Good evening and thank you, Mr. Chair, vice-chairs and members, for the invitation to present.
My name is Patrick Falconer. I am here to speak on behalf of Barrier-Free Manitoba and to express our strong support for the calls for significant amendments to Bill C-81 as outlined in briefs by the AODA Alliance, dated September 27, 2018, and by the ARCH Disability Law Centre, dated October 1, 2018.
As a matter of introduction, Barrier-Free Manitoba is the cross-disability, non-partisan community initiative that has worked over the last decade on provincial accessibility rights legislation in Manitoba. Our support for both the AODA Alliance's and the ARCH's briefs is firmly rooted in the experience we have gained through those 10 years.
Our story is one of both hope and disappointment: hope in the Accessibility for Manitobans Act, or what's called “the AMA”, our provincial legislation that promised major progress would be made toward achieving full accessibility by 2023, which enacted and proclaimed in 2013, had set the stage for a decade of sure and steady progress; hope in that the AMA included language, deliverables and accountability measures that created clear obligations for government; hope in that the AMA was passed by a unanimous, all-party, all-member vote of our legislative assembly; and finally, hope in that each major political party recommitted themselves to the full and timely implementation of the AMA in the 2016 general provincial election.
However, that's pretty much where the hope ends and the disappointment begins.
We're now halfway through the promised decade of progress. Only one of five promised accessibility standards has been developed. There is still no compliance framework established. Government has only rarely met its own timelines for obligations under the act. As well, implementation efforts continue to be substantially under-resourced and way behind any reasonable schedule. Getting even this far has taken incredible efforts on the part of our diverse and under-resourced disability communities.
We are gravely concerned that Bill C-81 not only replicates the AMA's weaknesses, but actually compounds them. The bill does not include a clear goal of a barrier-free Canada or a date by which to achieve this. The bill uses permissive language rather than prescriptive language. It enables; it does not require. The bill creates a likelihood of multiple accessibility requirements covering similar types of barriers. It also establishes a diffused and fragmented approach to standards development, compliance and adjudication. The bill lodges responsibility for real progress with the government of the day, not Parliament.
Finally, the bill is extremely convoluted. We believe Bill C-81 as it stands will create confusion for the public, obligated organizations, and Canadians with disabilities alike. It will result in more chasing of tails than forward progress.
While representing a commendable effort with honourable intentions, we are concerned the bill is deeply flawed. Based on our decade of experience and our careful review, BFM strongly supports the recommendations for significant amendments in the two briefs I mentioned by the AODA Alliance and the ARCH Disability Law Centre.
We would respectfully add a word of caution. You might be thinking political parties at the federal level are different from those at the provincial level, or that your party is a different one. Perhaps you're thinking the federal government is a different and more responsible order of government than our provinces. You might be thinking the types of amendments called for by the Alliance and ARCH are excessive. Our hard-won experience over the last decade suggests otherwise.
Bill C-81 presents a historic and long overdue opportunity, the opportunity of a generation. We beseech you not to squander it.
In the brief time I have remaining, I'll highlight two additional areas of concern.
First, it is shocking to us that Bill C-81 does not incorporate any special measures to act on the federal government's constitutional, fiduciary or special responsibilities in relation to indigenous people with disabilities. Disability rates among indigenous people are roughly two to three times higher than for the general population. Indigenous people are also among the Canadians who face the most severe barriers to accessibility. Both the higher rates and the severity of the barriers faced by indigenous people are the direct result of government policies that reflect a shameful past and that continue into the present.
Second, we are concerned that there is no clear reference to the national building code of Canada in Bill C-81. The national building code is not only applicable in areas of federal jurisdiction. It also plays a profound role in shaping the building codes that are developed and adopted by each Canadian province. At both the federal and provincial levels, the building codes and the current limited levels of accessibility that are provided for result in costly and preventable barriers being perpetuated and newly created, every day, in built environments across Canada.
It seems likely that the responsibility for developing strong and effective accessibility standards related to the building code is meant to fall under the purview of the proposed Canadian accessibility standards development organization, CASDO. However, this remains unclear and we believe that explicit reference needs to be added to Bill C-81 or to be clarified as part of the committee's review of this bill.
Thank you for your time and attention. I look forward to our further discussion this evening.