We're sitting in front of you not asking for money. In fact, we're not even going to recommend that you spend any more money. This is a social organization, and we're going to ask that you focus on achieving social goals through measures that you already have at your disposal: procurement.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members of the standing committee's subcommittee, as you've pointed out, Mr. Chair. Thank you for your time and this opportunity to speak about accessibility in Canada.
My name is Steven Christianson. I'm the national manager of government relations and advocacy at March of Dimes Canada. I'm joined by my colleague Jackie Legge, who also focuses on issues of accessibility and inclusion.
Very quickly, March of Dimes Canada was established in 1951, responding to the polio epidemic in North America. We have evolved to become one of Canada's largest service providers and advocates for people with disabilities. We serve upwards of 60,000 Canadians with disabilities and their families, communities, and employers.
Our programs focus on employment, attendant care, vocational services through Veterans Affairs, financial supports for assistive devices, home and vehicle modification, and peer support for stroke survivors. We are also Canada's only organization of its kind to be granted consultative status to the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.
We're here today to promote the idea that the Government of Canada, in all of its procurement of goods and services, should only spend public money on goods and services that are accessible. Put another way, we say that no public money should be spent on goods or services that perpetuate or create a barrier to the full inclusion of anyone with a disability and anyone whose mobility and inclusion in our economy and society depend on accessibility.
Accessibility legislation refers to laws that identify, remove, and prevent barriers to the full inclusion and participation of anyone with a disability. In Ontario, Canada's first jurisdiction to have a law, we have the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act.
This is a law that includes and creates regulations by sector, with each regulation designed to identify, eliminate, and prevent barriers. Each sector is then broken down by its main actor; for example, small businesses, non-profit organizations, health care institutions, and educational institutions.
When companies and organizations comply with the law, the result is enhanced participation by people with disabilities. This could be greater employment, more access to retail goods and services, or being able to retrieve and fill out a form on a government website. The result is greater accessibility. This is highly simplistic, but it gives you a sense of it.
Manitoba is the second province to create such a law, the Accessibility for Manitobans Act, while Nova Scotia, the third in Canada, formalized its legislation last year. Almost every province either has accessibility legislation on its mandate paper or is at least discussing the efficacy of such a law.
Of course, many of you around this table know that the Government of Canada has been consulting nationwide on a law that we could include at the federal level. We expect the introduction of a national accessibility law sometime in 2018.
This is a trend that embraces legislation as a means of getting rid of barriers and achieving accessibility, but I want to emphasize very quickly that this trend is about more than just disability. The functional needs of seniors and Canada's aging population tend to be remarkably consistent with those of people with disabilities. When you combine the functional needs of someone aging with a disability and someone aging into a disability—remember that we tend to lose some functions the older we get—we have a very large population in Canada that needs accessibility.
Not all accessibility measures necessarily need an accessibility law, and procurement is one of those areas. Procurement policies and regulations can work with accessibility legislation but need not wait for a new law. Today in the United States, for example, if a company wants to sell to or receive a contract from the federal government, the goods and services provided by that company must be accessible.
Experience shows that the more standards that exist for accessible purchasing, the greater the incentive for competition, which leads to greater accessibility. Suppliers see a very lucrative market and want those very lucrative contracts, whether they sell computers, mobile devices, or web services, thereby competing with each other and producing ever greater innovation in accessibility in their products.
As we see the national trends towards individual provincial accessibility laws and the current effort towards creating a national accessibility act, one rightly asks what appropriate role the federal government can have.
That role could be to not only harmonize provincial accessibility laws but to develop standards and measures of accessibility through the federal sphere of influence that you already have: procurement. Many of Canada's trading partners already successfully use procurement policy to advance inclusion. The United States, the European Union, Australia, Israel, and New Zealand are just a few examples of where procurement policy that demands accessibility is being used not only to advance inclusion for people with disabilities and seniors but also to help stimulate greater product innovation and employment.
We acknowledge that the Government of Canada has hosted some preliminary round tables on accessible and social procurement, and these were great first steps, but we strongly recommend the creation of an expert working group to develop doable steps and measures that essentially capture this principle. If you want to sell to the Government of Canada, you must ensure accessibility. We think this is an idea whose time is long overdue.
Let's at least get some people together to find out what works, what could work better, and how to put these ideas into action without delay. Buy accessible. We at March of Dimes Canada are always available to help and contribute our expertise towards such an initiative.
Thank you very much.