Accessibility Feedback

Together with residents, the City will ensure Vaughan is fully accessible and barrier-free. We need your help to understand the specific barriers people with disabilities face to remove them. The City asks for feedback on government programs and services to inform our reporting and strengthen our efforts to improve accessibility for all residents and visitors.

The Diversity and Inclusion Officer or their delegate will review the feedback and then share it with the relevant department to find a resolution, where the feedback requires a response and the issue falls within the City’s areas of responsibility.

Your feedback will help the City shape future municipal accessibility policy and programming and the City’s next Multi-Year Accessibility Plan, and help us remove existing barriers and prevent them in the future.

As required by the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA), the City prepares an annual report that describes the actions taken in the previous year to implement the Act. Part of this reporting process includes how feedback about accessibility issues is addressed.

If you share your contact information, you may get a follow-up request from us wanting to understand your experience better.

The definitions outlined in the AODA are:

• Accessibility means how easily something can be reached, entered or used by a person with a disability.
• Disability means the experience of not being able to equally and fully participate in or access something because of a barrier or impairment.
• An impairment includes:
  • physical (e.g. requiring the use of mobility devices, like a wheelchair or walker)
  • sensory (e.g. serious sensitivities to scent, sound or lights, or a vision or hearing impairment)
  • mental (e.g. anxiety, depression, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, eating disorders)
  • intellectual or cognitive (e.g. Fetal Alcohol Spectrum, Autism)
• Impairments can be:
  • permanent, whether from birth or acquired later.
  • temporary, such as someone who is pregnant or with a broken leg unable to walk easily.
  • episodic, such as sunsetting or times when people with dementia have lowered cognitive capacity.
• A barrier is anything that hinders someone with an impairment from easily accessing something or taking part equally and/or fully. Examples of barriers include:
  • buildings without wheelchair ramps at the entrances.
  • storeys without wheelchair-accessible washrooms.
  • information that is hard to understand or unclear.
  • forms that are not available in alternative accessible formats, such as Braille or large print.
  • important videos without captions or American Sign Language (ASL) alternatives.
  • an employee using language that is rude or exclusionary about a disability or difference.

We want feedback from anyone visiting, working or living in Vaughan who experiences a barrier or witnesses someone experiencing a barrier.

We want to know the specific barriers people face when they are trying to:

• access a program, location or information offered by the City.
• receive a service or support through the City.

We’re seeking descriptions of experiences and how they impact you, as well as recommendations for how barriers can be removed.

The questions in the online  Accessibility Feedback Form (PDF) are optional. They are there to help you provide us with information about barriers. You can share as much or as little as you want.

The City of Vaughan adheres to the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (MFIPPA) regarding both access to City-held information and the privacy and protection of City-held personal information. The City is committed to the protection of personal information that may be collected, used and disclosed by the City and when visiting the City's website in accordance with the requirements of MFIPPA. The privacy of our users is important to us and we appreciate your trust. By visiting vaughan.ca, you are accepting the practices described in this Privacy Statement.

When personal information is collected directly on vaughan.ca, we make an effort to include a link to this Privacy Statement on that page. You may choose not to provide certain information, however, such choice may restrict your ability to take advantage of that or other features.

The City collects personal information to deliver services to our residents and to conduct City business. In most cases, you will receive written notice for any collections of personal information done on behalf of the City at the time the information is collected.