remained inaccessible to persons with disabilities even after the renovation. An event involving persons with disabilities focused attention on the fact that the newly-proclaimed Ontarians with Disabilities Act 2001 does not redress this.

* A letter to the editor in the Saturday, September 28, 2002 London Free Press from ODA supporter Kathy Lewis, links the inadequate funding for children with particular needs to the need for a strong and effective Ontarians with Disabilities Act.

* The Toronto Star, Friday September 27, 2002 reported on Paralympian Jeff Adam's climbing the steps up Toronto's CN Tower in his wheelchair. Noting that Adams is vice-chair of the Ontario Government-appointed Accessibility Advisory Council, the article stated:

"Adams will donate the money raised from his climb to school outreach
programs that educate children about the importance of a barrier-free
society. He also hopes to pressure Queen's Park to pass tougher disability
legislation. Last December, the provincial government passed the Ontarians
with Disabilities Act, but the legislation does not set province-wide
accessibility standards.

"It was a watered-down version of earlier drafts and does nothing to
address the real barriers faced by disabled people," Adams said during a
news conference yesterday. ... In the U.S., the American Disability Act
requires Braille menus, lower counters and larger washroom stalls to
accommodate people with various disabilities.

Abbas Qureshi, 25, said watching Adams succeed at his climb was an
inspiration. "Hopefully this event will force the government to pass a law
that will actually make a difference for someone like myself," Qureshi
said."

A subsequent item in the Toronto Star on October 1, 2002 reports that the
Toronto Star in error attributed this quotation to Jeff Adams and reports
that Mr. Adams "generally supports the 2001 Ontarians with Disabilities
Act."

* An article on the Toronto Star's website published on August 16, 2002
reported an incident where a blind person, acommpanied by a guide dog, was
refused access to a Toronto restaurant. The article also stated:

"David Lepofsky, chairman of the Ontarians With Disabilities Act Committee,
said Berwick's treatment by police just illustrates that a lot more
education is needed.

Such discrimination against the blind happens all too often, he said.

"They are refused access to taxis, restaurants. There has been a law
against it for 25 years in this province, yet it still goes on."

"It's a cruel irony. The guide dog provides blind people with a great
measure of independence and mobility, but they are refused access to public
places because of it."

...

After a seven-year battle, Lepofsky and other groups successfully lobbied
the Ontario government to pass an act that will ensure access to public and
private spaces to people with disabilities.

It will be proclaimed into law later this fall, but he said it wouldn't
have done anything to prevent what Berwick alleges happened to him.

"There is nothing in it that requires places like restaurants to draft a
policy outlining how to treat people with guide dogs and communicating that
to their staff."

He said he wants to sit down with representatives of the restaurant
industry to draft a policy to ensure access for the disabled that everyone
can live with.

"Right now, it's a lose-lose situation. The person with the guide dog
doesn't get to eat at the restaurant, their friends don't either, and the
restaurant doesn't get the business."

* The July 11, 2002 Kitchener Waterloo Record includes a letter to the
editor from London ODA Committee activist and regional contact Cathy
Vincent Linderoos, linking the ODA issue to the need for better provincial
funding and assistance for persons with disabilities.

* The July 10, 2002 Toronto Star reported the horrific tragedy of a person
with a disability being crushed to death under a bus, after his crutches
got caught on a cobblestone curb. The July 12, 2002 Toronto Star included a
letter to the editor by active ODA supporter Eddie Rice, expressed the need
for better provincial accessibility legislation to prevent such barriers
and their tragic results. Also below is the Toronto Star's July 10, 2002
article about this tragic fatality itself.

*****

The Toronto Star
Tuesday, October 1, 2002, p. B03
Disabilities law slammed
New act doesn't force firms to provide access, critics charge Betsy Powell
Toronto Sta
r

Three 15-centimetre-high concrete steps leading to the entrances of a
recently opened Pizza Pizza highlight the shortcomings of the province's
new Ontarians with Disabilities Act, say critics of the bill who gathered
yesterday outside the Cabbagetown outlet.

The building, at the corner of Parliament and Prospect Sts., south of
Wellesley St., features an outdoor seating area and four parking spots. But
access to the restaurant is not designed for wheelchairs, George
Smitherman, Liberal MPP for Toronto Centre-Rosedale, told a crowd of
onlookers, including several people in wheelchairs.

"Our estimate is that for something like 2 per cent of the budget that they
spent making this store so big and open and beautiful, they could have also
made it accessible."

What's even sadder, added Ernie Parsons, Liberal critic for persons with
disabilities, is "they (Pizza Pizza) didn't break any law even though the
bill is finally proclaimed today. There's no requirement in the bill that
is applied to private business."

The Ontarians with Disabilities Act, the final sections of which were
proclaimed into law yesterday, spells out accessibility requirements for
government offices and other public sector organizations such as public
transit, school boards, hospitals, colleges and universities. Passed last
December, the law also requires municipalities with 10,000 or more people
to establish municipal accessibility advisory committees that will develop
annual accessibility plans.

But critics say the legislation doesn't go far enough because it does not
force the majority of restaurants, banks, grocery stores, doctors' offices
and pharmacies to make themselves accessible to everyone. While the Ontario
Human Rights Code says that every citizen has an equal right to access
public places, individuals must launch an official complaint, which can
take years to work through the system. Silvia Marques, of the Hugh Garner
Housing Co-op's barrier-free working group, likened the exclusion to
segregation.

"We know the history of racism and classicism around who could go where and
who could not go where," she said. "There isn't a sign that says 'No dogs
or wheelchairs here' (but) the barrier says you're not welcome." Many
private companies elect to do nothing, said Smitherman, because "the law
does not force us to it and therefore we will not." He called on Pizza
Pizza, Ontario's largest pizza chain, and other businesses to comply
"because it is the right just and moral thing to do." A man in the crowd
demanded to know why Smitherman and the disability advocates were singling
out Pizza Pizza.

"This is not an attack on Pizza Pizza per se," said Terry Trafford, also a
member of the co-op's barrier-free working group. "This is an attack on big
business in general. We don't have a voice. Our rights are being stomped
on. The human rights code is being ignored, without question."

An official with Pizza Pizza said the company had no comment.

Ontario Citizenship Minister Carl DeFaria said the bill gives
municipalities the power to require a business be accessible to people with
disabilities as a condition for obtaining or renewing a licence. He said
the government will continue to work with hotels and restaurants to set up
guidelines the industry will adopt.

*****

London Free Press
Saturday, Sept. 28, 2002
Letters to the Editor
Incident reveals need for disability act

It is not only those of us with children struggling with learning
disabilities who should be alarmed by the current cutbacks that have
eviscerated the special education programs these students need so badly.

The article, Violence linked to school cutbacks (Sept. 24), from North Bay,
which reported the attack of one special needs student by another, because
of a lack of classrooms for those with behavioural disabilities, is another
reminder of the urgent need for a strong Ontarians with Disabilities Act to
be implemented.

The provincial government must consult publicly to develop standards and
enact regulations for the ODA 2001 to be strong and effective.

Without the ODA promised us, we continue to risk the safety and development
of young persons -- with and without disabilities -- who share integrated
classrooms.

Lack of trained teachers and a range of special programs for students with
disabilities represent unnecessary barriers which impede the present, but
also future well-being of all students. Let's see the province put a high
priority on the education of special children for the benefit of all.

Kathy Lewis
Ontarians with Disabilities Act committee member,
London

*****

The Toronto Star
Friday, September 27, 2002, p. A03
Athlete tower of power climbs 1,776 steps
Sonia Verma
Toronto Star

When Jeff Adams emerged, flush-faced and still sweating from his climb to
the top of the stairwell at the CN Tower, the crowd was already clapping.
"We surprised ourselves today. It was a lot easier than we thought it would
be" Adams, 31, told those gathered on the tower's look-out level yesterday
afternoon.

Adams climbed 1,776 steps in a specially designed wheelchair to raise
awareness about the barriers faced by people with disabilities. The climb
took Adams about five hours to complete, in a chair built with wheels that
roll in only one direction.

"The hardest part for me was pacing myself. When we got to the halfway mark
I had to slow myself down because we were way ahead of schedule," he said.

When Adams was 9 he was diagnosed with transverse myelitis, a rare virus
that caused his spine to swell, choking off the supply of nerve fibres to
his lower limbs. The disease was swift and the damage was permanent. Adams
lost all feeling in his legs and would be in a wheelchair for the rest of
his life.

Rita Adams, Jeff's mother, recalls how her son coped with his disability.
"He was always a very determined kid and now here he was facing the hardest
thing he'd ever faced. It was like fuel to a fire. He became even more
determined," she said.

She can list her son's accomplishments in a single breath: two-time
Olympian, four-time Paralympian, six-time World Champion and at one time a
world record holder in the 1500- metre men's wheelchair event. He was
appointed vice-chair to the new Accessibility Advisory Council of Ontario
and also chaired the accessibility committee for the Toronto 2008 Olympic
Bid.

"Sports has given me so much and this was my way of giving something back,"
Adams said after his climb.

Rita Adams worries when Jeff competes because of the outside chance he
might lose to another athlete. Yesterday she wasn't nervous. "We weren't
worried for a moment that he would fail. His only competition today was his
own will," she said.

Adams will donate the money raised from his climb to school outreach
programs that educate children about the importance of a barrier-free
society. He also hopes to pressure Queen's Park to pass tougher disability
legislation.

Last December, the provincial government passed the Ontarians with
Disabilities Act, but the legislation does not set province-wide
accessibility standards.

"It was a watered-down version of earlier drafts and does nothing to
address the real barriers faced by disabled people," Adams said during a
news conference yesterday.

A few years ago, Adams was asked to leave a downtown bar because his
wheelchair was deemed a "fire hazard." Yesterday, others who had come to
support Adams spoke of similar experiences.

Joe Slaski, a 35-year-old music producer from Syracuse, N.Y., was in
Toronto in June for the NXNE music festival. At a downtown club, bouncers
refused to carry his wheelchair up the stairs.

"The owner said none of his employees would assist me and I got really
upset. The fact is that never would have happened in the U.S. and I was
quite shocked," Slaski said.

In the U.S., the American Disability Act requires Braille menus, lower
counters and larger washroom stalls to accommodate people with various
disabilities.

Abbas Qureshi, 25, said watching Adams succeed at his climb was an
inspiration. "Hopefully this event will force the government to pass a law
that will actually make a difference for someone like myself," Qureshi
said.

*****

The Toronto Star
Tuesday, October 1, 2002, p. A02
Adams backs Ontario disabilities law

Jeff Adams, vice-chair of the Accessibility Advisory Council of Ontario,
generally supports the 2001 Ontarians with Disabilities Act. A story on
Friday about Adams climbing the CN Tower in a wheelchair to raise public
awareness of disability issues wrongly attributed a critical remark about
the law to him.

*****

Toronto Star Web Site
Friday August 16, 2002

(Not published in print version of the Toronto Star)
Guide dog turned away by downtown eatery - City of Toronto promises to
issue summons to Le Commensal
Amy Carmichael
Canadian Press

A blind man says he was turned away from a popular downtown restaurant
today after being told by the manager his guide dog couldn't be
accommodated inside, despite a 25-year-old law barring discrimination
against the animals in eateries.

"While we were waiting and looking at the menu, one of the staff members
came over and told us we would have to leave because dogs weren't allowed
in the restaurant," said Jeff Berwick, a public affairs administrator with
the Ontario Medical Association.

He said the manager of Le Commensal, a vegetarian restaurant that caters to
people with food allergies, said he could sit with his dog on the patio but
not inside.

The manager, Iris Benitez, said the restaurant was too packed during the
busy lunch-hour period to seat Berwick inside.

"There were so many people in line, some were complaining about the dog,"
she said.

"If it was less busy and I could have found a corner to seat him in, where
somebody could control the dog, but today in specific, the restaurant was
too full."

Benitez said she never asked Berwick to leave, but told him that if he
wanted to eat inside, he would have to wait on the patio, or simply eat
there.

"This is a very specific kind of restaurant for people with a special diet,
I didn't know if the dog would bother them," she said.

Berwick, appalled at the treatment, immediately filed a complaint with the
City of Toronto and police.

He said the police told him it was a by-law issue, but in fact two
provincial laws, the Blind Persons Rights Act and the Ontario Human Rights
code, prohibit discrimination against blind people with guide dogs.

David Lepofsky, chairman of the Ontarians With Disabilities Act Committee,
said Berwick's treatment by police just illustrates that a lot more
education is needed.

Such discrimination against the blind happens all too often, he said.

"They are refused access to taxis, restaurants. There has been a law
against it for 25 years in this province, yet it still goes on."

"It's a cruel irony. The guide dog provides blind people with a great
measure of independence and mobility, but they are refused access to public
places because of it."

Brad Ross, a spokesperson for the City of Toronto, said the city takes
infractions to the municipal bylaw that allows guide dogs in eateries very
seriously.

"The licensed establishment will receive a summons to appear in court. If
guilt is proven, the establishment could lose its licence."

Other penalties include a fine of up to $5,000 or a licence suspension.

After a seven-year battle, Lepofsky and other groups successfully lobbied
the Ontario government to pass an act that will ensure access to public and
private spaces to people with disabilities.

It will be proclaimed into law later this fall, but he said it wouldn't
have done anything to prevent what Berwick alleges happened to him.

"There is nothing in it that requires places like restaurants to draft a
policy outlining how to treat people with guide dogs and communicating that
to their staff."

He said he wants to sit down with representatives of the restaurant
industry to draft a policy to ensure access for the disabled that everyone
can live with.

"Right now, it's a lose-lose situation. The person with the guide dog
doesn't get to eat at the restaurant, their friends don't either, and the
restaurant doesn't get the business."

*****

Kitchener Waterloo Record
July 11, 2002
Letters to the Editor

Disabled are penalized
Cathy Vincent-Linderoos

Johanna Weidner's July 2 article, Family Fears Funding Shortfall Will End
Tot's Integrated Care, provides more evidence that the Conservative
government is intent upon a most appalling course.

Adequate, indexed assistance to those people with disabilities, their
families and organizations who require public funding is being eroded
continually.

This is neither an isolated situation, nor an acceptable one.

The government proclaimed a brave, new vision for people with disabilities
in November, rushed through a weak Ontarians with Disabilities Act 2001 in
December, and 6 1/2 months later hasn't got the appetite to even proclaim
all the provisions of the act "in force."

Unnecessary barriers to more than 1.5 million Ontarians with disabilities,
which prevent us from living life to the fullest, have taken on new and
hideous dimensions.

Here in London, supporters of people with cognitive disabilities had to
plead their cases publicly, hoping the cash-strapped paratransit system
will somehow find a way to relax its discriminatory eligibility
requirements.

Anticipated school board funding shortfalls necessitated that parents of
students with special needs beg the local board to pass a deficit budget
and spare the vulnerable. Summer school programs for developmentally
disabled students were shelved.

Parents with disabled children are reporting their own health and abilities
to earn incomes are severely jeopardized. The ever-growing list should
horrify us all.

I don't see vision here. I see myopia. Something has to be done.

Cathy Vincent-Linderoos
a member of the Ontarians with Disabilities Act Committee, London

*****

Toronto Star July 10

Disabled man crushed under bus - Library worker stumbles, falls on cobbled
curb
Dale Anne Freed
Staff Reporter

A 38-year-old disabled "computer whiz" was killed after falling under the
wheels of a TTC bus yesterday. Jon Thomas Kameoka stumbled on his elbow
crutches after reaching the cobble-stone curb at Hoskin Ave. and St. George
St., then lost his balance, witnesses said.

Kameoka was left disabled after surgery for a brain tumour as a teenager
but never wanted to be a burden on society.

So he lived on his own, worked as a computer technician at the University
of Toronto and chose to take TTC instead of Wheel-Trans.

He had gone home to get a backpack during his lunch hour and was returning
to his job as adaptive technology technician at the Robarts Library, where
he worked for four years, friends said.

"His main focus was to be treated like everybody else," Kameoka's mother
Patricia Kameoka said from her Mississauga home last night. "Instead of
taking Wheel-Trans, he wanted to take TTC."

"He was very independent," said Jane Kraemer, one of Kameoka's three
sisters.

"He came a long way from being half paralyzed," said his cousin Karin
Kameoka.

"After his surgery he managed to do his thing and still not be a burden on
society or his parents. He was amazing," his mother said, her voice
breaking.

"Jon was just very proud to be doing his thing in spite of it (his
disability)," she continued. "He went through such horrible circumstances
at a young age. He was 18 when he developed a brain tumour which
necessitated neurosurgery to remove the tumour ... that's what caused his
handicap."

An athlete throughout his youth and teenage years, Kameoka wanted to stay
independent, to hold down a job and live on his own in Toronto, his mother
said.

Prior to his surgery, Kameoka played hockey, skied, and played tennis,
lacrosse and baseball.

His mother Patricia said she and her husband Robert were happy their son
had played those sports "so he knew what it was all about."

But his disability didn't stop him from leading an active life, she said.

He went on to Brock University and got a B.A. in business administration
with a minor in economics.

Four years ago, he went on a 10-day Outward Bound trip for the disabled.
"It was the best time I ever had," Kameoka wrote on a University of Toronto
Web page where he posted photos of the canoe trip.

"He was the most physically handicapped of the people there and yet he
managed to do everything that was required. ... He enjoyed it very much
because before (the surgery) when he was a teenager, that was the kind of
life he would like to have led," Patricia said.

Staff at the Robarts Library were overcome with grief yesterday and
councillors were provided to help them talk through their distress, a staff
member said. "In spite of his physical problems, his strength of character
and special sense of humour got through to a lot of people," his mother
said.

Kameoka worked behind the library counter at the Adaptive Technology
Resource Centre, looking after the computers in the workshop area,
maintaining the computers on the third floor, lending technical support to
the vision technology service program "and trying to fix any other problems
with the computer systems before they got out of hand," as he wrote on a U
of T Web page.

Lucinda Martins was in a car behind the TTC bus at about 12:40 p.m. when
she saw Kameoka exit and stumble as he reached the sidewalk.

"I saw the poor guy. He fell on the cobblestones. He was nearly on the
sidewalk but he stumbled on the cobblestones ... his crutches got entangled
... the guy's head fell right under the wheels ... it was horrible," said
the 47-year-old Mississauga high school teacher.

The city must "get rid" of the cobblestones, she added.

"That piece on the concrete needs to be fixed. It cost a young man his
life."

The bus driver was not at fault, she said. "He was not rushing. He was
waiting, letting passengers in and out of the bus."

Fellow library worker Carol Schiavetto, 63, was getting off the bus and saw
Kameoka reach the sidewalk. But when she turned away she "heard him crash
to the ground, heard his crutches hit the ground."

She ran to the bus driver and told him to call 911.

"It was not the bus driver's fault ... the bus was stationary (when Kameoka
got off)," she said.

The distraught bus driver was treated by ambulance services for anxiety
yesterday before giving a police statement.

The accident investigation is continuing, Toronto police Sergeant Ken
Trotman of traffic services said. It was the 48th traffic fatality of the
year.

Police had cordoned off the area while they investigated the accident and
interviewed witnesses in the hot sun yesterday.

"We're still in shock," his mother Patricia said.

"We just saw Jon at a family reunion ... at a lake up north," added his
cousin Karin. "He was mostly sitting in a chair. We talked about what he's
doing, how he's feeling.

"He was very optimistic. He never complained about his disability. He never
said anything about his disability. We tried to treat him like everybody
else," Karin said.

"Sometimes he was a little harder to understand. He spoke slower and his
voice wasn't as clear because his face was partially paralysed too," she
said.

"It was hard for him to form the words. But he was as bright as anybody
else.

"It must have been very frustrating for him. But he really made an effort
to come as far as he did."

*****

The Toronto Star
Letters to the Editor
Friday, July 12, 2002, p. A23

The disabled put at risk
Re Disabled man crushed under bus, July 10.

Being a person with a disability, I was greatly saddened and frustrated
reading of Jon Thomas Kameoka's death.

I and many other people with disabilities have been urging the Ontario
government to make good on its 1995 promise to make access requirements
law.

Unfortunately, even with the December, 2001 passing of the Ontarians with
Disabilities Act, the asked-for requirement for an enforceable
standardization of design is still not included in law.

The sidewalk that caused the accident is an example, as it was constructed
after 1995. Naturally, we realize that not every accident can be avoided.
But blatantly obvious design flaws, such as cobblestone sidewalks, in this
day and age, must be eliminated.

Unknown to most people, the recent passage of updated building codes still
do not meet minimum requirements.

The government's inaction contributed to the unfortunate fate that Kameoka
suffered.

Edward Rice
Toronto

 


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