Ontario's new billion-dollar courthouse is already facing major complaints

A fancy new outpost of the Ontario Court of Justice — which cost the provincial government some $1 billion to build — is already having some massive issues that have made it the centre of an array of complaints for months.

The new Ontario Court of Justice building, located at University and Armory in the downtown core, has been experiencing all sorts of staff shortages that have impacted countless court cases and generally prevented the institution from carrying out its function.

On some days, more than one-third of the building's courtrooms sit shuttered and unused, leading to lengthy delays that have forced judges to stay cases due to how long they are taking to get through the system.

Along with ongoing hold ups that, as one judge said, are "staggering enough to cause significant disruption to criminal matters in the Ontario Court of Justice," there are also now accessibility concerns with the facility, which serves to replace six other courthouses.

As outlined in a new video from the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance (AODA), the 18-month-old building is being considered a "billion-dollar accessibility bungle" by those with accessibility needs.

"The courthouse has some good features. Courtrooms have power doors, good acoustics and space for turning wheelchairs. But important accessibility features are missing or botched. This is despite our warnings about serious problems for years before the court was built," AODA's chair explains in the clip.

Among the alliance's biggest concerns are a dearth of disability parking, long and difficult routes from nearby parking lots and transit hubs, other obstructions leading to the front door, limited braile, excessive glare and badly-placed power doors, buttons and front desk help.

It also notes how "jamming six criminal courthouses from all over Toronto into one huge downtown mega-courthouse" forces people to travel further to get to court, only to then deal with a "huge unnecessary" and confusing public square out front.

"The government violated its own mandatory accessibility regulations in this new court of law," he continues. 

"After the building opened, the government hired more accessibility consultants to try and fix some of this mess... but we've exposed huge problems. We need strong, mandatory, comprehensive, enforced built environment accessibility standards."