Law Commission of Ontario Final Report on the Law as it Affects Persons with Disabilities

The Law Commission of Ontario (LCO) has released its Final Report and Framework for the Law as it Affects Persons with Disabilities: 

"This was a multi-year, multi-stage project. It involved four stages of public consultation, including a very broad community consultation in 2010 that involved seventeen focus groups held across the province with groups representing a range of perspectives, experiences and contexts. It also involved extensive research, including both internal research by LCO staff and Osgoode Hall Scholar in Residence Roxanne Mykitiuk, and six commissioned research papers. The project was guided by an Advisory Group that included representatives from government, service providers, academics, lawyers, and community and advocacy organizations."

"This project is closely related to the LCO’s sister project on the law as it affects older adults. The projects were similar in their aims and their methodologies, and each informed the other. As well, there is a complex relationship between impairment, disability and aging. It was important that the projects take into account both the similarities and the differences between the two groups, and resist the common tendency to conflate the two. Finally, the projects aimed to take into account those persons who fall within the scope of both projects, older persons with disabilities, whether they age into disability or age with a disability. "

"In developing the Framework for the Law as It Affects Persons with Disabilities, the LCO adopted the following starting points:

1. Understanding that access to justice requires looking beyond the clarity, efficiency and effectiveness of the law to consider normative issues;
2. Recognition of the broader social and environmental contexts of the experience of disability, and how they may affect the ways in which persons with disabilities encounter the law;
3. The importance of building on the considerable existing foundation for the law as it affects persons with disabilities, including international documents, domestic law and numerous domestic policy documents at both the federal and provincial levels;
4. The benefits of a framework based on a set of principles, which can provide guidance while remaining flexible and applicable in changing circumstances;
5. The centrality of the experiences and perspectives of persons with disabilities to the identification and application of the principles; and
6. The design of the framework as a strong foundation for further research, analysis and discussion."

Earlier Library Boy posts on the topic include:

• International Labour Organization Resource Guide on Disability (December 2, 2007)
• Canadian Human Rights Commission Website Has New Section on UN Disabled Convention (September 29, 2010)
• Law Commission of Ontario Releases Papers on Disability Issues (December 8, 2010)
• Canadian Human Rights Commission Report on Equality Rights for People With Disabilities (July 10, 2012)