TORONTO — Diane Finley, Canada’s minister of human resources and skills development, announced last Friday that Beth Emeth Bais Yehuda Synagogue and 296 other community projects across the country will receive grants in the coming year to improve accessibility for people with disabilities.
The Toronto shul will receive $75,000 in matching funds to install an elevator that will service three levels of the building.
The grant is from the federal government’s Enabling Accessibility fund, which is providing a total of $14.2 million for projects to improve accessibility through renovation, construction and retrofitting of buildings; modification of vehicles; and enhancement to technologies. It represents the maximum grant available from the fund.
Beth Emeth’s lower level, which is currently accessible only by stairs, houses Gan Yeladim Day Care and Kadimah Educational Centre, which serves adults with special needs.
Gan Yeladim supervisor Shelley Wise said she was thrilled by the grant. With the elevator, the daycare will become accessible for children in wheelchairs, as well as to parents or visitors with physical challenges. She recalled that a staff member once had to take time off work because her foot was in a cast and, more recently, a parent hurt her leg. “[An elevator] services everybody,” Wise said.
Kadimah supervisor Marcel Cohen, who applied for the grant with Wise, said that several Kadimah students use walkers. “It’s very perilous for them to come down the stairs.” He added that an elevator would allow for new students to join Kadimah as well.
Beth Emeth’s Rabbi Howard Morrison told reporters, “Forty years ago it wasn’t on our moral compass to think about the ideals we are thinking about now.”
Last summer the shul’s chapel was renovated and is now fully accessible, he said. As well, he added, two years ago, a bimah ramp was installed in the main sanctuary.
Finley told reporters, “Our government values the abilities of all Canadians and celebrates our progress as a society towards the full inclusion of people with disabilities.”
The grant projects also create jobs, empower people with disabilities, and increase their financial stability, she added.