Human Resources Committee on Oct. 24th, 2018

[Neil Belanger]

All communities.... Some communities will be very accessible, and some will not, but a review of all communities would be necessary. Northern communities, isolated communities, will certainly have some of the higher rates of inaccessible buildings, infrastructure, housing, roads and that type of thing, but we've worked in urban communities where accessibility is a huge problem as well. It takes a committed effort from the government to actually work with these communities individually and to look at their issues. It's going to be a significant amount of money to be successful in Canada.

[Kerry Diotte]

Do you think any of this should go forward before we can review what's needed?

[Neil Belanger]

Absolutely, the legislation should go forward, but there has to be the first nations component as well, and the government needs to work with the AFN and first nation communities to ensure that their voices are heard, and not only the leadership but those individuals living with disabilities in those communities. They have to bring their voices to the table as well. As I said, we would have hoped this would have been farther along, but as long as it's going to progress, that's the key thing.

If for some reason first nations were now exempt from the legislation or had a distinct first nation legislation, in the opinion of our organization, that would be a huge mistake.

[Kerry Diotte]

Okay. Thank you.

This is to Ms. Desforges.

You talked about needing a clause on social integration—I'm just reading my handwriting here—and companies need to be awarded or rewarded for inclusion. What does that look like in your mind?

[Camille Desforges]

I gave the example of the creation of provisions on social inclusion. It should benefit companies that provide accessible goods and services. However, it should also go even further by benefiting companies that employ persons with disabilities.

Our brief emphasized the fact that the government should develop a sense of responsibility toward persons with disabilities. We believe that, in all its initiatives, the government should fulfill this responsibility. This is one of many examples, but let's say that, when it comes to any federal, public, private or provincial funding, the responsibility should be implemented. That's what I was talking about.

I don't know whether I'm answering your question.

[Kerry Diotte]

Partially.... Are you saying, for instance, that there should be a mandated number of disabled people hired at these companies?

[Camille Desforges]

I'm referring more to a situation where a bidding process involves two equivalent companies. In this case, the company that employs persons with disabilities should be favoured. That's what I was talking about.

[Kerry Diotte]

Mr. Falconer, I just jotted down some words: “convoluted” bill, “more chasing of tails“, “the bill is deeply flawed”. You used words such as “shocking”.

What do we have to do?

[Patrick Falconer]

We strongly support the AODA Alliance and ARCH recommendations. There are 97 recommendations made by the AODA Alliance in their draft. The AODA Alliance and ARCH are really skilled assessors of legislation and what they have to offer is tremendously important.

Of those recommendations, if I had to give you seven that are really important, among them would be the issue of looking at timelines and a grand goal, the idea of ensuring that the government has a duty to enact and it is not permissive language, and the idea of consolidating power in one structure rather than distributed between the CRTC and the CTA and trying to have a maze. I think of Occam's razor, the issue of making things simple rather than complex. It's a 103-page bill, probably the greatest definition of an inaccessible bill that I've seen for a long time.

The idea of making sure that there is oversight independent of government is probably very important, and also the idea of speeding up requirements for reviews. There is a review that will happen five years after the first regulation, but it should be five years after it's enacted so that you have that type of regulation.

The idea of looking at addressing the needs and rights of indigenous peoples is critical. In terms of how that happens and with what timelines, it can't be an afterthought. It has to be a forethought.

Also important is the idea of ensuring that it's clear that the strongest accessibility law prevails. It doesn't say that in the bill right now.

The idea of requiring that no public money be used, and the fact that this will perpetuate, exacerbate or create new barriers, is very important as well.

If I were to look at the ones among the 97 recommendations made by the alliance that I think are critically important, I would probably highlight those.

[Kerry Diotte]

Thanks very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much.

We'll have MP Hardcastle, please, for three minutes.

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

Thank you. This is really intriguing.

I'd like to hear all of you comment a little more. We're going to be going through clause-by-clause and doing amendments, and I don't know if everyone on our committee grasps these. Just picture how you're helping us advocate for certain amendments.

Moving from language that is permissive or enabling to language that is prescriptive is something that I'm concerned about. Right now, there is in the accessibility act the need or the requirement that everybody have an implementation plan, but there's no requirement that you implement your implementation plan.

That's an example. Just as Mr. Falconer has given us some low-hanging fruit, I wonder if any of you have some observations in relation to that.

[Marie Bountrogianni]

I would just simply agree that compliance and enforcement have to be important aspects of the bill.

I do know that tomorrow morning you'll be hearing from David Lepofsky, who was a major force in the AODA development. I saw some of his notes and I think his brief will guide you even more specifically.

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

Does anybody else wish to comment?

One of the other things mentioned in terms of implementation and enforcement is this idea of fragmentation. You know right now we are going to have an accessibility commissioner who is mandated to oversee all of the accessibility plan requirements, but we also have the Canadian Transportation Agency and the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission that will be in charge of themselves.

Do any of you see that as problematic? Should we make the accessibility commissioner solely responsible, or do you think this is a good way to go? Could I get some observations, please.

[Patrick Falconer]

I'd be happy to speak on that.

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

If we can let Ms. Beaudoin....

[Monique Beaudoin]

In the bill, many things are inconsistent and act as barriers to the submission of complaints. For example, we would need to go through agencies. One recommendation was that the complaints be filed directly with the Accessibility Commissioner, since standards may vary from agency to agency. In addition, the submission of a complaint can be a long process. The goal is to simplify the process, and I fully agree with this goal.

Regarding accessibility plans, Quebec has the Office des personnes handicapées. This agency strongly encourages action plans developed by departments or by municipalities with a population of over 15,000. However, these plans aren't going anywhere. They don't have teeth and there are few follow-ups. The agency monitors the implementation of the legislation, but that's all. It hardly ever works with the associations anymore.

I'm very concerned about these accessibility plans. Who will be affected? Who will be responsible for developing them? I think that it's a bad idea. Maybe something else should be considered.

I want to take this opportunity to say that initiatives are being launched in the communities and that we should take about these initiatives. I say that persons with disabilities should be consulted. Let's work with persons with disabilities, the users.

The federal government has invested billions of dollars into housing infrastructure, for example. However, could it also promote accessible housing in all the provinces? The population is aging, and more and more people are looking for housing. When I talk about accessible housing, I'm also talking about the cost of the housing. That's another aspect that must be addressed.

In other infrastructure bills, let's immediately consider accessibility.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you.

That takes us to the end of two rounds. We have enough remaining time that we can do a bit of a mini-round, maybe five minutes per member, if everyone is okay with that.

Who would like to go?

Go ahead, Mr. Barlow.

[John Barlow]

Thanks very much, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to everybody for hanging in.

Mr. Belanger, this is not a question that I was planning on asking, but it came up from your testimony.

You were consulted for two years on this bill. You've addressed that there are significant issues that will impact first nations, in perhaps millions of dollars, yet those issues are not even mentioned anywhere in this bill. What are your thoughts on the consultation with first nations and how it's included in Bill C-81?

[Neil Belanger]

With regard to the consultation process, the government contracted with the Assembly of First Nations. They contracted with us, with the national Native Women's Association of Canada. Consultations were done.

[John Barlow]

There's nothing included in the bill.

[Neil Belanger]

They're not there—and when I say millions, I'm talking many hundreds of millions, not just millions in the tens.

How do I feel about that? I think that if the government is going to be true to their commitment to do a nation-to-nation consultation, then that's going to be a good thing.

On how that unfolds and how committees are participating, there are 634 communities. How the government is going to engage them is going to be an indicator of how legitimate the government's priority for first nations in Canada is when it comes to this legislation. We have to see how it goes from here.

[John Barlow]

Thank you.

There's another question that hasn't come up today, and I appreciate everybody's comments on the fact that timelines.... The minister said that the reason they don't have timelines in there on standards is that the standards are going to change as we go.

I love the fact that you've said, absolutely, that's the case, but if you don't have somewhere to start, you can't get any accountability there.

The other one was that the minister mentioned that any of the fines or anything from those would be going into general revenue. Our feeling is that there should be an amendment in there that those fines would go to some sort of fund for accessibility programs. Is that something that you would support?

I would like a quick answer maybe from everyone.

[Marie Bountrogianni]

I'd like to say yes, but I've been in politics and we don't want that to be it. In other words, “You have this fund, now go away; this is enough.” Things happen in politics, as you all probably know better than I do now. I would say it's not a bad idea, but let's be careful that doesn't end up being the only fund.

[John Barlow]

I'll split my time with Ms. Falk.