Meenu Sikand
Meenu Sikand is the Assistant Deputy Minister (ADM) of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Division (AODD) at the Ministry of Seniors and Accessibility. An experienced C-Suite leader within government, healthcare, corporate and non-profit sectors, she has led large organizations to dismantle ableism and racism by applying the Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility (IDEA) lens.
Meenu acquired a spinal cord injury, shortly after she immigrated to Canada from India. She’s used a wheelchair since and has experienced firsthand that it’s not the disability that disables people, but it’s the inaccessible environment around them and the lack of support systems. Throughout her career, she is working to build and strengthen the systems and public policies that allow people with disabilities to participate and thrive in their communities with dignity. Meenu has spent most of her life showing others that although people with disabilities can work hard and contribute to society, working hard isn’t enough to change society’s attitudes about disability. She is the founder and CEO of Accessibility for All (AFA), which focuses on public education campaigns to raise disability and diversity awareness, Human Rights training to remove accessibility barriers strategically. Meenu is a well-respected mentor and coach in the SA community where she uses her privilege to amplify the voices of people with disabilities and BIPOC populations.
“We all have some abilities, and to the best of our abilities, we should be able to contribute to the world that we live in. The system should be set up in such a way to enable you and not disable you,” she says.
In addition to her role at the Ministry, Meenu has been an IDEA champion for more than three decades, dedicating her professional and personal life to advocating for the rights of people living with disabilities and those in marginalized communities at the local, national and international level. As an immigrant woman with a disability, she has been pushing the boundaries within the EDI profession to ensure people living with disabilities are included in the conversation. Meenu’s lived experiences, among other things, as a South Asian immigrant to Canada and a woman with a physical disability mean that Ms. Sikand has a critical eye on equity, accessibility, intersectionality and public policy.
Meenu has received many accolades, including the Community Service Award from the Indo-Canada Chambers of Commerce, the 2020 Senior Executive of the Year award from the Canadian Center for Diversity & Inclusion and the Accessibility Champion Award for the Region of Peel in 2017. In 2020 she was the first SA woman inducted into the Canadian Disability Hall of Fame.