Accessibility Advisory Committee

WHEREAS the volunteer members on the Accessibility Advisory Committee (AAC) are routinely asked by City staff and consultants hired by the City to provide comment by email on various technical design plans; and WHEREAS the requests are high in volume and often without sufficient context and, due to these circumstances, it is often difficult for the AAC Members to respond to these requests in a meaningful way; and WHEREAS the current practice is challenging for the AAC as it seeks to fulfill its statutory duties to provide advice to Ottawa City Council under section 29 of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005 (AODA); and WHEREAS City Council routinely reviews the City’s governance structure every two years, as part of the Governance Report and the Mid-Term Governance Report; and WHEREAS it is common practice for the City Clerk to meet with the Chair and Vice-Chair of the Accessibility Advisory Committee as part of the consultations for governance reports; THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Chair of AAC be instructed to raise this issue with the City Clerk as part of the consultations on the 2020 Mid-Term Governance Report, including possible options to improve the effectiveness of the City’s consultations on various technical design plans.