Human Resources Committee on Oct. 18th, 2018

[Jutta Treviranus]

I want to mention a number of economic studies that have been done on accessibility, and the costs of accessibility.

It's a myth that it will cost more in the long term; it actually costs less in the long term.

In comparing services that were designed for everyone, versus services where you have the service designed for the average group and then a separate segregated...or afterthought with respect to disability, what you find is that if you include people with disabilities right at the beginning in developing a service, it may cost a little more and take a bit more time initially, but over a five-year period, it will cost less. That's because a service that isn't designed for people with disabilities in mind will continuously have additional issues or features that need to be added, and it will become unstable, and there will be an end of life much more quickly. The long-term costs of that are far more.

There is also this notion of full social costing. I would refer you to a study that was done by the Martin Prosperity Institute called “Releasing Constraints”, which shows that in fact there are many GDP gains to be made, and other economic gains.

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

I would agree.

Again, I'm somewhat new to HUMA and this thought process. I'll give you the example of a community centre in my riding where I parked in the parking garage, came upon a door to go into the community centre and a lady in a wheelchair was sitting outside the door. There was no way for her to come in unless somebody was coming in or out of that door and saw her. I asked her how long this had been going on and she said, “Forever.”

To your point, people in wheelchairs stopped going there, stopped shopping there, and stopped eating there, so there is an economic cost to not doing this.

Shelley and Kory, do you want to add to this?

[Kory Earle]

Thanks for the question.

First of all, having a cost should not be the barrier aspect.... It's one thing to have costs, but in the long run, we're talking about fundamental rights of people with disabilities. Put the cost aside and look at the economics of people having full participation.

Each and every day as we fight to be included, we don't wake up and think about how much this is going to cost. We think about how we are going to be included in today's society. Let's not focus on the cost. Let's focus on people being part of every day.

We've talked about having supports. In terms of this act, if I go and complain, what if I don't have supports that are available for me for that? That needs to be really seriously addressed.

Thank you.

[Shelley Fletcher]

Could I quickly add one thing?

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

Sure.

[Shelley Fletcher]

Economically speaking, in the intellectually disabled world, there is a gentlemen by the name of Mark Wafer, who owns a bunch of Tim Hortons—

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

We interviewed him.

[Shelley Fletcher]

Pardon?

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

We interviewed him in a previous study on Tim Hortons.

[Shelley Fletcher]

You've met Mark? Who tells a greater story from a business aspect on the benefits of hiring somebody with a disability? You want to look at numbers, right?

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

Yes. Randy Lewis from Walgreens is another example of a total leader.

[Shelley Fletcher]

There you go.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much.

[Seema Lamba]

May I add to that?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Very briefly, please.

[Seema Lamba]

I was just going to say that in the employment realm, costs are often not really valid, because it generally costs $500 or less for accommodating people with disabilities. There is actually an attitudinal barrier where people say, “Oh no, it's going to cost a lot.” If you look into it, things can happen that are very cost-effective.

It's a myth, basically. That's what I'm trying to say.

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

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Next is MP Falk, please, for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First of all, I want to thank all of the witnesses for sharing their stories today.

There's one thing that I do want to mention. I know that our colleague across the way is making it seem that all we are concerned with is the cost. This is a piece of legislation that hasn't had any costing done on it yet, so there is the act of being prudent, just to know what the cost analysis is on this and not write a blank cheque at the end of the day, right? We need to go in, again, by just using some prudence on costing.

That said, I don't recall who said this, but I think it was Mr. Earle who asked who has not had a voice at this table. I really like that, because I think it can be used in more than just legislation. I think it can be used every day, right?

I think we've seen this, too, with the current government in their last budget. One could argue that they definitely used a gender lens on their budget, but using a disability lens and having that opportunity to have a disability lens on legislation to begin with.... When legislation is being drafted, it doesn't matter what it is, it's about having that ability to actually use a disability lens.

I really appreciated those words and the thoughts that they provoked. Thank you.

I believe, Ms. Jodhan, that you mentioned lead roles that Canada or the government could take on now. As Ms. Hardcastle mentioned, the way the legislation is written now, on the day that it receives royal assent, nothing would happen, technically. We wouldn't have a tangible change that would come into effect. I'm wondering if I could get some examples from you of how government departments could take lead roles and achieve this now, before legislation is implemented.

[Donna Jodhan]

Thank you very much.

One of the roles that government could take is that although a lot of the external websites, the governmental websites, have been improved in the last few years, a lot of the internal websites have not followed suit. One of the things that I think this government can do is to walk the walk and have internal websites follow suit. From what I've been told, and I don't work for the government, quite a few colleagues have said that, as of now, a lot of these departmental websites are not accessible, not usable, not terribly navigable.

I'm wondering if this is one of the things that can be worked on. And let's just forget about cost. Everything costs something.

I want to make a quick comment, and I'll end it here. I find that when it comes to persons' disabilities, it is always about cost. Why is it like that? Why is it that we are always being told let's see how much it costs when it comes to doing things for persons with disabilities?

When it comes to doing things for other types of persons, sighted persons or others, the cost matter is not brought up as frequently and regularly.

Thank you.

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

Okay, thank you.

My next question I believe would again be directed to Mr. Earle and Ms. Fletcher.

You mentioned disability supports. I am wondering in what context you were referring to them, and if you could give me some examples of disability supports.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Make it a brief answer, please.

[Shelley Fletcher]

An example of disability support is me being here with Kory.

In the intellectually disabled world, the accommodation rights, as he said, are complex. It's the ability to have somebody—I'll use our language—a non-labelled person, somebody without an intellectual disability, beside a person with a disability to translate into plain language when needed.

That's an example.

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

It could mean different things within different parts of the disability community.

[Shelley Fletcher]

Absolutely, and there is a cost to that. We're two people, so every cost to bring Kory somewhere is times two.