Procedure and House Affairs committee  It's a good question. I don't have an answer for that right now. I'd like to think about that a bit. I sit on the committee for Elections Canada. I wouldn't mind talking to a couple of my colleagues on that committee about their ideas on that and how they think that could best work.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  There are a few things that may help. We just went across the country to do consultations with Canadians about what should be in the disability act. We used what's called CART services—captioning in real time—which allows people to read along with what's being done. It's up on a screen.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  If I'm understanding correctly, you're talking about people with disabilities who are running and looking at the supports they would need to move forward.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think you need to understand what the signing of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities actually identifies in political activity and other things, and make sure that Canada is following those guidelines. Those guidelines have been very, very clear. Canada has signed on to that convention, so there's no reason it wouldn't use those guidelines around political activity and how people with disabilities can be involved in political activity.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Use that as a guide for how you would deal with those things.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  No, I think it's okay. I would probably just have reinforced that if parties continue to have to spend money to ensure accessibility and they're spending it out of their own money, they're not going to agree to that and it's going to raise the bar up high as to how much they're spending.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Sorry, I'm not quite sure I heard exactly what you were asking for.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I don't know that there's a lot in here that will deal with access. That's been part of the problem. If you're looking at, in general, what needs to happen around access and what the bill should have included, I guess what we would support is that it identify that the money used around things, around different political activities that actually bring people into the public realm—whether they be debates or whatever—not have a limit on it that is included in the ceiling.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Okay.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Hi. I'm James Hicks. I'm with the Council of Canadians with Disabilities. I want to read for you something that was said by the Prime Minister: ...I will expect you [as Minister of Democratic Institutions] to...bring forward options to create an independent commissioner to organize political party leaders' debates during future federal election campaigns, with a mandate to improve Canadians' knowledge of the parties, their leaders, and their policy positions.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  You've done a really good job at summarizing everything and pulling out the salient points.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  You're talking about the leaders' debates, but all kinds of things go on during elections that the same rules apply to, so if debates are going on in other places, it may be necessary to look at an exemption of any costs related to adaptation so that people with disabilities can participate in regular debates in other things.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  From the perspective of CCD, number one, as we said, is that we have for years sent in questions about disability. They have never been included. There has not been a question about disability on any leaders' debate ever, and it would be nice to see that happen. I think it's really important that you not look at disability as a separate issue, because it applies to everybody.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I can try to answer some of that anyway. I think it depends on what social media platform you're using. If you use one that's primarily visual, my guess is that it does not include any text in the background that people with visual impairments would be able to use. If you're talking about text-based media like Twitter, that probably would not be a problem.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Hello, everyone. My name is James Hicks, and I'm with the Council of Canadians with Disabilities. We also want to thank you for allowing us to come and talk about what we feel are some of the issues around elections and people's understanding of leaders' debates. Just so that you know something about CCD, we're a national human rights organization “of” people with various disabilities, not “for”.