I think the first step should be that the sweeping exemptions in this bill, whereby the government can give itself exemptions and the CTA can be giving out exemptions to transit providers, are all wrong. There are no exemptions from human rights, much less ones done behind closed doors with no input. The government said this bill is to be based on “nothing about us without us”. This is about taking it all away from us without us, and that shouldn't happen.
If the concern is that there should be exemptions related to small businesses or something, for the most part the government doesn't regulate small business, and Air Canada and Bell Canada are not small businesses. In that case, create an exemption power for small businesses. If exemptions are to be granted, the bill should explain what the criteria are, and they should be time-limited and should not be extended if there is anything showing that the company that gets the exemption has accessibility problems.
The way it's written now, the government can give a carte blanche exemption forever to an organization, and the day after, the same organization can set about creating all sorts of new barriers, and we have no recourse in relation to the exemption. The bill doesn't make any sense now. If there's to be any exemption power at all, it should be tiny, narrow, time-limited, and subject to an appeal process, and there should be strict, narrow criteria about when the government can grant exemptions.