Plain Language Summary
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Background to this Plain Language Summary
The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005 (AODA) has a goal — to make Ontario accessible to people with disabilities by 2025. The AODA is the first law of this kind in Canada. Through it, Ontario is developing accessibility standards for important areas of everyday life.
People with disabilities must have equal employment opportunities. A standard will help make this happen. A standard explains an accepted way of doing something. It states what the requirements (compulsory actions) are, who has to meet them and by when.
The Ontario Minister of Community and Social Services (the Minister) appointed the Employment Accessibility Standards Development Committee (the Committee) to develop a proposed Employment Accessibility (EA) Standard. The Committee’s members include representatives from Ontario’s disability and business communities.
The Committee prepared an initial proposed standard. The Ontario government published it to give members of the public an opportunity to review and comment on it. The review period was from February 18 to May 22, 2009.
The Committee has looked at and thought about all of the comments that it received. It has now submitted a final proposed standard to the Minister for consideration as law.
If the minister recommends that the whole proposed standard, or parts of it, be turned into a regulation, this will start a process for it to become law in Ontario. The Final Proposed Employment Accessibility Standard is one of four standards that are currently at different stages of development to become the law in Ontario. The Accessibility Standards for Customer Service, Ontario Regulation 429/07 was the first standard to become law, on January 1, 2008.
What Is in the Final Proposed Employment Accessibility Standard?
There are nine sections in the final proposed standard, six appendices and two schedules. The nine sections cover the preface (introductory comments), the standard’s scope, classes (or groups) of obligated organizations (the organizations that must comply with the standard), accessible employment policies and training, recruitment / assessment / selection and hiring, retention, accessible information and communications, indicators of progress (how to measure success) and a list of key words and terms used in the final proposed standard.
Appendices A-1 to A-6 have time-tables that show when the six groups of organizations must comply with the different parts of the proposed final standard. Schedule 1 lists the 93 provincial boards, commissions, authorities and agencies that are included in the “designated public sector” groups. Schedule 2 lists other broader public sector organizations that are included in the “designated public sector” groups. When the Committee was developing the time-tables for different groups to comply with the different parts of the standard, it was aware that timelines could be changed as part of the process of making the standard into a regulation.
In this summary, the words “final proposed standard” mean the Final Proposed Employment Accessibility (EA) Standard. This plain language summary is an overview of what is in the final proposed standard. It does not include the full details. If there is any conflict between this summary and the final proposed standard, the final proposed standard is always the final authority.
The word “accommodation” is used in many sections of the final proposed standard. In the Words and Terms section of the final proposed standard, “accommodation” is described this way:
“Where a barrier exists to the employment of a qualified individual with a disability or disabilities, that cannot be removed in a systematic fashion, an “accommodation” or individualized adjustment should be made so that the individual can perform his/her duties. Accommodations will vary according to a person's unique needs. These needs must be considered, assessed, and accommodated individually. Employers are expected to provide reasonable accommodations up to the point of undue hardship for the Employer.”