By Stephen Pate, PEI Disability Alert, Charlottetown, PEI, Canada, February 5, 2009Accessible entrance and exit doors are required to have an approved power opener with buttons placed inside and outside the door. Only one of the 4 exit doors has an electronic opener with buttons. That door is inaccessible with a 50mm drop after the aluminum threshold.
Ed – this report was sent to the PEI and other media and our contacts at UPEI 10 minutes ago.
These are just two incidents that we investigated at random on the University campus. UPEI management refuses to discuss any disability issues with us so we took them to the City of Charlottetown, Planning Department who ignored our warnings.
Don Poole, City Planning Manager, claims that the new McDougall building was inspected and meets all City of Charlottetown by-laws. On December 8, 2008 City Solicitor David Hooley agreed after repeated correspondence to promptly investigate and reply. No reply has been received.
We were disturbed to find the only door that was level with the ground locked when we revisited the university this week. While the walk was shoveled, a sign pointed a disabled person to the door at the opposite end of the building.
We also reported the matter informally to David Blacquiere, the Provincial Fire Marshall, early in January 2009.
Yesterday we spoke to Fred Hyndman, Chairperson of the UPEI Board of Governors. Hyndman became incensed and claimed we were either hiding the fire and safety issues or merely making trouble. Considering Hyndman’s negative claims made over the phone, we felt it best to release the information to the public and press.
We spoke to three board members including Hyndman yesterday. Tom Cullen and Joseph Revell, chair of the property committee refused to accept any information from us. They claimed it was not protocol to talk to the public.
Chairperson Hyndman refused to meet with us and referred us to management. We sent another letter to UPEI Vice President Gary Bradshaw requesting a meeting.
Since The Guardian reported in July 2008 that UPEI was removing inner campus, accessible parking we have been advocating for UPEI to address disability issues on campus. President Wade MacLauchlan said we were misrepresenting the situation and refuses to discuss it.
Access to education is an important part of developing independence in the disability community. Every person with a disability who does not receive an education can potentially become a cost to the taxpayers of PEI. They will in all likelihood remain unemployed for their lifetime which is a tremendous cost to society when they could be productively working.
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