Season 01 | Episode 09: Accessibility Advisory Committees

David: Hello, I’m David Best, and this is the Practical Accessibility Insights podcast. With me is Sandi Gauder. Hi Sandi. How are things today?

Sandi: Great, David, how are you?

David: I’m doing good today. In this episode we’re talking about municipalities and their accessibility strategies for meeting the legislation of their jurisdiction.

You’ve been in business for 24 years now, and during that time has your local municipality ever reached out to you for advice or invite you to participate in any activities?

Sandi: Not the one that we live in right now, but certainly in our past life. Before we moved here, we actually built out a website for one of the local municipalities that were quite keen to build an accessible website.

So yeah, we, we have had some interaction for sure.

David: Okay well that’s good. That’s encouraging. So with us today, you have a guest that’s going to give us some more information about how the municipalities handle accessibility and what their roles are. So why don’t you go ahead and introduce our guests for this episode.

Sandi: I’d love to. So today I’d like to welcome to our podcast Tim Nolan, and Tim is with the Accessibility Hamilton Alliance, or AHA, as he likes to say. He is a founder and a member of that group. So welcome to the podcast, Tim.

Tim: Thank you very much.

Sandi: So, before we get into grilling you with lots of questions, can you just tell our audience a little bit about yourself?

You know, your elevator pitch, who you are and what you do.

Tim: Yeah, sure. A quick little bit about me. I lost most of my eyesight in my very early twenties, arising from a complication of Type One Diabetes. I went on to university thereafter, uh, got a degree in political science and eventually lucked out if I could put it that way, finding a position at McMaster University as the first coordinator for the disabled, primarily to provide academic accommodation support to students with disabilities.

I worked at McMaster for 31 years, retired in 2020 from the position of director, student accessibility services, and during my years at McMaster, I was very engaged in volunteer work at the community level.

I volunteered six years as a member of the Regional Advisory Committee for Persons with Disabilities between the late eighties and the mid nineties. And then in the early two thousands arising from the Ontarians with Disabilities Act legislation enacted by the Harris government in 2002, I joined the City of Hamilton’s Advisory Committee for Persons with Disabilities, and I am still a member of that committee today.

And in 2022, I established the Accessibility Hamilton Alliance in response to the 2022 municipal election as a means of trying to understand what candidates for municipal election knew or understood or felt about accessibility issues. Arising from that initiative, I kept the Accessibility Hamilton Alliance going because I’ve determined that it has a very important role to play in the Greater Hamilton community and beyond, for that matter, around issues of accessibility.

Sandi: First of all, I’m not sure that all of our audience are familiar with municipal accessibility advisory committees, that they even exist. So can you give us just an overview of how they work in general and maybe if there’s something unique about how your particular committee works as well in Hamilton, maybe can share that as well with our audience.

Tim: Sure. As best as I know, the Ontarians with Disabilities Act remains intact, and that legislation requires the establishment of advisory committees in municipalities of a certain size. It also allows smaller municipalities to amalgamate with other smaller municipalities to create a coalition around advisory committees.

The role and function of the committees is not well defined except to provide advice to municipal councils on matters of accessibility. I do believe that the provision of advisory committees is also included in the AODA, the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act.

In Hamilton, our advisory committees have been historically created through application and the application process has been assumed in the same way that all other call for public appointments to boards and commissions and committees of the city is created or undertaken. The appointments are typically for the term of council, and once the term of council is complete, then the committee goes dormant.

David: Tim, other than being a self-proclaimed advocate and having a disability of some sort, what other qualifications are considered when the city is looking for people to sit on these committees?

Tim: The application is fairly straightforward. They ask people for their interest. They have questions on the application, typically, that would speak to a person’s work experience, volunteer experience, interest. I’m not aware of any specific qualification that they’re looking for other than interest and presence of a disability.

David: So they are primarily looking for the lived experience rather than the academic, professional kind of experience?

Tim: I think so. You know the phrase, nothing about us without us is perhaps an important component of that concept. But one of the challenges that I think I observe from time to time is often, you know, the committee struggles with trying to extrapolate one’s personal experience and broaden that into the broader community context.

David: Right. So what kind of connection does the committee, or should the committee have with the community?

Tim: You know, and that’s a great question. Part of the challenge is the committee is intended to be an advisory committee to counsel on matters of accessibility. So that’s its primary function. But then one might ask the question, how best do they achieve that goal or objective?

And with that in mind, what level of communication should the committee have with the broader community? And that’s not clearly defined. Our committee has undertaken initiatives in the past to try to introduce itself into the broader community, and those are good things, but there is no real invitation to gather information from the broader community to affirm that the work that the committee is doing is in fact the right work. So, you know, it’s a bit of a challenge.

David: So as a citizen of the community, if I was interested in connecting with an advisory committee within my local area, what opportunities are there? Does the municipality have a website where they have an email address, or do they provide online webinars for people to connect with you in getting more information?

How does the business community learn about your activities?

Tim: I’m not sure they do. Interestingly enough, the city does not have a web page for the advisory committee as best as I know. The committee has created its own webpage. I don’t even know if it’s linked from the city’s website. I don’t believe it is, but it could be.

And then of course, given that we are a committee of the city, what I don’t understand is why the city does not have a webpage specifically devoted to the advisory committee, and I’m not sure that question has ever reasonably been answered.

David: So does your municipality generate any kind of newsletters or postings, and if they do, do they ever include activities of the advisory committee on those?

Tim: Not to my knowledge, no.

Sandi: So with your committee, what are the common items or issues that you would discuss? Are there issues that come up more often than not on the advisory committee?

Tim: So the committee has broadened its work into a handful of working groups, one around transportation, one around housing, one around outreach, and there are a few others.

And so those, you know, those working groups undertake the lion’s share of work and bring back reports to the full committee with any recommendations or reviews, which by the way, are not supported administratively by the city. So the primary committee is supported through the clerks department, but all of the working groups, uh, have no administrative support, no ability to take minutes, and so on. So I’m not entirely convinced that the work of those working groups is highly effective.

Sandi: As far as I understand it, there is this larger organization called the Association of Municipalities of Ontario. I believe there’s, uh, a federal equivalent to the AMO. What impact do those associations have on accessibility at the municipal level, and do they have any impact at all on how advisory committees do their work?

Tim: So as best as I know, there’s no connection between the Association of Municipalities of Ontario and the disability advisory groups. I think there could be, and I think there should be.

They bring their members together and they help guide a number of things. One of which I do believe is public policy on various matters. And of course the members would be from various municipalities. And I think there’s a role there for the AMO to pay more attention to matters of accessibility and in particular, the AODA.

I’ve had communication with a representative of AMO a couple of years ago. I tried in many ways to get accessibility and disability on their agenda without a great deal of success.

David: So obviously the Ontario Ministry that has the responsibility of AODA enforcement has really very little interest or no concern about associations that represent large groups such as the AMO.

What about the role of the committees themself? Can the chair of these committees not get together and insist or get the AMO to include them within the reporting cycle?

Tim: It’s a great idea, but I think the trouble is various municipalities operate their advisory committees in different ways. And so the ability to reach out to those advisory committees is a bit of a challenge because in some cases it goes through clerk’s department, in other cases it doesn’t.

There doesn’t seem to be any consistency in organization or operation. There seems to be no effort on the part of the provincial government to centralize that contact information. I know there have been attempts in the past, but those attempts have been few and, and a bit futile.

Sandi: So then how do these municipalities, the people that work at these municipalities, learn about the different aspects of accessibility so that they can bring it into their everyday work? From your experience with your committee, how is it that the information or the knowledge around accessibility, how was that disseminated through an organization?

Tim: Early in Hamilton’s experience, there was a department, accessibility and equity. And the whole coordination of information and connection with department heads was highly efficient. The City of Hamilton, in some restructuring back, I don’t know remember how long ago it was, maybe 12 years ago-ish, reorganized itself and changed up its operations.

So there is no equity and access department anymore. And so there are various people who come and go as staff representatives to the committee. I know that I had sought for, when I was chair of the committee, was to have a representative of the mayor’s office attend all of the meetings so that there was a conduit between the work of the committee and the mayor.

But there doesn’t seem to be a representative from the mayor’s office or the police services any longer. I’ve got meetings, uh, uh, because of AHA. I’ve reached out to our, uh, CAO, chief Administrative Officer or the city manager. And I’ve been privileged to have two meetings with her and I have another upcoming in the not too distant future.

She’s also put me in touch with three of her most senior directors, one of which is the city clerk, and another is the Chief Information Officer. And part of my objective is to talk with them about is there a way to do more around accessibility? Like is there a way to amend the city’s procedural bylaw, right, that that would make accessibility a more important component within the bylaw?

David: So at some point you had a aha moment and you decided you were gonna form AHA, Accessibility Hamilton Alliance. When was that? What was the thing that triggered that and how effective has the alliance been?

Tim: In 2022 prior to the municipal election, the Ontario Municipal Election, I put forward a recommendation to the committee that we create a survey of all municipal council candidates so that we could get an understanding of what do they know about accessibility and what did they think about accessibility? We were flatly denied that opportunity because we are a committee of council, we can’t do that.

And so notwithstanding the fact that was a real head scratcher for me, I thought, well then what the heck? I’ll, I’ll go out and do it on my own. And I felt like if, you know, some guy named Tim Nolan was to request that kind of information from candidates, they might not respond. Who the heck is some guy named Tim Nolan?

So I created the Accessibility Hamilton Alliance as a pseudonym. We had about a 25% response rate, which was, to me was a pretty good response rate. And so the importance of that was to, if any of the people who responded and they happened to be elected, now I had, you know, some understanding or some degree of connection with them around matters of accessibility.

It occurred to me that there could be a greater role for the AHA. So since then, we’ve undertaken a bunch of different things. We have two flagship initiatives. One is Disability History month. So we’ve declared September is Disability History month in Hamilton. And we’ve created an accessibility film festival where we’re trying to make sure that if we’re going to show movies, that those movies are fully accessible to the public with described video as well as open captioning.

You know, we’re getting noticed now and we’re being asked to consult and to, uh, have input on matters of accessibility in Hamilton and beyond. So we’re a couple of years in and, you know, we’re doing a lot of, hopefully good work and trying to promote accessibility.

David: How is that organization sponsored and supported? What are the memberships?

Tim: We’re, we’re not a formalized organization. We’re not incorporated. We’re not a not-for-profit or anything like that. At the moment, we’re looking into those things. We have no money. Any costs associated with any of our initiatives are all being done voluntarily and or I’m paying out of pocket for those things.

We are very fortunate. We’ve got 10 super dynamic McMaster University students who are stars brighter than the sun and they are absolutely amazing. They look after our website, our social media. They help out with presentations, delegations. We’re just a bunch of people who have interest in accessibility and we’re doing all that we can to promote it in various ways.

Sandi: So having served on the municipal advisory committee and starting AHA, which type of organization is better able to influence or make change when it comes to issues around accessibility?

Tim: You know, that’s a great question. I think the AHA has the ability to be influential because we are a community-based group.

I think the advisory committee has the potential to be more influential except for all of the procedural hindrances that get in the way. You know, sometimes when the advisory committee makes recommendations or motions or presentations to city council, city councilors get their nose out of joint and they should never, and when we make delegation to them we’re doing it because, you know, it’s our job.

When the AHA makes presentations to city Council or any other committee of Council we’re under no obligation. We’re there because we have interest and it’s important. And so, you know, one has to wonder how Council perceives the role of groups like the AHA or others in the community versus how they perceive the role of the advisory committee.

And Council has no right to get agitated with the AHA because we’re just doing what we should be doing because accessibility is right. On the other hand, Council has at times been agitated by the work of the advisory committee because I think sometimes they feel that the advisory committee is undermining their work.

You know, I think there has to be some education for Council around A, the importance of accessibility, and B, how various groups play out their roles, and their, what is their importance in making sure that accessibility is a strong consideration? Again, when I was chair, something that I recommended, but it’s never been taken up by city council and I’m not gonna let go of it, even though I’m not chair at this moment.

When City Council receives staff reports, they have three pillars of information that must be included in all reports, and those things pertain to staffing, finance, and legal. I’ve pushed for accessibility being another pillar. It’s tough to stand on three legs. Sometimes you need four and to me, accessibility needs to be that fourth leg.

So, you know, I will continue to push for all staff reports having to deal with matters of accessibility in everything on which they report, in addition to the legal, finance and staffing.

Sandi: That seems to be a common theme with many of the people that we’ve spoken with on this podcast about making sure that accessibility is kind of a fundamental question that is answered when making big decisions.

Whether it’s something like what you’re talking about with at municipality level or procurement, making sure that if you’re procuring something that the vendor of that product is accessible. And if it doesn’t meet accessibility requirements, then you’re not a vendor that can be considered. So it really goes back to foundational stuff, regardless of what, you know, the environment is that we’re talking about. It’s getting it baked in right at the baseline, of whatever discussion or decision making is happening.

Tim: Yeah, it’s fundamental, isn’t it? I know that Toronto City Council does seek reports and they do from time to time include matters of accessibility where they may find that accessibility has a role to play. The big one that comes to my mind is the whole issue around e-scooters, notwithstanding that whole discussion around what e-scooters do for the benefit or detriment of the community.

You know, Toronto City Council seems to have some degree of interest. To me, that’s a rarity. How do we get accessibility to be built in? How do we get accessibility to have more attention? To me, that’s a key question that needs to be considered, and that’s kind of what I’m hoping to achieve in my upcoming discussion with the city clerk in Hamilton, and hope that that discussion leads to more discussions, because I’m not sure a single meeting will accomplish the objective.

I think it has to be more comprehensive. Accessibility is a way of thinking. Accessibility is a way of operating. Accessibility is a way of doing business.

David: It seems that the advisory committees across Ontario and probably other provinces are not connecting and sort of doing their own thing. The Association of Municipalities doesn’t seem to take much interest in supporting these advisory committees.

And out of frustration, you’ve sort of gone out on your own and established the aHA Association. What future plans or dreams do you have that would elevate the importance of the advisory committee and maybe expand your expectations for the alliance?

Tim: To me, accessibility should not be an afterthought. One of the things I really worked hard on was to try to bring around this perspective that accessibility can’t be an afterthought, it has to be a forethought.

And when accessibility becomes an afterthought, the cost of accessibility is higher exponentially. Once people began to realize like they needed to consult me before the work began, as opposed to after the shovel was in the ground. Only then was accessibility truly a part of the culture of the institution, and that’s the way it needs to be.

So my hope is that accessibility is a culture shift, and that’s what I’m trying to hopefully achieve through things like establishing Disability History Month and the Accessibility Film Festival. You know, the City of Hamilton has hundreds if not thousands of staff. I can’t possibly change the opinion of hundreds or thousands of staff.

I’ve gotta get to the few people to whom I can potentially influence who are at the top of the food chain who can then make a difference because it becomes a top down initiative as opposed to a bottom up. That’s why, you know, I wanted to be able to understand what is the attitude or perspective of Hamilton city counselors when it comes to matters of accessibility, because they’re the decision makers.

David: Tim, I wanna thank you very much for joining us on Practical Accessibility Insights and helping people to understand the challenges that we have with trying to get accessibility recognized within our communities. And if people are interested in learning more about your alliance and want to learn more about advisory committees in regard to accessibility, how can they reach out to you?

Tim: We have an email account, which is AccessibilityHamilton, all one word, @gmail.com. They can search us out on the website, so it’s AccessibilityHamiltonAlliance.com. And we do have a LinkedIn account. We’ve got Twitter, we’ve got Instagram, and we have Facebook. But I think if you look up Accessibility Hamilton Alliance, if you Google us, you’ll find us.

Sandi: So one last question. We like to wrap up all our podcasts with this question for our guests. Is there one simple thing, easy to do thing or inexpensive thing that our listeners can do today that would help remove barriers in municipalities?

Tim: I think don’t be afraid to be a spokesperson. That’s what comes immediately to my mind. You know, you can write letters to the editor, you can write opinion pieces in online newspapers.

Everybody has a voice. Whether you think you have one or not, everybody has a voice. Don’t hesitate to reach out to the Accessibility Hamilton Alliance and let me know that you have interest, you wanna join forces, you want to, you wanna help, you wanna volunteer. The more people who get involved, the more we can get our message out and hopefully begin to really affect change.

Sandi: Thanks so much, Tim. Thanks for joining us today on the show.

Tim: Well, thank you very much for asking me to be a part of the show.

David: The views, thoughts and opinions expressed on this podcast.

Are the speakers own and do not necessarily represent those of the podcast team and partners. This podcast is for information and learning purposes only. The Practical Accessibility Insights podcast is hosted by CMS Web Solutions. The intent of this podcast is to raise awareness for practical advice and strategies for making digital and physical environments more accessible to everyone.

Thank you for joining us in this time of discovery and sharing for a more inclusive society. If you have questions or comments, you can email us at info, I N F O, at david dot best or Sandi, S A N D I, at CMS Web Solutions dot com. For more information and resources, go to www.CMSWebSolutions.com or www.BestAccessibility.consulting.