London city councillors will kick off their weekend with a special meeting that could see recently removed online videos put back on the city's website and YouTube page.
A special meeting of London city council will be held Friday at 3pm. The meeting comes after councillors voted earlier this week to remove videos of archived meetings of council and city committees from the two online platforms because they did not have closed captioning for the hearing impaired.
There were concerns raised by city staff that the videos were not in compliance with the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA).
Councillor Mo Salih called the oversight "unacceptable" on Twitter.
He later tweeted that he would be asking for a special meeting of council.
In a letter submitted to council on Thursday, councillors Salih, Josh Morgan, and Jesse Helmer ask that staff take all necessary steps to repost the videos and contact the Accessibility Directorate of Ontario to clarify whether or not the videos are compliant. If they are not, staff are to look for guidance as to how the videos could be put back online while work is done to bring them into compliance.
They also ask that staff report back to the Corporate Services Committee by the end of February.
London disability advocate Jeff Preston doesn't believe the city would incur any sort of financial penalties if it chooses to restore the archived videos.
"The spirit of the AODA is about the prevention of new barriers being created. The ministry for over a decade has been repeatedly stating that retrofit is not on the table right now. We are just focusing on trying to stop new barriers from being created," said Preston. "So a real simple solution here for city hall would be to start captioning their videos going forward, then potentially put in a plan to start captioning some of that archival footage to ensure that there is access."
While some have accused council of jumping the gun by removing the videos before seeking expert advice, Preston said it's not an uncommon overreaction to the situation.
"This is not the only example that I've heard of in the province where people have decided let's just stop doing what we are doing because that will be easier and limits our liability. That, of course, is not the desire of the AODA. The AODA is about opening up the world, not closing it off," said Preston.
The letter from Councillors Salih, Morgan, and Helmer can be read here.
~With files from Miranda Chant