Human Resources Committee on Oct. 22nd, 2018

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much, sir.

Finally, from Communication Disabilities Access Canada, we have Barbara Collier, Executive Director, for five minutes.

[Barbara Collier, Executive Director, Communication Disabilities Access Canada]

Good evening, committee members. I'm delighted to be here this evening and honoured to represent Communication Disabilities Access Canada. This is a national non-profit organization that promotes accessibility for people who have speech and language disabilities that are not caused by hearing loss.

I need to take a minute to tell you a bit about who we're talking about, and then to tell you a bit about what access means for them. I'm going to focus on the needs of half a million Canadians who have a wide range of disabilities that affect how they communicate. We're talking about people who have cerebral palsy, autism spectrum disorder, intellectual disability, learning disability, ALS, traumatic brain injury, aphasia after a stroke, Parkinson's.... I could go on to list about 60 disabilities that affect how people communicate with you in their speech or understand what you're saying to them.

This is not a small, marginalized population; this is a huge population. It's a population that has received very little attention. They are off the radar when it comes to looking at accessibility needs of this group. I'm going to tell you how we think Bill C-81 can be strengthened to include the needs of people with speech and language disabilities.

At this time, the bill talks about priority areas. I think there are five or six of them. I'm going to have to reference them—employment, built environment, procurement of goods and services, program and service delivery, transportation, and information and communication technologies.

We propose that communication should be addressed in a much broader context than information and communication technologies. We have analyzed accessibility guidelines standards all across the country, and I can tell you that usually it's about respect and attitudes, it's about plain language, it's about accessible websites, and it's about alternate formats and sign language. These are incredibly important, but they are not addressing the needs of people who have speech and language disabilities.

I want to say that people who have speech and language disabilities may have difficulty. They may have little or no speech. They may use pictures, letter boards, or speech-generating devices to communicate, or they may have difficulty comprehending what you're saying.

Communication traditionally is looked at as giving information, getting information into people's heads. We're saying it's about being two-way. It's about expression and about comprehension, and it occurs in all jurisdictions that interact with the public—in face-to-face interactions, telephone and telecommunications, reading and writing, public forums, and meetings like this. These are the contexts that are important and that people need access to. If we look just at information and communication, we're going to miss it. We are absolutely going to miss it.

We're asking the government to amend the bill to include communication as a generic building block that needs to be in place for all jurisdictions—and I'll explain what I mean by that—but we're also asking that there's another building block we need to put in place, and that building block should have everything to do with discrimination, attitudes, accessibility rights, diversity and equity. That's one building block.

The other block is communication. What we want is that all jurisdictions have training in how to interact with people whose speech may be unclear; who use a communication device; or who have, or need to have, a communication assistant. That's the sort of thing that will make meaningful changes.

We are then asking that once you have the two domains, the building blocks, in place across the board, you adapt them.

Let's have our federal courts take the general communication training and then look at their own context. We want communication intermediaries to be available to victims, witnesses and accused who need to communicate in that context.

We need Service Canada to be able to communicate with people on the telephone or offer the appropriate text-based communication alternatives.

We need Elections Canada to offer online voting so that people can use their own assistive devices and not suddenly have to learn how to use a sip-and-puff switch or a scanner that they've never seen before when they go in to vote.

We have the solutions. The solutions are there. We just need to put them in place, and they are all very achievable.

I'll say one more thing. I can see you smiling at me, Mr. Chairman, but I don't get a chance to speak very often.

Most of the barriers and the frustrations for people with speech and language disabilities are there because they have no access to communication devices and the supports they need to access the services. They would like the federal government to expand its role, not just to negotiate accessibility standards across the country but to work together with us to ensure that people have what they need to communicate with their services.

Are the lights dimming at this point? I think they are. The music is coming on.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

The band is about to play, yes.

[Barbara Collier]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much.

First up with six minutes of questions is MP Falk. Go ahead, please.

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

Thank you all for being here today.

I have a question for Ms. Smith.

You mentioned deaf languages and having those officially recognized. Could you explain to me what you mean by that and how that would be achieved?

[Jewelles Smith]

Sure.

Having deaf languages recognized federally would ensure that when a deaf person goes in to get their passport or goes through the court system or accesses any other services, their language will be recognized as the way they communicate. That is one example.

Another example would be ensuring that all important documents that the federal government produces have a video of ASL and LSQ available for deaf individuals to watch so that they will understand the document better. The syntax and structure of deaf languages are quite different from those for written English and French, and many times deaf individuals struggle when trying to access languages. Much as we're encouraging plain language with the accessibility act, we would also like to see added the recognition of ASL and LSQ, and, as conversation progresses with indigenous communities, of any of the indigenous signed languages.

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

Thank you.

Even in our last meeting we talked about plain language. Ms. Collier, I'm wondering if you could touch on this for me. How are stakeholders or the disability community looking to have that implemented into Bill C-81? I understand what plain language means, but how would that be put into legislation?

[Barbara Collier]

Well, if you take what I've said about communication as an umbrella and you prioritize that as the domain that needs to be addressed, then plain language falls into reading and writing within that. It's part of that. You know what plain language is. I see it as fitting very much into the communication domain, but it won't fit if you're just going to use information and communication technologies. There's no place to plug it into that. There needs to be a bigger picture of it.

I don't know if I've answered your question. I'm not sure.

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

Do you mean as in referencing plain language?

[Barbara Collier]

What do you mean?

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

I understand how it could be used day to day, but how do we put that into legislation or even the regulations? Is there a better fit for that to be—either legislation or regulation?

[Barbara Collier]

I'm not a policy-maker on that, but I can certainly see how it would fit into a standard that says written material has to be accessible and follow the principles of easy-to-read or plain language.

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

Does anybody else have anything to add?

[Jewelles Smith]

I think this also can fall under the conversation about adding communication as a specific barrier. We currently have under the act six identified barriers that would be focused on. We strongly think that communication is the seventh. In the regulation and development, it would become addressed.

I know there is a lot of push to have plain language and ASL and LSQ used and to also look at communication in general, much as my colleague Barbara talked about, but we strongly feel that it falls under that area that wasn't identified specifically.

Thanks.

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

Thank you.

I have another question. I want to understand timelines and what different stakeholders or different people within the disability community find acceptable as a timeline. I've heard a lot, even from individual meetings that I've had in my offices, but nobody has been able or willing to give me a timeline that would be sufficient. I'm wondering if I could hear from everybody in order to know what would be proposed as a timeline to be added to the legislation.

[Jewelles Smith]

I know that I brought it up. CCD is part of a larger group of disability organizations, and we worked really hard over a period of several days to work this out. I'm going to read for you the language that we've established:

For substantive and progressive change:

A deadline date must be set within a five-year period following Royal Assent for [approval of] ALL standards and regulations in each specific area required.

A deadline for full implementation of each standard and regulation, following their approval, must be set within [an] 18-month period.

It must be understood that there will always be continual progression towards a barrier-free society. [It's] not realistic to think that a deadline date will mark full compliance or completion...[but] a review must occur every three years and a public report of progress must be developed....

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much.

MP Long is next, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses this evening. I really appreciate your testimony. It's very enlightening.

I certainly know this: At the last meeting I talked about where I live in Saint John—Rothesay and coming upon a lady in a wheelchair who literally was waiting to get from the car park into the mall. My question was, “Why are you waiting here?” There was no way for her to get in unless somebody opened that door and let her in. This is a public spot in my city, so.... Bill C-81 is going to break down barriers. It's going to open up the world for people with disabilities.

This is for Ms. Smith and Mr. Estey. I want to thank you, Ms. Smith, for taking the time to come to my office. We met here I think a couple of weeks ago. I really appreciated the conversation. I want to follow up on something we talked about: the composition of the CASDO board.

I know that we talked about it in the office in terms of 50% plus one, and I know you don't think that's good enough. I certainly respect that. I know that you want to see 70%.

From my past experience as a businessperson involved in different boards, I'll say that the composition of boards is critical, whether it's a bank, a hockey team, CASDO or what have you. We continue to hear from Ms. Smith in particular and from other witnesses, too, about their concern about the composition of the board.

Do you want to elaborate on that? You talked about how you would like to see 70%. There are those who suggest that the language in subclause 23(2) be amended to ensure that members of the CASDO board with lived experience with disabilities represent, as much as is practically possible, the diversity of disability communities in Canada. Can the language of subclause 23(2) be amended? Can you share with us again the importance of the composition of the CASDO board?

Thank you.

[Jewelles Smith]

Thank you. It's great to see you again.

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

It's good to see you, too.

[Jewelles Smith]

We would like to see the largest possible percentage. I would love to see 100%. People with disabilities exist everywhere, and there is no reason that people with particular expertise couldn't use their situation of employment to sit on the CASDO as well, but we are willing to go as low as two-thirds.

As I mentioned before, on 50% plus one, we've seen many boards like that, and often what happens is that the “plus one” gets convinced not to attend the meetings, so they don't vote in favour of things that would be progressive for us, and that sort of thing. I also think Minister Qualtrough clearly stated we need to move beyond the slogan “nothing about us without us” to just “nothing without us”. We need to always be there. We always need to be at the table.

I'm a Ph.D. candidate myself. I have plenty of colleagues who are experts in their fields. There is no reason this composition can't be diverse and fully realize us at the table.

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

You came up with 70%. You mentioned 70% in our meeting. Why not 100%?

Is it necessary to allocate seats to members of each disability community on the board?

[Jewelles Smith]

I personally was advocating for 100%. With FALA, which was the group we were meeting, we agreed as a group to say 70% or two-thirds.

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

You'd like to see 100%.