Onley to speak at U of T Scarborough event on championing disability

BY GEORGE KAGAME

The Lieutenant Governor of Ontario Honourable David Onley is set to participate in the University of Toronto’s Scarborough campus on the topic Championing Disability on 11 March at the University of Toronto’s Scarborough campus.

The fee for all event is open is organized by the Scarborough based campus and will start mid morning till late in the day. Tina Doyle, Director AccessAbility services at U of T Scarborough said the Onley will expand on his renown ideas and increase awareness of issues related to disabilities and accessibility. “We want to encourage dialogue on these issues within our campus community.”
Doyle said that Onley’s speech at the university will generate discussion among students, staff and faculty and that it will encourage “all of us to work together to reduce the barriers to participation that are faced by persons with disabilities in our community and society as a whole,”

Onley, a veteran broadcast journalist in Canada has been at the forefront of championing causes that support the equal treatment of people with disabilities since the 1980s. He maintains that accessibility is a human right and accessibility is right.

During his installation as Lieutenant Governor of Ontario Onley said: My dream is of a province where disability rights are advanced not only for those with clasically-defined physical disabilities, but also for so called ‘invisible’ disabilities. We must not presume that disability is only represented by a white wheelchair symbol on a blue sign.”

Onley is a published writer for his book, Shuttle: A Shattering Novel of Disaster in Space, a bestselling novel about space travel, published in 1981 and was also appointed Chair of the Accessibility Standards Advisory Council to the Minister of Community and Social Services in 2005. He was most recently inducted into the Scarborough Walk of Fame in 2006.