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In this Issue
1) Message Board
2)Articles
*Join Our Call for Strong New Accessibility Standards – and Distribute Our New Leaflet!
*Accessibility Woes
*Your PDF’s are like Rolls of Toilet Paper!
*In Their Own Voices
*Regina Mom Pushes for Accessible Playground
*Full ccessibility in Kerr Hall ‘Just Impossible’
*AODA Alliance Asks McGuinty Government to Report on its Efforts on Unkept 2007 Election Promises
*Private Member’s Bill Aims to Better Protect Service Animals and Police Dogs
*Seeking Your Opinion Regarding APS Street Identification Messages and Other APS Features
*Diane Finley Responsible for Disability Has Inaccessible Office
*AODA Alliance Calls on Elections Ontario to Provide Internet and Telephone Voting and More Than One Accessible Voting Machine Per Riding in the October
2011 Ontario Election
*Mall cop tries to eject boy’s service dog
*Children with autism in Ontario face an uphill battle when seeking provincially funded treatment, reports Pauline Tam
3) Classifieds
4) This and That
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MESSAGE BOARD:
The Accessibility News website has now been updated using WordPress, see www.accessibilitynews.ca
!
One of the “New” features will be back issues of the Newsletter starting with November 20, 2010 Edition, see
www.accessibilitynews.ca/?page_id=9
.
Accessibility News has also started up a new website we hope you’ll take advantage of.
Check out www.accessibilityclassifieds.com
for listings related to Accessibility and Disability.
You can also add your own “Free” listing in areas such as:
* Employment.
* Events.
* Buy and Sale items from Automobiles to Appliances to Housing.
* And much more…
ARTICLES:
Join Our Call for Strong New Accessibility Standards – and Distribute Our New Leaflet!
Please add your voice to our call for the McGuinty government to enact strong and effective new accessibility standards, to be enacted under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act.
So far, the Government has proposed a very weak accessibility standard. We are calling for it to be substantially strengthened, and have offered constructive suggestions.
Read more at
http://www.aoda.ca/?p=839
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Accessibility Woes
On a wall in a classroom in the basement of Queen Elizabeth Collegiate and Vocational Institute is a poster that includes the phrase “Accessibility for
Everyone.”
The irony is staggering.
For Heaven Smith, 16, who has cerebral palsy and has been in a wheelchair since kindergarten, her two-plus years at QECVI have been an accessibility nightmare.
The school, which opened in 1955, does not have an elevator, making it impossible for the Grade 11 student to attend classes on the second floor or in the basement — except for when her father, Ken, straps her into a manual wheelchair and takes her down the stairs to the basement so she can attend art class, one of her favourite courses.
Read more at
http://www.accessibilitynews.ca/?p=217
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Your PDF’s are like Rolls of Toilet Paper!
By Geof Collis
Why is it so much trouble to get people to understand that making documents accessible, especially the Portable Document Format (PDF) doesn’t just benefit people like myself, but everyone who has to read hundreds of 6, 30 or 300 page documents as part of their job description or just trying to educate themselves.
Read more at
http://www.aoda.ca/?p=837
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In Their Own Voices
Hope Technology School gives autistic students a new way to be heard.
On the same street as Stanford University, in Palo Alto, Calif., is another school you’ve probably never heard of: Hope Technology School. Hope Technology’s student body comprises a mix of disabled and nondisabled students in grades
pre-K through eight. Many of the disabled students are autistic and often have difficulty verbalizing even basic needs.
Read more at
http://www.accessibilitynewsinternational.com/?p=1803
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Regina Mom Pushes for Accessible Playground
A Regina mother is encouraging the city to build a new wheelchair-accessible playground.
Cindy Leggott, who uses a wheelchair to get around, wants to see an accessible playground built near Jean Vanier Elementary School.
Read more at
http://www.accessibilitynewsinternational.com/?p=1816
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Full ccessibility in Kerr Hall ‘Just Impossible’
For Ryerson students using a wheelchair, getting to a class in Kerr Hall could be dangerous and nearly impossible. The ramps leading to the entrances are too steep, the doorways are too narrow and the pavement is cracked and heaved.
Read more at
http://www.aoda.ca/?p=835
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AODA Alliance Asks McGuinty Government to Report on its Efforts on Unkept 2007 Election Promises
On November 12, 2010 we wrote to Community and Social Services Minister Madeleine Meilleur, the McGuinty Government’s cabinet minister with lead responsibility for implementing the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act. We asked
what the Government has done up to now, and what it plans to do in the final year of this term in office, on three important 2007 election promises to
Ontarians with disabilities, namely:
Read more at
http://www.aoda.ca/?p=833
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Private Member’s Bill Aims to Better Protect Service Animals and Police Dogs
Legislation proposed by Saskatoon Centre NDP MLA David Forbes would, if passed, make it an offence to interfere with a service animal.
Stephen Kaye once worked with a police dog who died while trying to disarm and subdue a subject.
Read more at
http://www.accessibilitynewsinternational.com/?p=1814
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Seeking Your Opinion Regarding APS Street Identification Messages and Other APS Features
In a collaberative effort between Access for Sight Impaired Consumers and the City of Richmond which evolved out of negotiations as to the manner in which accessible pedestrian signals (APS) would deliver intersection or street identification information, the City will be evaluating several installations
from September 22 through November 30, 2010. Public feedback will be critical to the outcome of this evaluation period, particularly from pedestrians who are blind, sight impaired or deafblind.
Read more at
http://www.accessibilitynewsinternational.com/?p=1810
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Diane Finley Responsible for Disability Has Inaccessible Office
Ironically Federal Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development Diane Finley has inaccessible constituency office
Bob Speller, Liberal candidate in the Haldimand-Norfolk riding, blasted Federal Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development Diane Finley for having an office that is not wheelchair accessible.
Read more at
http://www.accessibilitynewsinternational.com/?p=1808
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AODA Alliance Calls on Elections Ontario to Provide Internet and Telephone Voting and More Than One Accessible Voting Machine Per Riding in the October 2011 Ontario Election
On November 18, 2010, the AODA Alliance wrote Chief Electoral Officer Greg Essensa, who has lead responsibility for administering provincial elections in Ontario. For the October 2011 Ontario election, we ask him to exercise his authority under new amendments to the Election Act, to provide more than one accessible voting machine per riding, and to provide internet and telephone voting. We request this to overcome barriers facing voters with disabilities who cannot mark their own paper ballot and verify their choice. See this letter, below, and an earlier letter from the Chief Electoral Officer to the AODA Alliance on elections accessibility.
Read more at
http://www.aoda.ca/?p=830
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Mall cop tries to eject boy’s service dog
A Brandon, Man., woman says a security guard at a local shopping centre gave her son a hard time over his service dog.
“On the bottom – on both sides – it says she’s a hearing dog,” Joanne Wilkinson told CBC News, pointing out a bright red harness that shows the
animal is a service dog and not a pet.
Read more at
http://www.accessibilitynewsinternational.com/?p=1806
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Children with autism in Ontario face an uphill battle when seeking provincially funded treatment, reports Pauline Tam
It has been more than two years since five-year-old Jackson Halden was diagnosed with autism and put on a waiting list for provincially funded therapy.
In that time, his parents, like many others in the same situation, have opted to pay for the treatment themselves. Knowing that the earlier children start
therapy, the better, Dan Halden and Jude Pattenden maxed out their credit cards and relied on donations from relatives.
Read more at
http://www.accessibilitynews.ca/?p=42
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CLASSIFIEDS:
Accessibility News has started up a new website we hope you’ll take advantage of.
Check out www.accessibilityclassifieds.com
for listings related to Accessibility and Disability.
You can also add your own “Free” listing in areas such as:
* Employment.
* Events.
* Buy and Sale items from Automobiles to Appliances to Housing.
* And much more…
EVENTS:
Below is a list of upcoming events, for more details go to
http://www.accessibilitynews.ca/acnews/events/.
From this point on anyone wishing to add an Event can now go to
www.accessibilityclassifieds.com
and add your own Event anytime you wish.
* Celebration of People Awards
Deadline:Thursday, December 02
* ARCH Disability Law Centre 30th Anniversary Celebratory Symposium
Deadline:Monday, December 13
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