Thank you.
The Public Service Alliance of Canada strongly believes that persons with disabilities should be able to fully and equitably participate in all aspects of Canadian society.
Our union represents thousands of federal public sector workers, so I'll be focusing on accessibility in employment and the impact on employees with disabilities in the federal sector.
Both Bill C-81 and the 20-year-old federal Employment Equity Act require federal employers to create plans to eliminate barriers in employment for persons with disabilities. While the Employment Equity Act is imperfect, it does provide an established framework that employers and unions have been working under for many years.
We recommend improving the Employment Equity Act and referring the employment aspects of Bill C-81 to the Employment Equity Act provisions for several reasons.
Bill C-81 only mentions the Employment Equity Act twice and makes no reference to how the two pieces of legislation will work together. This overlap and lack of clarity will create confusion for employers, employees with disabilities and unions.
In order to comply with both pieces of legislation, employers will have to create two plans which at least in part do the same thing. What if the two plans conflict? Will one plan override the other?
The Employment Equity Act requires employers to consult and collaborate with bargaining agents in preparing, implementing and revising their employment equity plans. Bill C-81 only requires employers to consult with persons with disabilities when creating accessibility plans.
Bill C-81 is vague about what should be included in those accessibility plans, while the Employment Equity Act is very specific about what must be included in employment equity plans.
We strongly recommend amending paragraph 5(a) of Bill C-81 to clarify that accessibility in employment must be dealt with under the provisions of the Employment Equity Act and that all regulated entities are responsible for implementing employment equity for persons with disabilities. All other references to employment in the bill should then be amended to reflect this change.
Bill C-81 does not address hiring and supporting employees with disabilities, nor does it mention the role of the Treasury Board as the employer for the federal public service, or the role of the Public Service Commission, which oversees federal public service staffing. The Employment Equity Act does include these responsibilities.
The duty to accommodate in the workplace is also an important aspect of accessibility in employment. Even with the protection of the Canadian Human Rights Act, public service workers continue to be routinely denied accommodation at work.
The Treasury Board directive on leave and special working arrangements effectively discriminates against many employees with disabilities who are on long-term sick leave by effectively forcing them to retire from the public service after two years. Accommodation-related grievances and human rights complaints often take years before they're resolved.
The Joint Union/Management Task Force on Diversity and Inclusion in the Public Service recommended that a centralized, systematic approach be developed for accessibility and accommodations, including centralized funding for accommodations.
Right now, the responsibilities are devolved to departments, resulting in a patchwork of approaches and applications of the employer's duty to accommodate. To fix this, Bill C-81 should be amended to require Treasury Board and the Public Service Commission to make annual public progress reports to the accessibility commissioner; to require departments and agencies in the core public service to provide progress reports to Treasury Board; to require Treasury Board to set up a central accommodation fund for the public service; and to require that all federal government policies be reviewed to examine and eliminate any barriers to persons with disabilities.
We also recommend making consequential amendments to the Financial Administration Act and the Public Service Employment Act to centralize disability-related issues and accessibility in the public service, and to ensure that Treasury Board and the Public Service Commission are responsible for those issues and cannot delegate that responsibility.
Bill C-81 provides that individuals can file complaints regarding a contravention of the regulations, but there is no way to file a complaint about a violation of the act. This unfairly limits the substance of complaints. For example, an individual can't file a complaint if an organization doesn't even have an accessibility plan.
The complaints provisions are also unevenly applied to unionized employees in the federal sector. Bill C-81 allows for workers covered under all the federal public service labour laws to take their complaints through the grievance process. However, it does not do the same for federal public and private sector workers covered under the Canada Labour Code. All workers who have recourse through a collective agreement should be allowed to have their complaints heard through the grievance process, and the arbitrator should have the power to interpret and apply the proposed accessible Canada act.
The grievance process has embedded within it a right to appeal and review decisions. It allows workers to file a grievance that addresses multiple workplace issues, including accessibility, without making them pursue multiple parallel complaint processes.
We recommend amending subclause 94(1) to allow a complaint to be filed in relation to a contravention by a regulated entity of any provision of this act, or any regulations made under subclause 117(1). We also recommend including an additional exception, similar to those in subclauses 94(2), 94(3) and 94(4), that applies to all unionized workers under the Canada Labour Code, and that will ensure these workers can access the grievance and arbitration process.
Finally, we recommend that adequate funds be allocated to the proposed accessibility commissioner, the Canadian accessibility standards development organization and the Canadian Human Rights Commission to ensure that these organizations can fulfill their mandates under the new act.
Thank you.
Ms. Lamba and I are pleased to answer any questions.