A Little Not Enough

Access to justice has become the most recent buzzword phrase in the legal community across Canada (and just happens to be a pet issue of mine - hence, the creation of the Nova Scotia Legal Guardianship Kit).

Sadly enough, this latest announcement from Nova Scotia Legal Aid, I, personally, have to categorize as "a little not enough".

Case Study on Holding Government Accountable for its Promises?

Below is the text of an email I recently received through the Disability Coalition. Reading through it, it felt a little like I was reading a case study on how to actually hold a government accountable for its promises.

What say you? Would/could this kind of approach work in Nova Scotia with our new provincial government?

If so, perhaps it's time to get moving.

ACCESSIBILITY FOR ONTARIANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT ALLIANCE UPDATE UNITED FOR A BARRIER-FREE ONTARIO 

New Toronto Star Editorial Backs Our Call for the Ontario Government to Reveal Its Plans for Enforcing the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act  

SUMMARY
On October 31, 2013, the Toronto Star ran a hard-hitting editorial, set out below. It calls on the Ontario Government to at last make public its plans for enforcing the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act. It is a real boost to our non-partisan campaign to make Ontario fully accessible for all people with disabilities, when a major newspaper runs an editorial that backs our cause. 

Here, the Star backs the Freedom of Information application that AODA Alliance chair David Lepofsky filed on August 15, 2013 to unearth the Government's actions to date and plans for enforcing the disabilities act. This editorial has been widely circulated in cyber-space. It has been re-tweeted many times. 

After we set out this editorial, below, we give you links to several other newspaper editorials over the years that have backed the position of the AODA Alliance, or its pre-2005 predecessor coalition, the Ontarians with Disabilities Act Committee. 

There have now been 285 days since the AODA Alliance wrote the Ontario Government for information on the Government's plans to keep its election promise to effectively enforce the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act. Read the AODA Alliance's unanswered January 22, 2013 letter to the Ontario Government, requesting the Ontario Government's plans for enforcing the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act