Staff Report #4
January 29, 2025
To All Commissioners
Re: Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act – Customer Service Standard Review
Recommendation
That the report be NOTED and FILED.
Background
The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) includes a mandatory review period (five years) for all Standards adopted into regulation. Committees are established to undertake this review and submit their recommendations for any additions or changes to the Minister of Seniors and Accessibility for consideration. Once the recommendations have been finalized, a public review process is undertaken whereby the recommendations are posted and the public is invited to provide comments. Subsequent to the public review, comments are compiled and shared with the Committee who considers all feedback prior to making their final recommendations.
The Customer Service Standards (now included in the Integrated Accessibility Standards Regulation (IASR) have recently gone through their second review process and the Committee’s recommendations are posted for public review (see Enclosure I). Consistent with past practice, administration undertakes a review of all proposed AODA standards, and where applicable, provides recommendations to the Commission with respect to potential impacts and/or feedback that should be provided through the public review process.
The initial recommendation letter prepared by the Committee contains 11 overarching recommendations with more detailed proposed regulations under each which support the overarching goal. The proposed timelines for all recommendations are split into two parts. Those non-regulatory recommendations (e.g., preparation of guidance materials by Provincial Government), to be implemented within 18 months, and all regulatory recommendations to be implemented within three years.
The remainder of this report speaks only to the recommendations that are considered problematic, and which, in the view of administration, should be communicated formally to the Committee for consideration. Due to timing of scheduled meetings, a draft of this report was shared with all members of the Accessible Public Transit Service Advisory Committee for feedback. The feedback received was supportive of the suggested feedback set out in the remainder of this report. The Ontario Public Transit Association (OPTA) will also be submitting feedback on behalf of transit systems in the province.
Recommendation 4 – Feedback Process Required
Recommendation number 2 under this section calls for organizations to be required to prioritize a response based on severity (for example, feedback or complaint related to surgery or urgent care).
While the examples provided in the recommendation are understandable as they relate directly to the delivery of healthcare, the recommendation, when viewed more broadly is problematic. In order for an organization to be able to prioritize a response, the customer would need to provide private information. Again, in the health care scenario, this information and appropriate context would be available. If this requirement is viewed from a public transit provider perspective, and the feedback being sought is directly related to a medical concern as provided for in the example, the only way the transit authority would be aware of this would be for the person to disclose this information, which raises privacy concerns.
Suggested Feedback: Should the Committee be concerned specifically with feedback related to medical concerns, it is suggested that this requirement be limited to health care providers versus all organizations.
Recommendation 5 – Format of Documents
Recommendation number 6 under this section calls for organizations to identify in their multi-year accessibility plans the processes for requesting alternate formats and the expected timelines. Their multi-year accessibility plans should report in the aggregate requests that were made and responded to.
Tracking and reporting on the number of requests for alternate formats will result in additional administrative work. It is unclear what value this data would provide to the public with respect to furthering accessibility.
Suggested Feedback: The Committee should consider what value is being provided with the proposed tracking and reporting on alternate format requests by all organizations and weigh that against the administrative burden that will be created.
Recommendation 9 – The Use of Service Animals and Recommendation 11 – Definitions
Recommendation number 6 under this section suggests adding the following to empower organizations when accommodating service animals: “If it is not objectively apparent to a business or organization whether an animal is a service animal (for example, endangering the health of other people or due to its behaviour), the business or organization can ask the handler to provide documentation as required at law”.
Further, recommendation number 3 under section 11 calls for the definition of service animal to include emotional support animals and provide examples of different types of service animal. The requirement for documentation should also apply for emotional support animals.
While on its surface, these recommendations appear to provide greater powers to organizations to confirm requirements for service animals, they do nothing to address the concerns raised by individuals with certified working animals required for their safety and wellbeing about other non-certified or trained animals being utilized as comfort animals in public spaces. Animals that have not been trained or certified to perform their duties in public have the potential to act in a manner that could be distracting to a certified service animal that is providing potential life-saving duties. Additionally, these untrained animals can be a danger to other customers utilizing a service. In the case of public transit, a customer in a mobility device that has been secured as per AODA requirements has no ability to protect themselves or get away from an animal that may act out in a public setting.
A medical note from a doctor only stipulates the requirement of the animal but provides no details with respect to any training the animal has received in order to provide the required support.
Suggested Feedback: The Committee should give consideration to more formal training requirements for service animals that are un-certified if they are to be utilized in public settings. This training certification should form part of the documentation that would be presented when requested by the organization.
Recommendation 10 – The Use of Support Persons
Recommendation number 6 under this section states that an organization may only require a person with a disability to be accompanied by a support person where it is determined that no other reasonable accommodation measures will allow the individual to access the goods, services or facilities provided by the organization. Where that is the case, the organization must pay fees and wages for the support person to the point of undue hardship.
Specialized transit services are designed to ensure access to public transit for those who, as the result of a disability, cannot access the conventional transit options. In some cases, customers with behavioral issues or specific medical support requirements need a support person in order to travel. The rationale for the determination of a required support person when travelling on the service is that the customer could endanger of harming themselves or others without supervision. On the specialized service, the only employee on the vehicle is the driver, and given their duties to safely navigate the vehicle and passengers to their destination, there is no way they can also assume responsibility for managing any behavioral or medical needs of customers.
In 2023, the specialized service provided approximately 19,000 rides that included an attendant for which this new recommendation would apply. Rides on the conventional service are also taken by customers utilizing a support person pass that allows the support person to ride for free. While this number is not tracked it is estimated to be similar to the number of rides on specialized. Should the recommendation be adopted, an administrative process would need to be established to track every ride taken by these customers and the time they spent on the vehicle. This would need to be reconciled on a trip-by-trip basis with documentation provided by the customer with respect to the hourly rates for their service provider. A further process would need to be established in order to provide the ability to reimburse these customers for the time the support person spent with them while travelling on public transit. The costs associated with this, both administratively and the costs associated with the reimbursement, would far exceed the fares that the customer pays to utilize the service, and given the fare equity requirements in the Transportation Standards, there is no mechanism for the service provider to recoup these new costs. Given the limited budgets available for specialized transit services, a requirement of this nature would, in all likelihood result in a reduction in the overall service provided as the new costs would have to be absorbed within existing budgets.
A secondary issue with this recommendation is the conflict with the current requirement in the transportation standards to have a support person program and ensure that support persons can travel free when accompanying a person with a disability, noting this requirement applies to both conventional and specialized transit services. In the transportation standard, individuals can provide supporting medical documentation indicating that they require a support person to utilize the service. In these cases, it is the customer that has determined the need for a support person in order for them to access the service. It is unclear whether the expectation of the new recommendation would be to include all customers in this category. Should this be the case, the costs and implications would be even more problematic.
Suggested Feedback: That the Committee review all support person requirements in the IASR to ensure that any new recommendations are not in conflict with other existing requirements. Further, that the Committee consider specific areas where the requirement of a support person has been a concern and limit the requirement for the payment of support persons to those applications. Public transit services should be exempted from this requirement should it go forward in the final recommendations of the Committee.
Subsequent to review of this report and direction from the Commission, a submission will be made to the public review process.
Enclosure
I – Customer Service Standards Review Committee Recommendations
Recommended by:
David Butler, Manager of Operations Administration
Shawn Wilson, Director of Operations
Mike Gregor, Director of Finance
Concurred in by:
Kelly S. Paleczny, General Manager