Evidence of meeting #116 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was accessibility.
A video is available from Parliament.
South Surrey—White Rock, Lib.
Thank you.
To Mr. Desjardins-Siciliano, you made reference to the retrofit that you're making in the Ottawa station and that you want to see as being the most accessible in the world. Can you describe what that would look like in terms of how different it would be from what it is now?
I assume that in order to make that statement, you've looked at some of the other stations around the world. What are the changes that you'll make to make that accessible and then—?
President and Chief Executive Officer, VIA Rail Canada Inc.
The changes that have been made include a level boarding platform—so they're eliminating steps or elevators to get into the train itself—and the construction of elevators to allow movement between the floors of the train station.
President and Chief Executive Officer, VIA Rail Canada Inc.
No, they don't exist in the Ottawa station. My point is that the combination of all of these—plus the element that I mentioned in terms of people with sight impairments—is new and does not exist anywhere in the world today.
Liberal
NDP
Cheryl Hardcastle NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Right now, gentlemen, as I'm sure you're aware if you've read Bill C-81, there are no requirements, there are no timelines. Your jurisdiction in particular, in transportation, is exempt. You do not have to offer a rationalization for a decision. There's no appeal process for a person in the disability community. Do you think that needs to change before we actually pass Bill C-81?
Chair and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Transportation Agency
I want to be sure, Mr. Chair, that I understand the question. Perhaps I can give an initial answer, and then if the member feels I haven't responded—
Chair and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Transportation Agency
Certainly.
NDP
Chair and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Transportation Agency
It's exemption power, right. Okay.
NDP
Cheryl Hardcastle NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
—without giving a reason, without giving a rationale. If there is a civil activist, if there is someone in the disability community who wants to understand your decision—if any civil society member wants to understand the decision—you don't have to give that rationalization. Do you believe that any aspect of that should change before Bill C-81 is actually brought to fruition as our first national accessibility act?
Chair and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Transportation Agency
I want to thank the member for her question. Let me just preface my answer by saying that as the chair of an independent tribunal, I don't presume to pronounce on policy choices made by the government when it advances legislation or on decisions that Parliament will make on the legislation. I'll talk a bit about what we do now and how we use our powers. As to your question, “Should the bill change?”, I'll defer to parliamentarians and to ministers on that.
The—
Cheryl Hardcastle NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
Forgive me; I'm extremely limited in my time. I'm the only member of the NDP caucus who sits on this committee and I'm very, very limited to the perspective I want to bring forward.
Having said that, I don't need to understand where you're at now. With the bill, you did mention that you are looking towards binding and enforceable regulations. Maybe you can expand on that, and perhaps we can get some of those perspectives on how we can move forward with improvements to binding and enforceable regulation.
Chair and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Transportation Agency
Absolutely. The only thing I'll say about exemptions is we actually currently have an exemption power in the law that we have never used.
In terms of the regulations, the regulations that we're working on will, as I said, integrate two existing regulations and six voluntary codes into a single binding regulation that builds upon the lessons we've learned and the feedback we've received from disability rights organizations and transportation service providers. Those regulations will cover everything from service delivery to facilities, to equipment, to training, to communications and to reporting. These are comprehensive, across-the-board regulations that are fully enforceable through administrative monetary penalties.
The work on those regulations is well advanced. On October 1, we had a special ad hoc meeting of our accessibility advisory committee and we received some final rounds of feedback from its members. We are looking forward to finalizing those regulations and to rolling them out in 2019.
NDP
Cheryl Hardcastle NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
Gentlemen, does anybody else want to talk about enforcement or binding regulation? How should we be proceeding with that under Bill C-81?
Mr. Richmond, you were concerned about how heavy-handed Bill C-81 is right now. Maybe you can elaborate on areas you think we need to look at in order to proceed successfully.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Vancouver Airport Authority
Well, as I said, I really liked it when Mr. Streiner talked about information packages. I'm speaking for airports now. If an airport is falling short on some important aspect of accessibility—I think we would have heard by now, but you never know—give the airport a lot of information and a lot of opportunity to voluntarily fix what is wrong.
As I said, sometimes that may take some time. Sometimes it's about grandfathering: For example, going back and fixing a terminal that might be full of asbestos could be a real problem, so you're just going to say, “Look, I'm going to wait until I demolish that part of the terminal.”
I think that having some flexibility is a good idea, but I'm not saying that to get out of doing the right thing. In fact, without any legislation, I would always make available our rationale for making decisions in the built environment. I would already do that voluntarily.
NDP
Cheryl Hardcastle NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
What about timelines? Right now this bill doesn't have any timelines to move forward. You probably have some insight.
Mr. Richmond, you mentioned grandfathering, I think. A few of you have mentioned having a grace period on implementation.
Can anybody elaborate on your thoughts on how you think we can be moving forward to make amendments that improve this bill so it is successful when we implement it?
Chair and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Transportation Agency
If it's helpful to the member, the regulations we're currently working on do have coming-into-force timelines, timelines by which regulated entities will have to comply with all the regulatory requirements. Those are already in the regulations we have drafted.
Chair and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Transportation Agency
There is a transition period for certain requirements when something new is coming in, but long-standing requirements would simply roll over into the new regulations.
Liberal
