The Accessible Housing Network supports CMHC's consistent efforts to promote Universal Design (UD).  It considers the new Guide as an intermediate step to the ultimate goal of standardizing UD. 

The Guide recommends UD implementation and describes in detail how this can be done.  To view it click here. 

Still, isn't it astonishing that the CMHC finds it necessary to introduce architects and designers to revolutionary concepts like UD, which one assumes are taught in first year of college?

Regardless, what is more concerning to AHN is that the Guide merely makes recommendations.  It leaves UD's implementation in the hands of designers and builders.  Since this makes implementation voluntary, the guide can be ignored in whole or in part.

Unenforced laws are not considered worth the paper they're written on.  The same could be said about voluntary guidelines.  As many have pointed out regarding Canada's new long-term-care standards, recommendations are not enforceable, and failure to implement them is not punishable.

For these reasons, AHN's petition to the federal government calls for the incorporation of UD into the National Building Code as the standard.  And it wants the implementation of UD to be a necessary condition for federal funding. Strings must be attached!

We hope our government finds the courage to mandate and enforce a UD standard.  If Australia can do it, so can Canada!

PS:  Thanks for your continued support and sharing of this petition.  Please continue to encourage more friends and contacts to sign it.