Proposed Ontario Changes to Accessibility Regulations

The Ministry of Economic Development, Employment and Infrastructure has proposed changes to the Customer Service Standard and Integrated Accessibility Standards regulations under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA). If approved, the changes will be enacted on July 1, 2016, and take immediate effect.

This proposal includes incorporating the Customer Service Standard into the Integrated Accessibility Standards Regulation and making changes to requirements of the Customer Service Standard.

Proposed customer service standard changes include:

Currently, the Customer Service Standard establishes different requirements for private and not-for-profit organizations based on the number of employees: organizations with 1–19 employees are small; those with 20 or more employees are large. Under the proposal, these classes would be changed to match the other accessibility standards, as follows

·       Small private and not-for-profit organizations would be defined as having between 1–49 employees

·       Large private and not-for-profit organizations would be defined as having 50 or more employees

This means organizations with 20–49 employees would continue to be required to establish policies, practices and procedures governing the provision of goods or services to people with disabilities (as required under Section 3 of the Customer Service Standard). However, these organizations would no longer be required to prepare one or more documents describing their policies, practices and procedures or to provide these documents upon request (as currently required under Section 3.5).

Proposed changes regarding class structure would be reflected in the requirements for private and not-for profit organizations under the following sections of the Customer Service Standard:

·       Establishment of policies, practices and procedures

·       Service animals

·       Support persons

·       Notice of temporary disruptions

·       Training

·       Feedback process

·       Notice of availability of documents

·       Where practical and applicable, compliance dates under the Customer Service Standard would align with the Integrated Accessibility Standards Regulation with provision of a grace period, if required. These changes are intended to ensure that organizations have sufficient time to understand and comply with the revised Customer Service Standard.

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·       How does this change your organization’s implementation of the AODA? 

If you are interested in learning more about Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) or how to make accessibility a natural part of your business through the application of Corporate Social Responsibility, please contact Sandra Broekhof @ 416-579-1035 orsandra_broekhof@sympatico.ca

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