Accessibility News (AcNews) The Premier Online Magazine for Disability Accessibility

Accessibility News has been recognized by Backbone Magazine: Who's Who in Canadian Digital Media and Technology

Many issues of Disability and Accessibility are Universal throughout the World and AcNews will endeavour to bring them all together in this "Online Magazine" for easy referencing.

New Accessibility Standards Impact Ontario Restaurants

Posted to Site: December 3rd, 2011

have a policy on allowing people to use their own assistive devices (e.g. screen reader, cane, wheelchair, oxygen tank) to access your goods and services, your menu for example with regards to a screen reader ( Owners View a presentation www.amenu.ca/presentation ;

Canada Still Has a Way to Go in Ending Barriers for Disabled People: Advocates

Posted to Site: January 27th, 2012

TORONTO — Advocates say Canadians and their governments must take action to tear down barriers that hurt people with disabilities.

The plea came Friday with the Toronto launch of a report by the World Health Organization and the World Bank.

The World Report on Disability suggests that more than one billion people in the world today experience disability and their barriers are many.

Mental Illness Rampant, Untreated in Jails Says Union

Posted to Site: January 27th, 2012

“We’ve seen a dramatic increase in the number of inmates in jails that require mental health treatment that is simply not available to them,” Clancy said.

“There’s probably no more cruel and inhumane punishment than being incarcerated where one would require mental health treatment and not receive it.”

George Pearson Centre Is a Zombie

Posted to Site: January 27th, 2012

For sixty years, like a zombie from George Romero’s film Night of the Living Dead, the George Pearson Centre, a 126 bed nursing home for adults with disabilities in Vancouver, B.C., has eaten the freedom and dignity of British Columbians with disabilities. Despite years of promises of reform it is a prison rather than a home.

Is the Government Complying With Its New Standard on Web Accessibility?

Posted to Site: January 26th, 2012

HELP the Alliance for Equality of Blind Canadians (AEBC) FIND OUT!

On November 29, 2010 the Federal Court of Canada released a landmark decision concerning the rights of Canadians with disabilities to access government websites.

Justice Kelen declared that Donna Jodhan’s inability to access certain government websites is representative of a system wide failure by government departments and agencies to make their websites accessible, and that the
government’s failure to monitor and ensure compliance with its own accessibility standards violates the equality guarantee in the Charter.

Disabled Children Get Left Out

Posted to Site: January 25th, 2012

Published On Tue Jan 24 2012
By Carol Goar
Editorial Board

Unless you have a child with a disability in your family, you probably don’t realize how lonely these youngsters are. Some of them struggle harder with social isolation than their physical and intellectual limitations.

Read more at
http://www.accessibilitynews.ca/?p=2131

AODA Alliance Urges Pinto Human Rights Review to Give the Public More Time to Give Input Into Ontario’s Human Rights System

Posted to Site: January 24th, 2012

We Ask Human Rights Tribunal, Commission and Legal Support Centre to Disclose More About Their Operations –McGuinty Gvornment Urged to Make Public the Annual Reports of the Human Rights Legal Support Centre

Here is the latest news in our effort to ensure that people with disabilities and others who face discrimination in Ontario can effectively enforce the right to equality that the Ontario Human Rights Code guarantees to them.

Mom at Wit’s End

Posted to Site: January 23rd, 2012

By DONAL O’CONNOR STAFF REPORTER

A Stratford mother whose nine-year-old son requires immediate treatment for a number of mental-health and related behavioral

problems is wondering how her family will cope with a six-month or longer wait for a hospital bed.

Read more at
http://www.accessibilitynews.ca/?p=2125

Plan to Change Autism Definition Has Some Worried

Posted to Site: January 23rd, 2012

Autism advocates are worrying that proposed changes to the way that autism is defined could affect the way that children and adults with the condition access treatment and services.

Human Rights Tribunal to Examine City Restrictions on Group Homes

Posted to Site: January 21st, 2012

By: Paola Loriggio, The Canadian Press

TORONTO – Ontario’s human rights tribunal will weigh a challenge to Toronto’s zoning rules that experts say could affect how municipalities across the country integrate housing for people with mental illness or disabilities.

Read more at
http://www.accessibilitynews.ca/?p=2117

Providing Emergency and Public Safety Information for People With Disabilities Guide

Posted to Site: January 20th, 2012

Public safety information can help keep people safe when an emergency happens. Ontario’s Accessibility Standard for Information and Communications can help you do that by making your emergency and public safety information accessible to people with disabilities. This guide will help you.

Disabilities Report Author is Concerned that Many Kids Have 1 or No Friends

Posted to Site: January 20th, 2012

“Communities tend to have more opportunities for children in the zero-to-six, maybe zero- to eight-year-old age range, but when we’re working with children who are 18 or 21 or 24, there are many, many fewer opportunities,” she said in an interview.

“Our data suggests that the social involvement in communities declines quite sharply as the children get older.”

Disabled Man’s Death After Arrest Cannot Be Ignored, Advocates Say

Posted to Site: January 20th, 2012

Published On Thu Jan 19 2012
Jayme Poisson
Staff Reporter

A day after the province’s police watchdog called the death of Charles McGillivary a “sad set of circumstances,” advocates for those with disabilities cautioned against seeing the case as an isolated tragedy. We must learn from it, they say.

“It’s a sad set of circumstances that’s similar, unfortunately, to other similar cases where the police push things with people who have some sort of mental health issues and it ends up in the death of that person,” said Toronto lawyer Peter Rosenthal.

Read more at
http://www.accessibilitynews.ca/?p=2111

Redbox Discriminates Against the Blind By Failing to Provide Accessible Self-Service Kiosks

Posted to Site: January 18th, 2012

The technology exists to make self-service kiosks accessible to the blind. Accessible ATMs and iPhones make use of tactile controls and/or screen reading software that enables blind people to use these devices.

“A lack of accessibility in newly emerging forms of commerce is a symptom of the overall growing technological divide that blind people experience when companies fail to build in accessible features at the onset,” said Bryan Bashin, Executive Director/CEO of the Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired.

AODA: Accessible Transportation Compliance Schedule

Posted to Site: January 17th, 2012

Author: Suzanne Cohen Share

As you probably know, the Transportation Standards under the Integrated Accessibility Standards of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act will come into force over the next five years. The Ministry of Community and Social Services has released the accessible transportation compliance dates, and you can find them all at the link below.

Government of Canada Supports Accessibility for Canadians with Disabilities in Ontario

Posted to Site: January 16th, 2012

The Lions Club received $55,000 for its Building Accessibility project to create an accessible entrance, a ramp and accessible washrooms, thereby removing barriers and promoting the inclusion of people with disabilities in the community.