Act instead of an act

Earlier this week, Ontario announced they will be reducing enforcement of the Accessibility for Ontarians With Disabilities Act (AODA).  Since I relocated to Ottawa from Montreal in December 2013, I have been somewhat intrigued by the AODA.  While I appreciate the sentiment of having people with disabilities fully included in society, I am not sure if this piece of legislation is the way to go.

The announcement that the government is reducing the enforcement of the Act is the first issue.  What good is a law if it is not going to be enforced.  Furthermore, setting up a hotline to report violators of the act only works if something is going to be done about complaints.  For example, I once reported to the Ottawa police a scam phone call I got.  I was told that if I wanted to report it, there was a federal agency that handled all complaints about scam phone calls.  When I went to file a report with the federal agency, the info said they don't have resources to investigate all reports, but that I should contact my local police.  And that my friends is why there are so many scams out there.  Nothing is done to stop them, so they may as well continue scamming people. 

The AODA aims to have Ontario fully accessible by 2025.  Considering that it is long over due, should we maybe try for something a little sooner?   One thing I will applaud the Act for is the requirement to train employees, and I would suggest this should be expanded to schools as well so we can start sensitizing our young people.  Part of the challenge in making a truly accessible society is the negative stereotypes that exist about people with disabilities, and educating people is the best way to eliminate negative stereotypes.
 
My final issue with the AODA is it is focused on businesses that have 20 or more employees.  I can appreciate that the Act is focusing on larger companies as the cost of making accessibility modifications may be too great for smaller businesses, which brings me to my point.  Instead of spending resources on creating legislation and attempting to enforce the act, perhaps encouraging actions would be the way to go.  Very often, the greatest challenge is simply getting around to restaurants and places around town, which are often small businesses.  Instead of creating extra burden and paper work for businesses, why not create programs where businesses can apply for funding to help them offset the cost of making their businesses accessible?  This would lead to action, instead of simply creating more paper work and legislation.   Then we hopefully could begin to move to a truly accessible province.