“The Duty to Accommodate People with Disabilities 101 – An Introduction to the Duty to Accommodate.” by David Lepofsky

A New Captioned Video Gives You a Practical Guide to the Duty to Accommodate People with Disabilities

Have you heard something about the duty to accommodate people with disabilities, but wanted to know what it actually means? Who owes this duty? To which people with disabilities? What does the duty include? What kinds of accommodations does it require? When does the duty to accommodate arise? Have you heard before that it is a duty to accommodate up to the point of “undue hardship,” but wondered what “undue hardship means?

Here’s a brand new captioned video that answers all these questions. It is called “The Duty to Accommodate People with Disabilities 101 – An Introduction to the Duty to Accommodate.” It is presented by AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky, who is also a visiting professor at the Osgoode Hall Law School.

This presentation talks about the duty to accommodate in a wide range of situations. It includes the duty of employers to accommodate employees and job applicants with disabilities. It also addresses the duty of those in the public and private sectors who provide goods, services or facilities to the public to accommodate people with disabilities. That includes a diverse range of organizations, like stores, restaurants, hotels, schools, colleges, universities, hospitals and other health care providers, public and private transportation providers, and so on.

Anyone involved in human resources work, or in direct customer service, or the management of an organization in the public or private sector can also benefit from this video. You don’t need any background in the law to benefit from this video.

It can be helpful to you if you are a member of a municipality’s Accessibility Advisory Committee, or of a school board’s Special Education Advisory Committee, or of a Standards Development Committee appointed under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act.

We encourage you to watch this video and to share it with others, including via social media. Post a link to it on your organization’s website. If you teach a course in college, university or other educational setting, feel free to use all or part of it as part of your instructional materials. Use this video as a tool to help in the campaign to make Ontario fully accessible to all ,people with disabilities.

The video runs about one and a quarter hours. To make is easier to use, and for those who don’t have time to watch it all, we provide links below to each of the major headings or topics addressed in the video.

Let us know what you think of this video. Send your feedback to aodafeedback@gmail.com

An Introduction to the Duty to Accommodate People with Disabilities”

The video is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y32XvjWmDAQ

Here are links to key topics in the video:

1. Introduction and Overview 00:00https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeKQHuxP9XU
2. Where does the Duty to Accommodate Come From? 2:27https://youtu.be/y32XvjWmDAQ?t=147
3. Who Must Accommodate People with Disabilities? Who Has the Duty to Accommodate? 5:12https://youtu.be/y32XvjWmDAQ?t=312
4. What is the Purpose of the Duty to Accommodate? 8:25https://youtu.be/y32XvjWmDAQ?t=504
5. What are the Benefits of Fulfilling the Duty to Accommodate? 11:15https://youtu.be/y32XvjWmDAQ?t=675
6. What Disabilities are Included within the Duty to Accommodate? 15:40https://youtu.be/y32XvjWmDAQ?t=941
7. Examples of Accommodations that Can be Required 17:26 https://youtu.be/y32XvjWmDAQ?t=1046
8. What is the Content of the Duty to Accommodate? What Must an Organization Do? 26:05https://youtu.be/y32XvjWmDAQ?t=1565
9. Some Red Herrings We Can Eliminate from Discussion About the Duty to Accommodate 34:05https://youtu.be/y32XvjWmDAQ?t=2045
10. When Does the Duty to Accommodate Arise? 35:25https://youtu.be/y32XvjWmDAQ?t=2125
11. When, If Ever, Can You Ask a Person, Requesting Accommodation, for Medical Documentation of Their Disability? 37:50https://youtu.be/y32XvjWmDAQ?t=2270

12 The Undue Hardship Defence – General Principles 39:33 https://youtu.be/y32XvjWmDAQ?t=2373

13. When Can the Cost of Accommodation Justify a Failure to Accommodate? 49:14https://youtu.be/y32XvjWmDAQ?t=2954
14. When Can Health and Safety Considerations Justify a Refusal to Accommodate? 57:42https://youtu.be/y32XvjWmDAQ?t=3461
15. Can the Failure to Accommodate Be Defended on the Basis that It Adversely Affects the Morale of Other Workers? 59:10https://youtu.be/y32XvjWmDAQ?t=3546
16. How Does the Duty to Accommodate Apply to Trade Unions and Collective Agreements? 1:00:49https://youtu.be/y32XvjWmDAQ?t=3649
17. What Happens if Fulfillment of the Duty to Accommodate May Conflict with Other Rights of Other People? 1:03:48https://youtu.be/y32XvjWmDAQ?t=3829
18. A Short, Punchy List of Defences or Arguments that Cannot Justify a Failure to Accommodate 1:06:56https://youtu.be/y32XvjWmDAQ?t=4016
19. Concluding Thoughts 1:11:18https://youtu.be/y32XvjWmDAQ?t=4282