Thank you to the committee for welcoming me here today.
Also, certainly, thank you, Minister Qualtrough, for your presentation this morning. After I gave you the notes on consultation, I also sent a version to you digitally to ensure that I, too, was respectful of accessibility standards.
Minister, I'm just going to quote a couple of items from your presentation. You said:
It's time for broad organizational and cultural change. There is no reason to wait for people to be discriminated against before we act.
When I read that, I think about the three years that have gone by before this bill finally came to the floor. I'm by no means blaming you, Minister. That is not the intent. But a lot of language we're seeing around the marketing of this bill is that “we can't wait any longer”, yet the government has waited three years and is now onto its fourth minister, who was also its first minister. It's a little frustrating in terms of the stop-and-start that we've seen. I've heard that from consultations within the different communities.
This also goes on to talk about the extensive consultation. This consultation that's taken place.... I don't have the time to be able to read through it piece by piece, but essentially the first question I have is on something that we've been able to speak about and that your staff have been able to speak about with me as well. In terms of the consultation that's been taking place and people wanting immediate action—and I think the government is saying that it wants immediate action—the language that's used in your presentation today and is contained within the bill doesn't say that there are going to be changes in accessibility standards. This says it “will lead to”, and that's an exact quote.
In fact, it says that the first regulation changes would take place in 2021. If we use the timeline and the success of the timeline's place in terms of how six months after the government took its place it said it would have a bill related to the accessibility act, that 2021 could be much further out. I believe what the staff have said is that it's somewhere within the six-year time period from the point that this receives royal assent.
Could you demonstrate to the committee what actual practical changes affecting people with disabilities will go into effect—besides the creation of new bureaus and new departments—on day one?