Human Resources Committee on Oct. 4th, 2018

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

Okay; give me one minute.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you.

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

Thank you for that indulgence. It reads:

That the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities provide recommendations for legislative and policy changes necessary to ensure that the needs of persons with episodic disabilities caused, among other things, by multiple sclerosis, be adequately protected to ensure equity in government policy to support Canadians across all types of disability; that the Committee report to the House by February 2019; and that it be instructed to request a comprehensive government response to its report, pursuant to Standing Order 109.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Long.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Mr. Chair, I'd like to move that the debate be now adjourned.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

We don't debate on that.

(Motion agreed to)

Ms. Hardcastle, you have three minutes and 55 seconds left for questions.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for indulging our rules of procedure, but it probably has you thinking about definitions. I'd like to hear your thoughts about how the definition in Bill C-81 can be strengthened or how it serves its purpose effectively as it is.

Who would like to go first?

I was very intrigued to hear all of your comments earlier, Ms. Daye, Deputy Minister Laroche, Ms. Landry—

[Jessica McDonald]

I'd be happy to go first.

Thank you very much for raising that point.

From my perspective, the spirit and intent of the legislation is the most important thing. From Canada Post's perspective, we recognize that we have a lot of discovery ahead of us in terms of the barriers and the opportunities, to ensure that we're both delivering so that there is full accessibility, as well as being an employer who both embraces and supports people with disabilities. We recognize that includes both visible and non-visible disabilities.

I think the only way that one can truly understand, respond to and support people who need any form of extra support in the workplace or as a customer is by deeply respecting the spirit and intent, which, from my perspective, would be the broadest understanding possible.

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

Thank you.

Does anybody else want to weigh in?

[Marie-Claude Landry]

Yes. Thank you for your question.

“Temporary or episodic in nature” is already in the definition of this bill.

What is important in our review at the Canadian Human Rights Commission is that every person who suffers from a disability find themselves in the act. This is an important principle, and it's consistent with human rights law, including the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada, which has generally given a broad and liberal approach to the definition of “disability”.

That's the most important thing: that people should find themselves in the act.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

You have one minute.

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

Ms. Daye, could you expand a little bit more on how we would harmonize a complaints system at the front door? What do you think we all have to get our heads around? I had a private member's bill regarding that very thing, I thought. Maybe you can talk a little bit more about what our approach should be in order to ensure that there is such a harmonization.

[Marcella Daye]

Thank you very much for the question.

There are different options in order to encourage and embed this kind of harmonization so that people who are trying to find the right place to file their complaints find it easily and simply and without a lot of bureaucracy or delay. That is certainly a key concern of stakeholders. We have heard it. The other regulating agencies have heard it.

The bill responds in a specific way, in that it provides us with both the authorities and the requirements to coordinate better. A series of clauses in the bill, starting at clause 122, require all of those organizations that can receive complaints to work together in order to ensure that complaints find their way in a way that does not create additional barriers at the front end. We take that very seriously.

We have actually already met, as our chief commissioner mentioned, with the other five agencies that are involved in complaints processing in order to begin that work. We have established two working groups, one on the compliance side and one on the “no wrong door” policy to develop procedures that will help make that happen.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much.

MP Long, you have six minutes.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Thank you, Chair.

Good morning to our presenters this morning. It was very informative.

I want to focus specifically on timelines. I want to go across the panel. Minister Qualtrough talked about timelines and basically said that one of the issues with timelines is that people will wait until that date and, if anything, they may not be as productive.

Ontario understands its timelines, but what they have done is actually slowed changes down, because, again, businesses wait until that time to implement change. It technically acts as a deterrent. Are you at all concerned that timelines actually make accessibility implementation take longer?

I'll start with you, Ms. Landry.

[Marcella Daye]

Timelines are certainly a concern, both from the point of view of people with disabilities who want solutions put in place faster and from the point of view of those regulated bodies that want to be able to meet their obligations in a timely way.

This bill does not have specific dates in it. The amendments we have proposed do not propose specific dates. They do not indicate that Canada should be barrier free by 2030, for example. Part of the reason for this is that constant improvement is required under this bill. It's part of progressive realization. A barrier that does not appear today might appear tomorrow. The target will always be changing, and that's appropriate in Canada, where technology and infrastructure that affect our wide country is developing as quickly as it is.

The timelines that do matter are the timelines to put in place regulations and for organizations to implement those regulations. The two amendments that the Canadian Human Rights Commission has put forward address both of those. Integrating “shall” into the clause requiring government to make regulations will kick-start that timeframe.

What the courts have said, including the Supreme Court in the decision recently this year, is that those time frames need to be reasonable. They cannot be indefinite and they need to move forward.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Thank you.

Ms. Laroche, would you comment?

[Yazmine Laroche]

Thank you.

As an organization that's going to be subject to the legislation, we're not waiting. We're moving forward now to start to implement some of the changes that we think will make things better for our employees with disabilities.

Alex can maybe speak a little bit about his digital strategy launch and some of the work he's doing on the next generation as well, which is all about accessibility.

[Alex Benay, Chief Information Officer of the Government of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat]

I'd be happy to.

As of April 1, 2018, our new information technology policy requires accessibility by default for new systems bought or developed. We've also issued, as of a few weeks ago, Government of Canada digital standards. The application of these standards will be required for the development of new services to Canadians, where accessibility by default is also not a nice-to-have but a must-have. In a lot of cases, we have started putting in place the rules pre-emptively around accessibility of systems in the Government of Canada.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Thank you.

Ms. McDonald, would you like to comment?

[Jessica McDonald]

The words have been taken out of my mouth. We're not waiting. We are already under way. For everything that is in motion today, whether it's a retrofit of our retail operations or any other initiative across the company, we are quickly reviewing, revising and prioritizing accessibility. The accessibility panel, as I say, is imminent in terms of an announcement. We're hiring a director now to review accessibility policy.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Thank you very much.

Ms. McDonald, one of the more interesting presenters I've seen in HUMA in my three years was Randy Lewis. He was the vice-president of Walgreens. He talked about how he transformed his distribution centres using people with disabilities as employees. Absenteeism went down. Productivity went up. Turnover went down. He talked about the cultural shift, about how it took a cultural shift.

I mean, we can put legislation in Bill C-81 and bring that forward, but this also takes a cultural shift from the top. I compare Walgreens and their distribution centres to Canada Post and their distribution centres. I want to talk about your delivery programs in a second, but can you talk to how Bill C-81 will transform internally the distribution centres at Canada Post itself? How will Bill C-81 transform that and break down barriers for people with disabilities?

Also, can you talk to what you have done over the past year or two, maybe, to break down those barriers?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

You have about 45 seconds.

[Jessica McDonald]

Thank you.

Thank you for pointing me to that testimony. I'd be very interested. We'll find it and read it. Learning from others is I think one of the first lessons for all of us.

In terms of our distribution centres in particular, I think you were using that as an example, rather than necessarily just the focus—

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

That's right.