Province wrong to make only new buildings accessible: disability group

Liberal Minister of Social Services Madeleine Meilleur, stay home in your wheelchair

Should retrofit old ones, too

Last Updated: Friday, July 17, 2009 | 5:30 PM ET CBC News

An advocacy group for people with disabilities says that the Ontario government is ignoring an important piece of legislation that was supposed to make the province’s buildings more accessible.

This week, the provincial government put forward standards that would make new buildings more accessible to people with disabilities.

But representatives from some advocacy groups say the concept behind the legislation was meant to also include older buildings.

Barry McMahon, who is from Ottawa, sits on an advisory group that offered suggestions to the province when the legislation was being drafted.

“I’m absolutely outraged,” he said. “The small barriers in Ontario are so easy to eliminate, and yet, there’s been no emphasis in this standard to address that. It’s completely left out. We feel deceived.”

McMahon has driven his motorized wheelchair to an Ottawa bakery to buy rye bread for 20 years – only, he doesn’t go inside to make the purchase.

His wife has to do that.

“There is no way I can get in. There’s an 8-inch step,” said McMahon.

“It would be so easy to put a ramp in and a door opener.”

These barriers are the reason McMahon volunteered to sit on the provincial advisory committee.

But now, he said he’s upset that the proposed standards won’t require owners of existing office buildings or stores to retrofit.

“By being accessible, it doesn’t mean that you are just concerned with the new construction in the future. You have to get rid of the existing barriers,” he said.

The Canadian Paraplegic Association and the Multiple Sclerosis Society agree that older buildings should be included in the new rules.

But Pamela Cluff, a member of the advisory committee and a representative for Ontario architects, said mandatory retrofitting it simply too expensive.

“I think we can get the new buildings on line faster than we can get retrofit on line because of the financing,” she said.

The province plans to deal with the issue of retrofits at a later date, according to Social Services Minister Madeleine Meilleur, MP for Ottawa-Vanier.