Toronto courthouse’s accessibility features ‘missing or botched’: AODA [Video]

An advocacy group is calling Toronto’s newest courthouse a “billion-dollar accessibility bungle” after releasing a video showing what it says are various barriers throughout the building.

Since the $956-million courthouse, located at 10 Armoury St., took over criminal proceedings from six Ontario Court of Justice branches in Toronto, North York and Scarborough last February, the facility has been plagued with staffing shortages and courtroom backlogs.

In a recent video, the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance (AODA) commends the downtown Toronto courthouse for features like space for turning wheelchairs and good acoustics in the facility’s courtrooms, however, it says far more crucial features are either “missing or botched.”

David Lepofsky, the alliance’s chair, who is blind, tours the courthouse in the video, posted on Aug. 8, and highlights a litany of barriers for people with hearing and mobility disabilities, autism, blindness and low vision, among others, as he walks through.

Among the AODA’s concerns are a …