SUBJECT; GASOLINE SERVICE TO PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES

Dear Mr. Norton:

This is further to your letter of 9 July, 2001, to me, to the two enclosed articles from the Ottawa Citizen of 23 March, 2001, and 23 May, 2001,

and to the enclosed Email dated 2 March 2002, from Steve Douglas, SUNOCO Director of Marketing and Ebusiness

In the Ottawa Citizen article of 23 March 2001 you stated that you intended to aggressively pressure industry and businesses to remove barriers to persons with disabilities and in your letter of 9 July, 2001, you outlined the obligations of the oil companies to meet the gasoline needs of persons with disabilities so as not to be in contravention of the Ontario Human Rights Code.

The endeavours to make the oil companies recognize their obligations as outlined in your 9 July 2001 letter have been ongoing for more than two years with minimal success.

However, there is one bright light in an otherwise gloomy picture. SUNOCO (Suncor Inc.) has now put in place, at all its Ontario stations which provide both self-serve and full-serve service, a procedure whereby on display of a handicap parking sticker, full service will be provided at the self-serve price, thus eliminating the price discrimination that previously existed and which still exists at most such stations of other oil companies. This is accomplished by the attendant merely pressing a button at the full-serve pump and the bill is calculated at the self-serve price. According to SUNOCO this was accomplished by a few hours of computer programming of their pumps and was quite cost-effective.

In the Ottawa Citizen article of 23 May 2001 you stated that you would give public credit to a company that took the initiative and reduced or eliminated barriers to persons with disabilities. Although at the time you were talking of fast food outlets, it is assumed that this would also apply to a company that took such an initiative in the gasoline service area, especially in a venue where discrimination is still blatant with little movement to date to correct it.

In view of the foregoing , I can think of no company that deserves such public credit more than SUNOCO and its Director of Marketing and Ebusiness, Mr. Steve Douglas, who was instrumental in introducing this significant initiative at the SUNOCO stations.

Thus, consistent with your promises to give public credit to a company that took the initiative to reduce or eliminate barriers to persons with disabilities, and to aggressively pursue the reduction of barriers to persons with disabilities, it is requested that such public recognition be accorded to SUNOCO and possibly Mr. Douglas, by either a press release, public statement to the press, a photo-op with a SUNOCO representative, or something similar, which would provide wide exposure to this significant initiative to reduce barriers to persons with disabilities.

This would not, in any way, be an endorsement of one company over another, but merely, as you said in your statement, public recognition of one company’s initiative to reduce barriers. Such recognition may prompt other oil companies to take similar action, (or risk losing market share), which is, I am sure you will agree, our common goal.

Please advise action taken.

Yours truly,

Original signed by G. Warren

cc: Hon. Carl Defaria, MPP, Minister of Citizenship

Steve Douglas, Director of Marketing and Ebusiness, Suncor Inc., Toronto

Barry McMahon, Chair, City of Ottawa Accessibility Advisory Committee

Disabled Persons Community Resources (DPCR), Ottawa

David Lepofsky, Chair, ODA Committee, Toronto

Brian Coburn, MPP, Ottawa-Orleans

Chair, Council of Canadians with Disabilities, Winnipeg

Enclosures (not to all addressees) Gasoline9-OHRC.wpd