Project Overview
Persons with disabilities make up a significant and growing proportion of Ontario’s population, and nearly everyone will be affected by disability at some point in their lives—either personally or through the experience of a family member or loved one. This reality has wide-ranging implications for law and policy, yet the impacts of laws and policies on persons with disabilities are not always fully considered. These impacts arise both from laws that explicitly address disability and from general laws and policies that shape everyday life for the population as a whole.
The Law Commission of Ontario’s Persons with Disabilities project responds to this gap by examining how laws, policies, and practices affect persons with disabilities, and by providing a structured approach to evaluating those effects. The project produced two complementary documents: a Framework for the Law as it Affects Persons with Disabilities, and an accompanying Final Report that explains the Framework’s principles, foundations, and practical application.
The Framework is intended as a practical tool for anyone involved in developing, interpreting, implementing, or assessing laws, policies, or practices that may affect persons with disabilities. The goal is to support laws and policies that are more effective, just, accessible, and responsive to the lived experiences of persons with disabilities.
The Framework is grounded in extensive research and public consultation, and builds on established legal and policy foundations, including Charter and human rights jurisprudence, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and existing government policy frameworks. The project was developed in tandem with the LCO’s project on the law as it affects older adults, reflecting the overlap between disability and aging, and together these projects laid the groundwork for the LCO’s later work on legal capacity, decision-making, and guardianship.
Advisory Committee
The Advisory Committee members were:
- Cam Crawford – Canadian Association for Community Living
- Catherine Frazee – Ryerson University, School of Disability Studies
- Raihanna Kirji-Khalfan – Ethno-Racial Persons with Disabilities Coalition of Ontario
- Gary Malkowski – Canadian Hearing Society
- Mary Marrone – Income Security Advocacy Centre
- Nyranne Martin – Centre for Addiction and Mental Health
- Fran Odette – Springtide Resources
- Glenn Padassery and Robert Thomson – Ministry of Community and Social Services, Standards Policy and Coordination Branch
- Ivana Petricone – ARCH Disability Law Centre
- Jeff Poirier – Ontario Human Rights Commission
- Doug Surtees – University of Saskatchewan, College of Law
- Diane Wagner – Learning Disabilities Association of Ontario
- Kimberley Wilson – Canadian Coalition of Seniors’ Mental Health
- Eta Woldeab – Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants
Key Recommendations
The LCO makes three overarching recommendations to support consistent and principled consideration of disability across law and policy.
1. Promote adoption and use of the Framework
- Recommend that governments, municipalities, public sector bodies, private actors, legal organizations, advocacy groups, and community organizations adopt and apply the Framework when reviewing existing laws, policies, and practices, and when developing new ones that may affect persons with disabilities.
2. Support coordination across governments
- Recommend that where municipal, provincial, and federal programs or services overlap or address related issues, the Government of Ontario identify issues raised by applying the Framework and raise them with other levels of government to promote coherence and consistency.
3. Review the Framework to ensure continued relevance
- Recommend that the Government of Ontario, in consultation with persons with disabilities and relevant organizations, review the use and effectiveness of the Framework after seven years to ensure it remains current, meaningful, and responsive.
Together, the Framework and Final Report provide a durable foundation for advancing substantive equality for persons with disabilities and improving how law and policy respond to disability in Ontario.