05/31/2026
Ontario’s new education bill ‘not a pretty picture’ for students with disabilities, advocate writes ........... Earlier this month, the province used its majority to ram through the legislature its controversial Bill 101, Putting Student Achievement First Act.
With May 31 to June 6 being National AccessAbility Week in Canada, you may expect and hope governments at all levels would line up to announce new actions to tear down at least some of the many accessibility barriers that plague people with disabilities every day.
Sadly, for hundreds of thousands of students with disabilities in schools all over Ontario, the news from Queen’s Park is instead rather grim.
Earlier this month, the province used its majority to ram through the legislature its controversial Bill 101, Putting Student Achievement First Act.
That law largely eviscerates the positions of school board trustees.
Education Minister Paul Calandra has given himself the power to micromanage your schools.
For students with disabilities, Bill 101 is not a pretty picture. Yet when this was publicly pointed out to the government, Calandra rejected several amendments to the bill that would have added some safeguards for vulnerable students with disabilities.
Here are some worthwhile amendments that were rejected.
Bill 101 gives the education minister sweeping power to issue new regulations, guidelines, policies and directives. These will impose a maze of new rules on how schools operate. There’s a huge risk that these can create new barriers for students with disabilities.
For example, Calandra intends to order high schools to penalize students through grades if they miss too many classes. He ignored the many reasons why some students with disabilities may be absent from school, including times when the principal refuses to let them come to school.
When this was pointed out to him, Calandra said he’d exempt students with disabilities from the requirement to penalize high school students for absenteeism. Yet, he didn’t consider that this is going to lead to more bullying of students with disabilities.
It looks like he’s making up education policy as he goes along.
How do we try to protect against this?
The opposition proposed sensible amendments at our request that would require the education minister to consult the community — including parents of students with disabilities — before making any new regulations, guidelines, policies or other directions to ensure changes do not create barriers that impede students with disabilities from equally benefiting from school programs.
The province opposed those amendments.
Bill 101 gives Calandra control over local construction of new schools, or additions to existing schools.
Right now, the government has nothing in place to ensure any new buildings are fully accessible to students, parents and school employees with disabilities. Yes, the Ontario Building Code has accessibility requirements, but they are grossly inadequate.
The opposition proposed an amendment to Bill 101 at our request to require that these new buildings and additions to existing buildings be accessible. The provincial government voted no to that as well.....
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