Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much to our witnesses. I appreciate all of your comments, your suggestions, and your words of wisdom and advice. I especially appreciate your budget submissions that we received for our January 2009 submissions. I know we've been able to act on some of them, and there are still more. So continue to keep pushing us, because we've tried to check a few off. We know it's important that we work together to ensure that we have a quality of life for people of all disabilities.
I spent nine years in local government before becoming a federal member of Parliament, and I worked on a committee called the access awareness committee on our social planning and housing committee within the city of Kelowna. It was brought to my attention many times. I had a chance to be in a wheelchair. I also walked down the streets--and Jason will be interested in this--visually impaired. CNIB had a day where you go down the street and you have a much more empathetic understanding of the challenges that you face.
I know that our government has put $20 million into the last budget to help make barrier-free buildings or trying to increase the accessibility for people with disabilities. But one thing I noticed was that a lot of the building codes are provincial, and local governments have to implement the bylaws. One of the challenges that we face--and my question would be for whoever might be able to provide some insights--is that people have conflicting challenges when you have urban planning. For example, you're walking down the street and you have barriers, little A-frame signs and things that hinder mobility for wheelchairs or people who are visually impaired. You get to the curb and you have a curb cut, which makes it accessible for people in wheelchairs, but those who are visually impaired need that curb to know where the end of the street is. So they put down sidewalk markings, but in most communities across the country we have winter, and those markings become covered in snow. So there's always this conflict.
I'm just wondering if you have a working relationship with provincial associations and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to help address some of those barriers in urban planning.