Montreal disability rights advocates roll out campaign for wheelchair accessible terraces

MONTREAL – If you’re lucky, you may have been able to take advantage of today’s warm temperatures and spend some time out on a terrace.

This springtime ritual is a luxury many Montrealers don’t have access to, as hundreds of Montreal terraces are not wheelchair accessible – a situation that disability rights advocates are trying to change.

At Café Marizio on St. Laurent Boulevard, wheelchair access has always existed.

“Our terrace is accessible,” says owner Brites Machado. “Everything is level to the street, including the bathroom, which is large enough to have a wheelchair.”

This year, the temporary terrace they build every year at the front of the restaurant will also be accessible to wheelchairs.

“We’ll see if some type of access from the outside will be easier for the person to come in.”

One reason for the change is a new regulation passed by the Borough of Plateau Mont Royal.

“This summer, all sidewalk and street terraces will be universally accessible to people in wheelchairs,” says Projet Montreal city councillor Alex Norris. “We’re very proud of that.”

Eating outside on a terrace is an integral part of summer in Montreal. The issue is that in many parts of the city, including Old Montreal, restaurants are not obliged to provide wheelchair access.

In fact, wheelchair access exists in just 5 of Montreal’s 19 boroughs.

This is a situation that wheelchair advocates would like to see changed.

“It’s exactly the same thing as if I was a black woman and they wouldn’t allow me to go somewhere,” explains Linda Gauthier, spokesperson for thedisability rights advocacy organization, RAPLIQ. “We’re not second-class citizens. I want to go where you are going.”

Gauthier and her organization are asking the City of Montreal to force its boroughs to make immediate changes – and so is the opposition.

“We’ve put a resolution forward to the council, asking the city to go faster than that,” says Veronique Fournier, Vision Montreal city councillor. “For instance, in the south west boroughs, it took a few months.”

The city council is recommending that the boroughs give their merchants a five-year deadline to make the necessary accommodations.

“Our objective is to respect merchants, their capacity to pay, and the budget they have to do it,” says Jocelyn Anne Campbell, Union Montreal city councillor. “We’re saying if you can do it at a faster pace, fine, perfect!”

But this time frame is unacceptable for Gauthier.

“I’m wondering if the politicians were in a wheelchair,” she says, “I’m pretty sure it would be a lot faster than five years.”

Gauthier is not backing down. If the city doesn’t change its recommendation, she is prepared to take her fight to the Human Rights Commission.