LETTER: Accessibility an important campaign issue

An issue that has not been discussed very much during the current campaign for mayor is accessibility for persons with disabilities.

Ken Boshcoff has worked on accessibility issues for persons with disabilities long before any other 2014 candidate for mayor, and still works on those issues today.

I know, because I have also been actively working, along with Ken, on those issues of concern to persons with disabilities since 1980. In fact, since 2006, I have been a Member and one of the board of directors of Citizens With Disabilities of Ontario. I am currently in my fourth year serving as chair of this completely volunteer, cross-disability, Ontario-wide organization.

Ken and I both know that true accessibility covers all aspects of our daily lives including customer service, transportation, built environment, employment, housing, education and information and communications to name just a few.

Now, think back. As mayor in Thunder Bay from 1998 to 2003, Ken Boshcoff held inclusion weeks for the awareness of issues of concern to persons with disabilities in Thunder Bay.

During those years, Ken was a leader in discussion roundtables with organizations concerning inclusion for persons with disabilities. These discussions helped form our current Accessibility for Ontarian's with Disabilities Act.

Then as an MP Ken made sure he had a fully accessible office in Centennial Square. Ken also chaired the national sub-committee of persons with disabilities. His commitment to the Inclusion of all members of the committee at meetings led Ken to cancel and re-schedule a meeting at which there was no interpreter for a member of the committee who was deaf.

Ken continues his accessibility work for persons with disabilities today by working towards accessible voting in elections and by having an accessible 2014 campaign office and website and by distributing brochures in Braille.

Ken currently serves on the Canadian National Institute for the Blind's Ontario-Nunavut board of directors and actively participates in many other activities for accessibility organizations.

Ken's goal always has been, and is still now, and will continue to be to have Thunder Bay recognized as one of Canada's "most inclusive communities."

Let us work together and move Thunder Bay forward with all of our important issues.