Accessibility Advocate Urges Action in 'Inspiring and Motivating' Speech

Renowned accessibility advocate David Lepofsky is calling on Essex-Windsor residents to take to Twitter in the campaign for an accessible Ontario, saying individuals can affect great change by using social media to lobby decision-makers and expose barriers.

“You can each as individuals make a difference,” said Lepofsky, the Chair of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance, to a crowd of more than 60 during a talk Tuesday at the Essex County Civic Centre.

Lepofsky urged residents to highlight the barriers to accessibility they encounter by taking a picture and sharing it on Twitter with the hashtag #AODAFail. He also urged them to Tweet at or write their federal MPs and provincial MPPs as part of an effort to make the province fully accessible by 2025 for the more than 1.9 million Ontarians with disabilities.

“We have made progress, but we are not on schedule for accessibility in 2025, nowhere close,” said Lepofsky. “Our accessibility and our rights should not be dismissed as red tape.”

Christine Easterbrook, chair of the Essex County Accessibility Advisory Committee, praised Lepofsky for his “inspiring and motivating” presentation.

“One of the big takeaways from today is action,” said Easterbrook. “We will do our very best to carry it forward from here.”

Lepofsky called the disability community “the minority of everyone” because you either have a disability, know someone with a disability or will get a disability later in life.

“The biggest cause of disability is getting older,” he said, stressing our systems and design standards need to better reflect this reality.

Lepofsky said the disability community has made tremendous strides when it comes to raising awareness but that the consequences for inaction are not tough enough to promote real change.

“Strong, mandatory, effective legislation and enforcement. That raises awareness,” said Lepofsky. “If we don’t put accessibility on the exam, we know it’s less likely to happen.”

Lepofsky said it was important for decision-makers to look at the world from the perspective of a person with a disability. He recounted personal examples of stairways and buildings ill-suited for the visually impaired. He also expressed concerns about provincial plans for a pilot project involving electric scooters. He said scooters left haphazardly on sidewalks create barriers for people in wheelchairs and hazards for the visually impaired.

When it comes to making a difference at the municipal level, Lepofsky said municipalities should engage an accessibility consultant and the disability community at the beginning of any big-ticket projects. He added municipalities could enact their own accessibility standards because Ontario’s Building Code was insufficient.

Lepofsky successfully battled the Toronto Transit Commission in the bid to have it announce subway and bus stops. He said people outside the disability community praise him for it, people who can now hear their stops even if they are reading or daydreaming or unable to see out the window on a snowy day.

“This recurs,” said Lepofsky. “Everything you do with accessibility helps everyone.”