Human Resources Committee on Nov. 7th, 2018

[James Van Raalte]

The powers under the mandate of CASDO are stated in paragraphs 18(a) through 18(e). Once the bill becomes law, they will come into force. The infrastructure required—the hiring and getting the office all set up and so on—would be a year from this summer.

[Alex Nuttall, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

Then summer 2020 is when you would begin...?

[James Van Raalte]

That's when we would begin technical committees for standard development, information, sharing of best practices, innovation work on standards of the future.

[The Vice-Chair, Mr. John Barlow]

Thank you.

Ms. Falk, go ahead.

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

I just want to follow up.

On October 22, in committee, Ms. Barbara Collier, the executive director of Communication Disabilities Access Canada said:

I just want to say that I was stressing the scope of the issue of communication access, but I think it's very doable. Ninety per cent of what I am talking about is education, and I think we have the education resources that could be put in place. What we need is a standard stating that everyone needs training about how to communicate with people who communicate in different ways. It's very doable.

I just want to emphasize that we heard from our stakeholders and our witnesses that public education is so important. I'm a little concerned, from what I'm interpreting and hearing from the department, that this public education might not happen for a year or so—a year and a half to two years. I think it's important that we have some timelines in there, because two years from now is quite a while.

[The Vice-Chair, Mr. John Barlow]

Thank you, Ms. Falk.

Are there any more comments on CPC-16?

Seeing none—

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

I would like a recorded vote.

[The Vice-Chair, Mr. John Barlow]

I will call a recorded vote.

(Amendment negatived: nays 5; yeas 3)

: We now move to PV-5.

Go ahead, Ms. May.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

What this does to clause 18 is add a subclause. The amendment, PV-5, would ensure that there is some degree of a timeline attached to carrying out the mandate and reviewing an accessibility standard. The mandate of the Canadian accessibility standards development organization under paragraph 1(a) is the development and revision of accessibility standards. This amendment would have that accessibility standard reviewed within five years after the date it was implemented or on an earlier date if the minister so specified.

This is to ensure that as the accessibility standards are rolled out, they're reviewed in a timely fashion to see how they're working and if they're meeting the needs of the of those for whom they are designed.

[The Vice-Chair, Mr. John Barlow]

Thank you very much, Ms. May.

I need to be clear as well on PV-5. If it is adopted, CPC-17 and NDP-4.1 will not be moved due to consistency.

Is there any issue or any discussion on PV-5?

Go ahead, Mr. Nuttall.

[Alex Nuttall, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think I would very much like this amendment to be adopted. If we're not going to put actual timelines in place to achieve something, then at least putting timelines in place to review accessibility makes sense. If we're not going to put in timelines to achieve, hopefully we can have timelines to review, and maybe we can put timelines to achieve at that point.

[The Vice-Chair, Mr. John Barlow]

Thank you very much, Mr. Nuttall.

Go ahead, Ms. Hardcastle.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think this is a very important amendment if we are going to embrace the concept of a barrier-free Canada being something that evolves. We need to be responsive and we need a mechanism in place to ensure that we are responsive as we're evolving, adjusting to best practices and learning and improving constantly, because there is no real end point to all of this. That point has been made on all sides of the committee table here tonight, and it is extremely important for us to respond to it.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Mr. John Barlow]

Thank you very much, Ms. Hardcastle.

Is there any further discussion on PV-5?

Go ahead, Mr. Hogg.

[Gordie Hogg]

I'll ask the experts. In terms of looking at policies, the implementation of policies and the issue of timelines, which has been pretty controversial as we've gone through this, what is the current practice with any legislation you receive in terms of the implementation processes that you follow?

[James Van Raalte]

I'm not sure I understand the question, Mr. Chair.

[Gordie Hogg]

The question is this: if there's a piece of legislation that comes out that doesn't have a hard timeline in it, how does the ministry respond to it? How do you carry out the principle? I think we all want to see this, as a principle, achieved as quickly as possible. If you don't have a timeline, how do you manage that?

[James Van Raalte]

I'm still not sure I understand the question, Mr. Chair, as it pertains to the proposed amendment. As it pertains to the proposed amendment, the Standards Council of Canada already has this requirement. Under the accreditation process, standards have to be reviewed every five years. That is a requirement. It's already built in. By creating a new standards organization that will fall under the rules of the Standards Council of Canada, this review will already be occurring. I don't want to overuse the word “standard”, but it is a standard practice. It is a requirement for the updating of standards.

[The Vice-Chair, Mr. John Barlow]

Go ahead, Mr. Hogg.

[Gordie Hogg]

You're saying that putting something in this would be redundant because you're already bound to that with the standards that you have to comply with now.

[James Van Raalte]

Yes. Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Mr. John Barlow]

Are there any further comments?

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

This is to officials and Mr. Van Raalte.

What legal status does the Standards Council of Canada have? We're talking in a legislative frame. You mentioned earlier that the human rights code, of course, has quasi-constitutional status. There's no statutory status to the council's standards.

[James Van Raalte]

It's an accreditation standard.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Then it's voluntary and outside the laws of Parliament and could be violated without any recourse for parliamentarians to pursue.