Welcome back to the Blogging to Berlin series, where I try to cram as many blogs on disability rights in Canada as possible into the remaining weeks until the 2025 Global Disability Summit!
This week, we’re travelling coast to coast (for my international friends, Canadians LOVE saying this) and exploring provincial accessibility legislation across Canada!
Spoilers: 8/10 provinces have enacted accessibility legislation. Quebec was WAY ahead of the curve back in 1978, and New Brunswick only recently joined the party in 2024!
(Fun Fact: NB was SO recent I wrote this entire blog and had to revise it when I found out New Brunswick does have legislation during my fact-checking process…)
I won’t make you google it: Alberta and Prince Edward Island have yet to enact provincial accessibility legislation. But shockingly, it’s actually not that straightforward!
Alberta has embedded accessibility considerations into their National Building Code and enacted the Office of the Advocate for Persons with Disabilities, while PEI has their Supports for Persons with Disabilities Act – but that just generally outlines what all provinces provide for disabled people anyways.
If someone from PEI can explain to me what on earth is going on there, that would be sick.
With all of that background aside, let’s get into this provincial legislation!
1978 Act to Secure Handicapped Persons in the Exercise of Their Rights with a View to Achieving Social, School, and Workplace Integration
Read It Here
- Quebec was the first province to pass disability-specific legislation, and the only province to have disability-specific legislation for over 25 years!
- This Act emphasized the importance of disabled persons’ right to be fully integrated into society, and the responsibility of government departments and agencies to ensure this integration.
- The Act is based on principles of wholeness, autonomy, living in the community, built environment accessibility, ensuring the availability of relevant and appropriate resources, and a decent quality of life.
- The Act created an Office to ensure coordination and implementation, with a board majority-led by persons with disabilities.
- The Act requires the provincial government to ensure policies and programs are accessible and disability inclusive, that school, social, and workplace environments are fully integrated, that individualized services are appropriate and available, and that accessibility standards are developed and enforced.
Carly Commentary: While I think it’s a shame more Canadians can’t speak French and enjoy everything Quebec has to offer – it keeps this province as a hidden legislative gem. Quebec is the only province to have legislation revolving around disability instead of accessibility, and did this only one year after the Canadian Human Rights Act was introduced!
Also, don’t dunk on them for using ‘handicap’ – there’s really no great French alternatives for disability. But for my bilingual friends, personnes en situation de handicap is the more appropriate term these days – which is basically just “person experiencing disability” for the anglophones out there.
2005 Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act
Read It Here
- The AODA aims to develop, implement, and enforce accessibility standards across Ontario in the areas of goods and services, accommodation, employment, facilities, and buildings to promote the inclusion of persons with disabilities.
- The Act facilitated the creation of legally-enforceable standards for information and communications, employment, transportation, customer service, and the design of public spaces.
- The Act has been criticized for its emphasis on accessibility over disability, for its lack of substantive content, and for the general lack of enforcement of the related accessibility standards.
- While the Act promised a barrier-free Ontario by 2025 – Ontarians report persistent and pervasive barriers around employment, businesses, education, transportation, and healthcare.
Carly Commentary: Boo! Tomato, tomato! Jokes aside, this is the perfect example of an accessibility law with no “teeth” – aka enforcement measures. The province has essentially decided not to enforce any regulations except for making most of us take their poorly developed Customer Service training – and as someone living in Ontario, I can report we did NOT become barrier-free by 2025. I’d be shocked if we can beat the (much more catchy) federal goal of barrier-free by 2040 at this rate.
2013 Accessibility for Manitobans Act
Read It Here
- The third province to introduce provincial accessibility legislation, and the first to explicitly incorporate the CRPD into provincial law, Manitoba enacted its Accessibility Act in 2013.
- The Act is based on principles of barrier-free access, equality in opportunity and outcome, universal design, and systemic responsibility to prevent and remove barriers.
- The Act creates a Minister for Accessibility, an Accessibility Advisory Council, and a body establishing accessibility standards that apply to the public and private sectors.
- The Act successfully facilitated the publication of standards covering customer service, employment, information and communication, transportation, and the design of outdoor public spaces.
- The Act has been celebrated for its use of clear timelines, the application of standards to the private sector, and consistent collaboration and consultation with the disability community.
Carly Commentary: I think I might actually be Manitoba’s #1 fan because of their accessibility legislation and disability community. I have lost track of how many times I point to Manitoba as a legislative best practice, and their Accessibility Office is a dream to work with! I’ve actually done two speaking engagements in this province – which, population wise, is totally hitting above its weight.
2017 Act Respecting Accessibility in Nova Scotia
Read It Here
- Nova Scotia’s Accessibility Act aims to improve accessibility through the implementation of accessibility standards, and ensure the inclusion of persons with disabilities in this process.
- The Act creates a Minister responsible for accessibility, an Accessibility Directorate, and a majority-disabled Accessibility Advisory Board mandated to coordinate the province in improving accessibility and addressing emerging issues.
- The Act veers towards a more minimal approach to disability areas, including the delivery and receipt of goods and services, information and communication, employment, education, the built environment, and public transportation and transportation infrastructure – though this would be the first mention specifically of public transit.
- The preamble is particularly impressive given the explicit admission that persons with disabilities disproportionately experience poverty, and that attitudinal and environmental barriers prevent full and equal participation in society. This makes the lack of guiding principles particularly unfortunate.
Carly Commentary: I give this legislation one “womp, womp.” Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE Nova Scotia – Cape Breton is literally my home away from home, and the home of Canadian folk artist and arthritic icon Maud Lewis! In fact, Nova Scotia is the most disabled province at 37.9% (source)
Which brings me to my real question – what the hell are they doing in Nova Scotia??? This legislation was very bare bones, and pretty much copy and pasted from Ontario. For our most disabled province, with a great culture of knowing your neighbours and helping out your community, I would expect a lot more.
I actually went back to re-review the legislation to see if I could squeeze out any more bullet points around notable features. I found that the preamble was fairly decent in terms of a progressive understanding of disability – but this only made the lack of guiding principles even more noticeable.
2021 Accessible British Columbia Act
Read It Here
- BC’s Accessibility Act identifies a Minister responsible for publishing an annual accessibility report detailing provincial accessibility efforts and appointing an individual to conduct independent reviews, and requires the provincial government to establish a majority-disabled accessibility committee.
- The Act also empowers the Lieutenant Governor in Council to create regulations around identifying, removing, and preventing barriers in the areas of employment, service delivery, the built environment, information and communication, transportation, health, education, and procurement.
- The Act promotes principles of inclusion, adaptability, diversity, collaboration, self-determination, and universal design in pursuing greater accessibility.
- British Columbia was the first provincial Act to provincially recognizes American Sign Language and Indigenous sign languages, and the only province that explicitly requires the consultation of Indigenous peoples in accessibility standards development.
Commentary: BC was the first province to officially recognize sign languages, AND still the only province to meaningfully ensure consultation with Indigenous persons and nations directly in the legislation. Now, BC does have a very organized Indigenous population and a number of self-governance treaties they’re legally bound to recognize, but you would expect more provinces (looking directly at you again, Nova Scotia) to follow suit here.
2021 Newfoundland and Labrador Accessibility Act
Read It Here
- Newfoundland and Labrador’s Act aims to improve accessibility by preventing, identifying, and removing barriers to facilitate persons with disabilities’ full participation and inclusion in society.
- Similar to BC, this Act also requires accessibility standards addressing the built environment, information and communication, procurement, education, health, employment, and the design and delivery of programs and services. Notably, Newfoundland and Labrador include accommodations as its own clause, but exclude transportation.
- Newfoundland and Labrador also recognize American Sign Language and Indigenous sign languages as official languages for the deaf community.
- The Act tasks the designated Minister with raising awareness around barriers, promoting the identification, prevention and removal of barriers, overseeing the development and implementation of accessibility standards, and ensuring appropriate consultations.
- The Act creates a majority-disabled Accessibility Standards Advisory Board, a Disability Policy Office, and standard development committees.
Carly Commentary: At this point in the analysis, I kept convincing myself I was just re-reading the Accessible Canada Act. Mandating a minister, creating a board, publishing standards – all great stuff! I just would have loved to see a better regional vibe here. You’ll notice transportation is missing from this legislation – that’s no mistake, because the terrain out there is notoriously difficult to get around, disabled or not!
2023 Accessible Saskatchewan Act
Read It Here
- The second latest province to enact accessibility legislation, Saskatchewan’s Act aims to increase accessibility through the development of accessibility standards identifying, removing, and preventing barriers in the built environment, information and communications, employment, transportation, procurement, service delivery, and service animals – making it the first province to include service animals in provincial accessibility legislation.
- The Act designates a Minister tasked with raising awareness of barriers and promoting improved accessibility, creates the Saskatchewan Accessibility Office, and establishes a majority disability-led Accessibility Advisory Committee.
- The act bases accessibility efforts on the principles of inclusion, adaptability, diversity, collaboration, self-determination, and universal design.
- The Act recognizes American Sign Language and Indigenous sign languages as the primary languages of communication by deaf persons in Saskatchewan.
- The 2023 Act is the first to explicitly require accessibility standards to ensure the CRPD is considered during development.
Carly Commentary: Again, we’re pretty deep in the analysis and everything looks the same. But then you get a stand-out win, like Saskatchewan requiring CRPD considerations in standards, and perk up a little bit! I’m also loving the accessibility principles, but my Day One Homie Manitoba did it first.
2024 New Brunswick Accessibility Act
Read It Here
- The most recent province to enact accessibility legislation, New Brunswick takes the standard approach of mandating a minister to oversee accessibility, requiring the development of accessibility standards, and establishing an Accessibility Office.
- New Brunswick is unique, as its standards include the usual transportation, education, employment, built environment, and information and communications – but swaps out program and service design and delivery with government services, while introducing both housing and sports and recreation.
- Instead of an official advisor or chair of a board, New Brunswick opted for a Director of Compliance and Enforcement inside of their Accessibility Office! This is an intriguing break from the usual approach, and I look forward to seeing if this changes the implantation process.
- New Brunswick requires the establishment of an Accessibility Advisory Board, but reverses the provincial trend of requiring a majority disabled board in favour of “persons with disabilities, persons who work on behalf of persons with disabilities, or members of provincial agencies or provincial branches of national agencies that work on behalf of, or represent, persons with disabilities,”
- New Brunswick also requires that accessibility standards comply with the CRPD, continuing the trend introduced by Saskatchewan!
Carly Commentary: Reading this legislation was an emotional rollercoaster. The introduction of housing and sports/recreation under accessibility areas was exciting! Then, lumping in non-disabled people working in disability was pretty disappointing and a direct reversal of a promising trend. But then, New Brunswick continued the positive trend of requiring CRPD compliance in accessibility standards! All of this to say, this is definitely a province I’ll be watching over the next few years.
Key Takeaways
As I get really nerdy in school and further studying institutional economics, I’m learning about path dependency – where your past or present actions shape future ones. For me, a critical juncture was when Canada chose to opt for accessibility-focused legislation over disability rights legislation, despite Quebec’s progressive disability-centred law from 1978, and the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990 setting a clear precedent for impactful legislation. While I know that this legislation is actively removing accessibility barriers – I wonder how our country will look, if we achieve that barrier-free Canada by 2040 without a parallel shift in including and empowering persons with disabilities.
Another nerdy thing I noted was just how intriguing the differences in accessibility areas are between provinces! What made Nova Scotia include transportation, while Newfoundland and Labrador steered away from it (no pun intended?) Why would Newfoundland and Labrador include accommodations as a distinct area, on top of employment and education? Why has only Saskatchewan mentioned service animals, and what made New Brunswick include sports and recreation for the first time?
I am particularly impressed by the legislative requirement to ensure accessibility standards organizations and advisory committees are majority-led by disabled people. We’ve seen Accessibility Standards Canada absolutely thrive under this approach, so I’d love to think they played a key role encouraging the provinces to follow suit. However, this makes me look down on New Brunswick just a little bit more for including non-disabled people as adequate substitutes for disabled people. Luckily, they could be just the third-last province to enact legislation, so I don’t see them significantly deterring this pattern of mandated representation in the long-run.
But most importantly, overall, I was shocked by how similar the provinces’ accessibility legislation was. I mean, these bills were enacted by political parties of all different stripes. And while I would love to see disability become a non-partisan issue, this more likely suggests that governments are pursuing the bare minimum of accessibility without accompanying expansions in disability income supports, employment programs, and educational services.