Evidence of meeting #124 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was clause.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
Mr. Chair, I think we need clarification. What about paragraphs (b) and (c) of amendment LIB-69?
The Vice-Chair Mr. John Barlow
That amendment is coming up next as CPC-59, which would be almost identical to what you're proposing, but that CPC amendment would have precedence over yours because it was submitted prior. It would have to be a new amendment.
The Vice-Chair Mr. John Barlow
The Liberal amendment is inadmissible, as well as CPC-58.
You could not make an amendment to that one as CPC-59 is pretty much identical and would have precedence.
We now move to CPC-59.
Mr. Diotte.
Edmonton Griesbach, CPC
This is an amendment to the preamble to change “Canadians” to “persons in Canada”. The change is necessary to help ensure that everyone in Canada, regardless of their citizenship, status or identification with Canada, gets benefits from accessibility requirements under the act.
The Vice-Chair Mr. John Barlow
Again, Ms. Hardcastle, this amendment is identical to yours right after. If you want to make a comment, I would suggest you do it now.
NDP
Cheryl Hardcastle NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
Okay. As it reads now, somebody could interpret that if they're in Canada but are not a Canadian, the rules don't apply to them either way. I think it's pretty simple and straightforward.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
I would move a subamendment to strike “abilities or” in part (b) of CPC-59.
The Vice-Chair Mr. John Barlow
Okay, so it would just be “regardless of their disabilities”.
Is there any discussion on the proposed subamendment?
Ms. Hardcastle.
Cheryl Hardcastle NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
I had a similar amendment early on, and there was some debate. Didn't we keep that in? We kept “abilities” in for some reason, or did that...?
The Vice-Chair Mr. John Barlow
I believe that we were keeping “disabilities” throughout the bill to retain that consistency, so “abilities” was removed in favour of “disabilities”, if I recall correctly.
(Subamendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])
(Amendment as amended agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])
I have to commend all of you on your diligence. We're almost there. We just have the last few to go.
(Preamble as amended agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])
Shall the short title carry?
Conservative
Rosemarie Falk Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK
First of all, I am very disappointed that this bill does not have teeth. We heard very clearly from our stakeholders that they cared about timelines, about accountability, about transparency, about ease of accessibility, about having one body to oversee complaints, about enforcement—all of that. Two amendments were adopted that weren't Liberal amendments, but I'm disappointed that this seemed to turn into a partisan issue and what the minister wanted—we heard that a couple of times, that “the minister wanted this”.
We serve Canadians. We serve our stakeholders. I'm terribly disappointed that we brought them in here. We heard them speak passionately. These are people who have lived with disabilities. They lack accessibility to the majority of everything. That they were being heard at the table was historical, in the sense of groundbreaking. I'm just so disappointed that we as a committee couldn't add more teeth.
NDP
Cheryl Hardcastle NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
I know intimately that in the disabilities community people are very pleased to be asked and to be engaged, and they are actually very easy to please. They've done without so much and they have so many struggles; they take what they can get.
They are watching closely today. They know some of the fundamental problems with this bill, one of them being that the government can exempt itself from many of these regulations; another being the splintering of implementation and enforcement, which is really insensitive to the actual, lived experience of people living with disabilities. The bill needed to be greatly simplified. However, I know that people are going to be ecstatic. They're going to want to see us be diligent in moving forward on this.
I'm feeling very mixed emotions right now for people, just because we had expected that in earnest we were going to come here to debate these amendments. It was very clear that there was a preconceived notion of what should be happening and an agenda, which has been realized, that really didn't take into account that testimony.
I know it sounds harsh, but I need to say this in a very clear and concise way, because we have stakeholders listening who are very frustrated and who want to have an acknowledgement that we know that they know that we know that they know that these amendments and the language in this bill do not meet their needs sufficiently.
Liberal
Dan Ruimy Liberal Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC
Since we're all having a say here, I first of all want to thank all the stakeholders in the disability community for the months of consultations that went on to get us to where we are today. We heard testimony and recommendations for amendments from multitudes of people, and we put forward 69 of our own amendments. Many of them were very similar to what the opposition had put forward, but which were improved upon.
While it's easy to say right now that there's disappointment, I think there's excitement for what we have accomplished.
We heard from every witness who came through that while they wanted to see amendments, they were excited that we were moving forward. This is the end result. On our side we heard, we listened and we made adjustments to the legislation.
I want to thank everybody for all their hard work and for getting us to where we are today.