In 2010, Canada ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), which established a legal requirement “to promote and ensure the full enjoyment of human rights of persons with disabilities including full equality under the law” (Government of Canada). The Ontario Human Rights Commission is the judicial body that imposes a duty to accommodate people with disabilities “in the way that most respects the dignity of the person, if doing so does not cause undue hardship” (OHRC). This duty is based on three principles: “respect for dignity, individualization, as well as integration and full participation” (OHRC). This duty extends to employers and unions, housing providers, and service providers.
The Tribunal has upheld two components of this duty. Firstly, the request for accommodation must be fairly assessed, and, where it does not cause “undue hardship” (OHRC Articles 9, 10) it must be implemented.
We are all entitled to accommodation in our workplace in order to provide us the conditions that allow us to fully participate. Accommodations are varied based on the individual needs of the person. For instance, if an individual is deaf or hard of hearing, appropriate accommodations would be closed captions on all audio/visual materials, instructions provided in writing, supportive personal devices, facing the individual when speaking and speaking slowly, to name a few. The specific needs of the deaf individual would be established by the primary physician/specialist and communicated to the employer.
In order to ensure that your accommodation needs are met, it is incumbent upon you to reach out to HR to begin the process of assessing your needs and implementing the appropriate accommodations. You can do so by either directly contacting Marianne Cunningham, the Manager of Disability and Accommodations Services for HR (), or by asking your Chair/Manager to connect you. Once you are connected to the appropriate person, a conversation will ensue where the process is explained, and pertinent timelines are established. For instance, if you suffer from a back injury, you would have an appointment with your specialist who would then fill out a form, to be sent back to your Accommodations Specialist at Seneca, explaining what kind of accommodation would be most appropriate. Your Accommodations Specialist maintains confidentiality about the reason for your needs, and is tasked with ensuring that the appropriate accommodation is put in place. This process should move fairly quickly, but we frequently find that there are unseen obstacles along the way. Some reasons for delay are outside either parties control, such as wait times to see physicians/specialists. Other reasons can be anticipated and abated in advance, such as ensuring that you have a regularly scheduled appointment with your physician/specialist at least once per semester in order to review your accommodation needs as these can change over time.
We urge you to connect with your union representatives, so that we can support you through this process. In particular, our VP Equity, Barbara Paterson, is the dedicated representative who works to support our members in ensuring that they have the accommodations that best suit them. She will work with you, as your representative, in any part of the process, while maintaining confidentiality. She does not discuss any cases with anyone else, unless the member has consented to have another union representative be part of the process. Our goal is to ensure that your rights are respected and protected. When the College fails to do so, we turn to Article 4 of our Collective Agreement, which protects you from discrimination, bullying, and harassment. If the College fails to accommodate, that is a form of discrimination, and we then turn to the grievance process to remedy it.
We are here to work with you so that we can all be full participants in our Seneca community.