Human Resources Committee on Oct. 2nd, 2018

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

No pun was intended.

Those of you who have been in this committee for a while know that I'm not too much of a stickler on time. If you want to slow down a bit, going over by 20 or 30 seconds is not the end of the world. Let's try not to abuse that but keep to a slower pace for this meeting.

Again I will welcome and remind everybody that we have joining us James Van Raalte, director general, accessibility secretariat; Benoît Gendron, director, accessibility secretariat; and Erik Lapalme, senior policy analyst, accessibility secretariat.

Thank you all for being here.

We will begin our round of questioning with MP Barlow.

[John Barlow]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to split my time with my colleague, Ms. Falk.

I wanted to start with the minister's last comment. We're not saying there should be a ceiling to the cost, but I think it is our fiduciary responsibility as legislators to understand that a budget should be set and costs should be understood. I found it ironic, that as we talk about Canadians with disabilities, there is no ceiling to the cost.

I know our Prime Minister said there is a threshold of spending when it comes to veterans and many of them are disabled and have issues. There seems to be some disconnect there.

We're not saying by any means that there should be a ceiling. We would, as legislators and representatives of our constituents and taxpayers...on what the costs would be.

My question to the officials is a clarification for me. Reading through the bill, in subsection 73(1) it says:

the Accessibility Commissioner may, for a purpose related to verifying compliance or preventing non-compliance...enter any place, including a conveyance, in which he or she has reasonable grounds to believe there is any record, report, electronic data or other document, or any information or thing, relevant to that purpose.

I just want to make sure I'm not reading too much into this, and the fact that a commissioner can enter a place of business for preventing non-compliance. Is that unusual, that you are predicting that a business is not going to comply with the new regulations, and you're able to go in there? I'm wondering if you could explain that section in the legislation.

[James Van Raalte]

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair.

The accessibility commissioner serves two roles. The first is proactive compliance or enforcement, and the second is dealing with complaints.

From a proactive perspective, the accessibility commissioner has that power to go in and ensure that a regulated entity is caring about what's needed to live up to the regulation.

[John Barlow]

Thanks.

Mr. Chair, I'll pass to Ms. Falk.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Ms. Falk.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Thank you for being here today.

When most people hear the word “disability” they think of either visual, hearing, wheelchair, walker, that type of thing. I know that the definition of disability in the act goes into mental, intellectual, learning, communications, sensory impairment, etc.

I'm wondering what the scope of this would be on buildings. It could be argued that somebody with depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, bipolar, that type of thing.... How are these buildings going to be impacted to be more accessible for them?

[James Van Raalte]

I think this is an important question. It's been a part of a learning process for all of us. I'm happy to provide an example for the committee.

One of the biggest issues faced by a range of disabilities, especially in the built environment, is a concept called wayfinding.

It's intuitive for many of us when we enter a building, on how to get from the entrance to, say, this chamber or this meeting room. We look for signs and signals. For people with visual impairments there, should be Braille. For many people with a range of functional limitations, it's not intuitive on how to get from A to B. It is expected going forward, that the types of standards that CASDO would look at would incorporate this concept of wayfinding.

I would encourage the committee to engage more with the disability community about this important issue.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Would our constituency offices fall into this?

[James Van Raalte]

The short answer is, yes.

The legislation will be applied to parliamentary entities, including constituency offices for members of Parliament.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

In some of our rural and northern communities, this is very difficult. I know that in my riding, I can't find anything in one of my communities. There is a need for an office there. Has anyone thought about what kind of an impact this is going to have on the members themselves? Some of the members have a difficult time finding something reasonably priced to serve constituents that is as accessible as it can be. What if there are communities that have nothing available?

Where would that budget come from?

[James Van Raalte]

In terms of where that money would come from, I would defer that question to your relative boards of internal economy. However, it speaks to the flexibility that's provided in the legislation for exemptions. We do need to recognize that in some communities, especially small communities, or even small, regulated entities, best efforts can be made around accessibility, but there are going to be limitations.

Again, the legislation would provide for that type of an exemption, made through the Speaker of the House of Commons.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you.

MP Sangha, you have six minutes.

[Ramesh Sangha, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Any of you can reply to my question.

What governance is in place to support whole-of-government implementation?

[James Van Raalte]

I think this is an important question going forward for the public service. It's a very horizontal piece of legislation, and that whole-of-government governance issue will be important in terms of tracking the progress of the implementation.

I think that at the first level, the Prime Minister has appointed a new deputy minister, Yazmine Laroche, who I believe will be appearing on Thursday morning. You'll have an opportunity to hear from her, and she can provide her views on her role. She is the deputy minister of public service accessibility and will be responsible for the development. Her first job is a Government of Canada strategy for making the Government of Canada a leader on accessibility. She has some initial support in that strategy; the government announced a number of initiatives to support her.

The first is the hiring of 5,000 persons with disabilities within the public service, over the next five years. Those are not incremental hires. Those are hires within the normal hiring process, within the government. Number two is a centralized accommodation fund to support the hiring, the promotion and the retention of persons with disabilities with any accommodations that they may require. Also, as the minister talked about, Public Services and Procurement Canada will be creating a centre of excellence for procurement, as well as undertaking accessibility audits of government buildings.

The other part is that each deputy head within the Government of Canada will be required to submit accessibility plans for over 133 organizations, Crown corporations, agencies and traditional departments like my own—Employment and Social Development Canada. There will be an opportunity to monitor the progress that each department is making, both on an individual basis and across the Government of Canada. We will have a line of sight on that progress or lack of progress. Again, those accessibility plans must be made in consultation with persons with disabilities.

Finally, the legislation sets out a new office—the chief accessibility officer—and the role of that office is to have a broad line of sight on how the system is working or not working. They have to report annually to the minister on how well we are doing. As well, that office can conduct special reports, either by a question from the minister or through its own motion powers.

[Ramesh Sangha, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

We need accessibility standards. They are to identify the requirements and then remove those things. Then you have to break the barriers for accessibility. What are the principles that you're going to set to identify, remove and implement those things?

[James Van Raalte]

The legislation empowers the new Canadian accessibility standards development organization to help set those priorities. It will be a departmental corporation. It will set those priorities both in consultation with the minister as well as persons with disabilities. As the Minister has explained, the board of CASDO will be represented by a majority of lived experience.

Some of the areas, the priorities that are set out in the legislation, will help of course guide CASDO's deliberations on those priorities, but we are looking at six priority areas, namely employment, transportation, information and communication technology, service delivery, procurement, and I always forget one—

[Erik Lapalme, Senior Policy Analyst, Accessibility Secretariat, Department of Employment and Social Development]

The built environment.

[James Van Raalte]

—the built environment, very important.

[Ramesh Sangha, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

For the accountability and for the transparency, which department will be looking into it and how will it be implemented?

[James Van Raalte]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm not sure I understand the question from the member.

[Ramesh Sangha, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

We are looking for transparency and accountability in the total system. Who will be actually responsible for this to look and to see that the accountability and the transparency is in place?

[James Van Raalte]

I think it's important in two places in the legislation from an accountability and transparency perspective. The publication of the accessibility plans, and the feedback mechanisms and the progress reports are made public. Those publications are not to the Government of Canada. We will be tracking them. We will be monitoring them. We will be assessing them. We certainly will be providing advice on how they could be improved.

The purpose from an accountability and transparency perspective in terms of having those reports published is so that Canadians, in particular Canadians with disabilities, have ready access to them and they can hold those companies or organizations to account from a citizen or a customer perspective. That's a very important principle. Persons with disabilities will be involved in the development of the plans, but they will also have access to them so that they can have an opinion on how well progress is being made or not being made.

Within the Government of Canada system, the legislation provides for the chief accessibility officer, and the role of that individual and the office that will be supporting them is to provide an annual report through the minister to Parliament on how the system is working or it's not working. This includes that regular annual report, and as well that individual, that officer, will have the power to conduct and submit special reports. Either an individual or a group of people have identified an issue for the chief accessibility officer, and they think something should be studied and the chief accessibility officer can then report to the minister, or maybe the minister has an issue that they want addressed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much.

MP Hardcastle, please.

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I didn't realize on this committee the way the format is and that my time is so limited, so I'm going to be extremely blunt so that we can get through. It is intriguing.

Let's talk about exemptions right now. A moment ago you alluded to what might be a logical exemption in the remote north or something with a small community scenario, but the way that I'm reading the exemptions, it's very different. Cabinet has the power to exempt the CRTC and the CTA. This is a more powerful scenario. I just would like to understand a little bit more about why we are allowing those kinds of exemptions with major jurisdictions and why cabinet is allowed to do that.

[James Van Raalte]

There are two types of exemptions that are contemplated within the legislation. The first is a statutory exemption around the reporting requirements that I just referenced a moment ago around the accessibility plans and the feedback mechanisms. Those exemptions are provided in the exact case that I responded to in the question for the other honourable member. It's a recognition that there is a potential, especially for small organizations or small entities—let's say a small interprovincial trucking firm that has five employees. It's a well-run business. It's trying its best to make that business both accessible to any employees who have a disability or customers who have a disability. The exemption there is a recognition by the government, whatever the regulatory body is that has jurisdiction for that regulated entity, that it may be better that that company focus on accessibility for employees or customers rather than doing an annual report. We want that flexibility so that those discussions can happen about making progress. What's the right balance with limited resources, so that they can have that exemption?

Then there are regulatory exemptions. Those are to recognize that under the regulations there may be reasons why we need an approach tailored to a size of a company or a size of an entity. As well, there is what we call an innovation exemption. There will be cases where, both within government and within the federally regulated private sector, a company is out ahead of the regulatory process. They have found an innovative solution for meeting accessibility requirements and we don't want new rules coming in behind them penalizing them. We want to recognize the work that they've done in terms of supporting accessibility. If they've done it in a way that is equal to or greater than the regulatory requirements, we want to be able to exempt them from the regulatory rules.