Bill C-81 (Historical)

Accessible Canada Act

An Act to ensure a barrier-free Canada

This enactment enacts the Accessible Canada Act in order to enhance the full and equal participation of all persons, especially persons with disabilities, in society. This is to be achieved through the realization, within the purview of matters coming within the legislative authority of Parliament, of a Canada without barriers, particularly by the identification, removal and prevention of barriers.
Part 1 of the Act establishes the Minister’s mandate, powers, duties and functions.
Part 2 of the Act establishes the Canadian Accessibility Standards Development Organization and provides for its mandate and structure and its powers, duties and functions.
Part 3 of the Act authorizes the Accessibility Commissioner to provide the Minister with information, advice and written reports in respect of the administration and enforcement of the Act. It also requires the Accessibility Commissioner to submit an annual report on his or her activities under the Act to the Minister for tabling in Parliament.
Part 4 of the Act imposes duties on regulated entities that include the duty to prepare accessibility plans and progress reports in consultation with persons with disabilities, the duty to publish those plans and reports and the duty to establish a feedback process and to publish a description of it.
Part 5 of the Act provides for the Accessibility Commissioner’s inspection and other powers, including the power to make production orders and compliance orders and the power to impose administrative monetary penalties.
Part 6 of the Act provides for a complaints process for, and the awarding of compensation to, individuals that have suffered physical or psychological harm, property damage or economic loss as the result of — or that have otherwise been adversely affected by — the contravention of provisions of the regulations.
Part 7 of the Act provides for the appointment of the Chief Accessibility Officer and sets out that officer’s duties and functions, including the duty to advise the Minister in respect of systemic or emerging accessibility issues.
Part 8 of the Act authorizes the Governor in Council to make regulations, including regulations to establish accessibility standards and to specify the form of accessibility plans and progress reports. It also provides, among other things, for the designation of the week starting on the last Sunday in May as National AccessAbility Week.
Part 9 of the Act provides for the application of certain provisions of the Act to parliamentary entities, without limiting the powers, privileges and immunities of the Senate, the House of Commons and the members of those Houses.
Parts 10 and 11 of the Act make related and consequential amendments to certain Acts.

Accessible Canada Act

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have had the opportunity to sit through most of the debate today. We have heard from the Liberal side that this is somehow historic legislation. I want to echo the comments of the member for Red Deer—Mountain View. He said historic in the sense that it had sat on somebody's desk for three years. Now as we get close to an election, all of a sudden it is being introduced.

In the context of historic and monumental, we heard the member speak about the legislation being vague, with no timelines, no mandated outcomes and no measurables. Would the member classify the legislation as historic or historically vague?

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague has given me some good direction on what my answer will be.

I would go a long way from describing the legislation as historic. What was historic was the registered disability savings plan that the previous Conservative government came up with, which the Liberal minister of procurement called a game changer. I do not think anybody would call Bill C-81 a game changer.

The potential absolutely is there, but it lacks any sort of clarity, no tangible regulations and no tangible results. It is merely another funding announcement of $290 million for yet another study and additional consultation.

In a mandate letter, three different times it was laid out by the Prime Minister to be a priority. However, more than two-thirds of the way through the Liberals' mandate, we finally get legislation that lacks any depth or lends any clarity.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to my colleague and I am concerned to hear him say that this bill lacks teeth and does not have any measures to reduce barriers faced by people with disabilities.

In reading the bill, I clearly see concrete measures to transform our organizations. There is, for example, the creation of accessibility standards for our organizations by the Canadian accessibility standards development organization.

Why would creating these new standards not help eliminate the barriers he mentioned in his presentation?

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Mr. Speaker, what are the standards? We can have all these aspirational points as part of the bill, saying that we want to do this and achieve that, but there are no clear standards in there that say this is what is going to happen step by step, and with timelines. If we speak to those stakeholders and, with all honesty, say that we will have these standards, we do not know what they are, but they will be sometime in the next six years or so, is that really what those stakeholders have asked for? Is that really what they are supporting? I would question whether that was the bill of goods they were sold.

Again, I think all of us support the essence of Bill C-81. This is the direction we want to go. We want to ensure we are removing barriers for Canadians with disabilities, but we want a clear path and clear rules on how we get there.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for Foothills for highlighting some of the concerns of Bill C-81 and the fact that the Conservative Party supports it.

One of the issues the member mentioned was why it was such a low priority of the government. I was looking at old speeches and I asked the same question. We were debating Bill C-24 in December 2017, but the biggest thing out of that bill was to change the name of the minister of public works to the minister of public services and procurement. I remember asking why we were taking up all this time when there were so many other more important items that we were not addressing.

I would like to put that forward to my colleague. Why does the government always seem to be looking at things with zero consequence rather than things of much more importance, whether it is Bill C-71, the bill we were discussing Friday regarding justice and military, or this bill? Why does the government have such poorly laid out priorities for Canadians?

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is frustrating when we have these pieces of legislation where no due diligence is done as part of them. There is no cost-benefit analysis, no economic analysis or what the true impacts of the legislation could be. It is kind of like saying we are going to put this fancy picture in the store window, but there is going to be nothing behind it. We are seeing this with the legislation before us. It is a great sales pitch, great advertisement, but there is nothing tangible behind it.

If addressing Canadians with disabilities were truly a priority, why would the Liberals not have supported the proposed opportunities act that my colleague for Carleton raised earlier this year? Why would they not have supported the proposed fairness in disabilities act that my colleague for Calgary Shepard brought up earlier year? These were real solutions to real problems and they would have had a definitive impact on Canadians with disabilities.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have a chance to speak on this piece of legislation, Bill C-81, an act to ensure a barrier-free Canada.

Since this Parliament began just under three years ago, there have been a number of private members' bills put forward to this House with the aim of improving the lives of Canadians living with disabilities. Unfortunately, not all of these have passed. Most of these bills have contained meaningful, tangible outcomes and results for disabled Canadians, which is something that all parties in this House should have been able to support. However, as we look at Bill C-81, it is unclear how it will actually benefit those it sets out to help.

According to this piece of legislation, the intent of this bill is to benefit all Canadians, especially Canadians with disabilities, through the progressive realization of a barrier-free Canada. This is a sentiment that I believe we can all get behind. Accessibility is an important issue that can drastically affect the quality of people's lives, including their day-to-day routines. Anything that can be done at a government level to address this should absolutely be done.

As someone who has had to live 44 years of his life with a hearing disability, I was expecting a lot more from this legislation. It becomes problematic when legislation that is introduced by the government has no obvious effective results. In my view, this has been the case for Bill C-81. While it seems that the intention behind this bill is good, its actual components and the effects it would have are unclear. Aside from making it easier to access federal services, I fail to see how this legislation would help Canadians living with disabilities in the way that this government champions it as being historic.

Furthermore, there is the issue of the length of time it has taken to get this bill introduced to the House of Commons. The Liberals have been in power for three years now and are almost at the end of their mandate. It is only recently that they have begun to fulfill the promises they made to Canadians living with a disability when they were elected in 2015. All three ministers who have held this portfolio were instructed, in their mandate letters from the Prime Minister, to get this legislation moving. However, for some reason, the bill was only introduced in June of this year, right as the House recessed and all members returned to work in their constituencies.

I would like to acknowledge the present minister responsible for accessibility, as I truly believe that she means well with this legislation. She initiated this legislation, and she is here at its completion.

There has been absolutely no sense of urgency on this. To me it feels as though the Liberals were just kicking the can down the road until they finally had to do something or risk being criticized for their inaction. Canadians, disabled or not, deserve better than that.

In contrast, during the 2008 election, the Conservative Party committed to introducing the registered disability savings plan, RDSP. That election took place in October. By December of the same year the RDSP was introduced and was available for Canadians to take advantage of. All of that took place in under three months, yet by the time Bill C-81 passes, it will have taken almost three years.

Let us also consider that Canadians may need to wait another six years before any new regulations take effect, as there are no regulations contained within this legislation. There are so many things the government can do to help Canadians living with a disability, yet it chooses to introduce this legislation that has zero immediate effects and will not change a thing once it becomes law.

The previous Conservative government understood and recognized the contributions that persons with disabilities can and do make to our society and our economy. As I mentioned, the RDSP was implemented quickly and gave Canadians with disabilities greater financial security. Since 2008, 1,005 of these accounts have been set up, and over $1 billion has been added to their savings.

The previous Conservative government also introduced the new home accessibility tax credit to facilitate healthy, happy homes for persons with disabilities, and invested hundreds of millions of dollars toward improving employment and employment opportunities for persons with disabilities. This is the type of action that the Canadian public is expecting. We know that this can be done in a timely and efficient manner if the will is there. The previous government proved it was possible. However, the Liberals seem to bungle this portfolio time and time again.

One of the main components of this bill is that it says it will create accessibility standards for regulated parties to achieve and maintain. This would happen through the creation of the Canadian accessibility standards development organization, or CASDO. The bill would also create the position of a chief accessibility officer who would oversee the implementation of the legislation, as well as the creation of an accessibility commissioner, whose role would be to ensure compliance.

The provision of the bill that creates CASDO leaves many questions unanswered and ultimately creates yet another level of study and consultation without any actual impact on those it is meant to help. We know the government loves to study and consult on an issue rather than taking meaningful, timely action on it. What it is essentially doing with Bill C-81 is creating yet another committee, CASDO, that would set standards. If that statement leaves members with some questions, they are not alone.

What are these new standards going to look like, how would they be implemented, what is the timeline for this creation, what is the timeline for the consultation, what is the timeline for the implementation, what is the timeline for these standards, who is considered to be qualified to establish these standards, and so on and so forth. There are so many unanswered questions. I would appreciate if the minister could provide the framework and mandate for this new accessibility standards organization, as well as the cost and other necessary facts and figures, as soon as possible.

Another component of Bill C-81 is a $290-million fund over six years, amounting to $48 million per year to upgrade federal workplaces and websites. Is this all administrative costs? Setting up an office is going to cost hundreds of millions of dollars. If 5,000 new employees are paid $40,000 a year, that amounts to $200 million. Establishing a new CEO and commissioner is going to cost well over $200,000. There is the money spent right there in one one year.

This is a wonderful idea in theory, but I am skeptical as to how many Canadians living with disabilities would actually benefit from this. We do not know how this envelope of money would be allocated, which is problematic in itself, but we can assume that it would be used, at least in part, for more consultation. I fail to see how constant and never-ending consultation helps people, not to mention the fact that taxpayer dollars are being spent on something with no tangible results and no actual timeline for when it would be implemented.

The minister says that the government would be hiring more public servants, 5,000 people with disabilities to be specific. Again this leaves many questions. Are these public servants all new hires, are they filling in places left open by attrition, what is the cost of hiring these 5,000 new public servants, would their work be wider in scope, would it be in different departments? These questions need to be answered, but it seems the Liberals have a hard time saying one single thing that this bill would actually do.

Canadians living with disabilities deserve meaningful and effective action from their government to help them improve their quality of life where possible. There are good things about this bill. It would hopefully make it easier for some Canadians with disabilities to deal with the federal government. However it is unclear as to how this helps with the rest of their lives.

Something I also support in this legislation, the clearest and most repeated point, is that it spells out the complaints process. This, however, is just a tiny aspect of a much greater piece of legislation that should provide common-sense regulations and standards, which I believe is what disabled Canadians were hoping for.

I cannot comprehend why the government would put out this legislation unless it was simply to say it was doing something. It had two and a half years to consult and this is what it came up with. I believe it does a disservice to those involved. To put it casually, there is no meat in this meal.

Before I can support this bill, I and all Canadians need to know these facts. In my view, this bill is putting the cart before the horse. I think that every person sitting in the House today would say that they support initiatives that benefit Canadians living with disabilities, but this piece of legislation fails to have any meaningful impact and sets out to spend a lot of money to do nothing.

I have a friend, a constituent, a young man who was born with spina bifida, a meningocele. All his life as a youth, he had surgery after surgery and he is wheelchair-bound, yet he is an amazing young man. He has managed to get a job, he works hard, he has moved, he is able to drive. In fact, he was involved in the Queen City Marathon just three or four weeks ago in Regina. This young man is going to sit there and ask those very same questions: What is this doing for him, and how is it going to help him?

In conclusion, I would like to say that politicians of all stripes recognize the challenges that face individuals with disabilities as well as their families. What these people are asking for is action from the current Liberal government rather than empty words, more consultations and endless platitudes.

[Celina Caesar-Chavannes, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague said that this piece of legislation would have no impact and no tangible results. I wonder how an able-bodied individual can speak for those who require legislation and leadership to have equity in this country. This piece of legislation would provide that. If the member looks at the charter statement related to this piece of legislation and if he reads it through comprehensively, he would understand that.

There is the length of time, and the member said this had no sense of urgency. I would say that over the course of these last couple of years, I have had the opportunity to talk to many of my constituents at town halls and listen to what they said. They said that with this piece of legislation we need to take the appropriate time to ensure we get it right. We have seen it fail in other jurisdictions. They wanted to make sure that they were not just cared for, but able to work. They wanted to make sure that their complaints were adequately taken care of and that there were compliance measures to ensure that compliance to the legislation was in effect.

In my opinion, the Conservatives need to pick better battles and this is not one that they need to battle on. I would hope that they would support this piece of legislation and do right by the member's constituent in his riding.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am assuming the member was not referring to me as being that individual who was speaking on behalf of disabled people. However, as I mentioned, I do have a disability. The unfortunate part is a lot of Canadians do not understand that people out there have visible and invisible disabilities. An example of visible disabilities is the gentleman I just talked about because we can see it. It is visible and we see those people every day. We respond to them and we see the challenges that they have in their lives when they try to navigate around a city, when they try to go over a curb that does not have access to getting onto the road, and when they try to go into buildings when there is not access for them. There are regulations that people expect. However, there are also people who have invisible disabilities. I have an invisible disability. Those invisibly disabled people deserve to have the same access and abilities as the rest whom we talk about. That is the main point we need to look at: How do we address all of them?

The committee that is being structured does set up an opportunity and they say that there will be disabled people on it. My question is for the committee to explain that a bit more. This is not saying we do not support the legislation. We are looking forward to seeing it go to committee. We are looking forward to hearing a lot of these questions answered, and I appreciate this as we move forward to committee.

[Matt DeCourcey, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Lib.]

Mr. Speaker, in his intervention my colleague told a story about a friend of his who has been successful in navigating sometimes challenging physical and intangible environments that persons living with different disabilities face. This piece of legislation is there to provide more opportunities for people like the friend of my colleague opposite in order for them to become fully included and contributing members of society, in order for them to be able to take part in an equal way in the economy and in order for them to claim their equal rights and share the same equal human dignity that all other persons in Canada can.

Once again, I will reiterate, if we can find ways to help include more people working in our economy, people who are living with different ability challenges, we can add up to $38.5 billion to our GDP. I hope the Conservatives, in addition to supporting this bill on its human rights merits, will support this bill because it is tremendously important for Canada's economy and for middle-class Canadians and those working hard to join the middle class.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, the member for Fredericton, for his question and all the good work that he has had to do in Fredericton over the past year. I know he has been hard at that.

I agree with a lot of what he said about working together. That is part of what this legislation should be doing. I had a conversation with the minister a couple of days ago on this issue. One of the things we discussed was maybe taking two Liberals, two Conservatives, two NDP, and putting them in a room to sit around and hash out all of the little details so that we could get all of the fine lines. It is important to do that, and I expect we will see a lot of that at committee. I hope to see that help us move forward, and to help those with disabilities so we can advance our country to the benefit he suggested.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the conversation earlier in the speech was about boutique tax credits and the equivalency between writing a cheque for someone and saying, “Here's a cheque, and I hope things work out for you”, versus including people with disabilities in developing proper legislation and then making sure that the legislation is enacted. Would the hon. member not agree that having people involved in “nothing about me without me” is a better approach than writing a cheque?

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the legislation does talk about getting involved and how we structure things. The thing the legislation does not talk about is what those standards and regulations would be. That is what Canadians asked for. When the average Canadian with a disability heard about this legislation, they asked, “What's in it for me?” This legislation basically identifies how we set up a CEO, a commissioner, a committee to study this, but it does not say what that would do to help improve their lives.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

The hon. member for Souris—Moose Mountain will be pleased with the fact that he has three minutes left for questions and comments when the House next gets back to debate on the question that is before the House.

The House resumed from September 24 consideration of the motion that Bill C-81, An Act to ensure a barrier-free Canada, be read the second time and referred to a committee.