Evidence of meeting #12 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 43rd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cerb.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Senior Lecturer, University of Toronto Scarborough, As an Individual
No, there is none at all.
Liberal
Adam Vaughan Liberal Spadina—Fort York, ON
Would you support making the accessible universal-design units a character of all new builds under the national housing strategy?
Senior Lecturer, University of Toronto Scarborough, As an Individual
Absolutely, every single one, yes.
Liberal
Adam Vaughan Liberal Spadina—Fort York, ON
In terms of this issue of supportive housing, again, for people who require support to live independently, whether that's attendant care or other forms of support, if we limit it to long-term care, will we miss the impact of the lack of supports for people with disabilities if all we focus on is age supports?
Senior Lecturer, University of Toronto Scarborough, As an Individual
Yes, absolutely.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
That's a really excellent short answer.
Thank you very much, Mr. Onley. Thank you very much, Mr. Vaughan.
Ms. Chabot, you have four minutes.
Bloc
Louise Chabot Bloc Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
Thank you.
I will put general questions to the representatives of the Fédération des mouvements personne d'abord du Québec, whom I thank for joining us.
As you have already said, we are all experiencing a storm, so I dare not imagine the turmoil this implies for individuals with a disability.
You talked a lot about the need for information. Could you tell us what simplified information and language are? Are there ways, such as a website, to provide that?
Director, Mouvement Personne D’Abord de Saint-Jérôme, Sainte-Thérèse et Saint-Eustache, Fédération des Mouvements Personne D’Abord du Québec
Thank you for your question, Ms. Chabot.
There is actually extensive literature on the issue. In Quebec, there have been numerous partnerships among universities, the health industry and the community to seek out evidence and to do what is best.
There is a website called Infos-accessibles, which provides strategies for that purpose. It provides references on good practices to simplify texts, and it provides examples on good writing practices and those that aim to use images to support the message.
So it is extremely important to keep in mind the condition of individuals with an intellectual disability. From 1% to 3% of people are living with an intellectual disability—so about 500,000 Canadians.
Even without a diagnosis of intellectual disability, many people have what is referred to as low literacy. By keeping in mind that many struggle to interpret the information provided to them, the authorities would be helping those people out. Especially during COVID-19, information is coming from all over the place. One day, it's white, and another day, it's black, and that is normal. It's an inexact science, and an attempt is being made to explain it.
To answer your question, Ms. Chabot, there are indeed websites for an organization or a country that wants to seek out content and know how to make its communications accessible. The website Infos-accessibles is one good example of that.
Bloc
Louise Chabot Bloc Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
I will not be able to address Ms. Bourgeois directly, as time is running out, but I think that she mentioned images.
When the entire population was told to wash their hands and to keep a distance of two metres, how did that translate for those individuals, either for supporters or themselves? How can we help make that concrete through your movement or through other methods?
Director, Mouvement Personne D’Abord de Saint-Jérôme, Sainte-Thérèse et Saint-Eustache, Fédération des Mouvements Personne D’Abord du Québec
Many organizations like ours are currently receiving information in real time, which they then explain. That information is translated into simplified language. So there is a lag between when news comes out and when our members can receive it.
Ms. Bourgeois spoke about this earlier. Scientific literature provides proven communication strategies. We must use simple texts, short sentences consisting of a single idea and as little punctuation as possible. There must not be any commas or semicolons. We use large print in our posters, with space between the lines.
The use of images, which Ms. Bourgeois mentioned, is a very reassuring referent for low literacy individuals. Low literacy does not affect only people with an intellectual disability, but also a very large number of Canadians, unfortunately.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve and Ms. Chabot.
Next we have Ms. Kwan, who has the last round for four minutes.
Go ahead, Ms. Kwan, please.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
Thank you very much. My question is for Mr. Onley, but I don't know if he's still on our call here.
As my first question, the government decided not to go with a direct universal payment for everyone in this pandemic. Instead they went with the CERB, which is a complicated process. We are learning that this program excludes a lot of people, including seniors and people with disabilities on fixed incomes.
To address that aspect, about three weeks ago now a unanimous motion was passed in the House of Commons. It called for the government to act immediately to provide support to seniors and people with disabilities. The government came forward with a one-time payment for seniors, and people with disabilities are still waiting to see what will happen there. To that end, we need action immediately to support people with disabilities.
Would you support a call for an initiative similar to that of the CERB for people with disabilities?
Senior Lecturer, University of Toronto Scarborough, As an Individual
Yes, I certainly would, without any reservation whatsoever.
I think one of the things to underscore is that many people with disabilities, as I've learned, just don't have access to devices or contacts or even things we take for granted, such as the Internet or cellphones. They just don't, so they often get left out in the shuffle, if you will. Anything that can be done that is simple, straightforward and very clear is going to hit the maximum number of people, but especially it's going to hit people who, quite frankly, in many instances, are unfortunately just not as dialed in as we are.
We have to also wrap our heads around the notion of looking at all other minorities in our society as either being people with able-bodied conditions or disabled. Unfortunately, what happens is that individuals with disabilities get clustered at the end of the train. We often hear of the various minorities—and I'll just mention a few—as indigenous, women, LGBTQ and the disabled. Well, there's no such thing as the disabled by itself. There are men who are able-bodied men or who are disabled; there are indigenous people who are able-bodied indigenous people or who are disabled, so we need to be thinking of it in that context every single time we talk about any other minority group. We have to automatically think that there are two sets to every other minority group: able-bodied and disabled. Until we do that, unfortunately, people with disabilities get left at the very end of the train.
NDP
Director, Mouvement Personne D’Abord de Saint-Jérôme, Sainte-Thérèse et Saint-Eustache, Fédération des Mouvements Personne D’Abord du Québec
Was the question for me?
Liberal
Director, Mouvement Personne D’Abord de Saint-Jérôme, Sainte-Thérèse et Saint-Eustache, Fédération des Mouvements Personne D’Abord du Québec
I'm sorry, I did not hear the question.
Would it be possible to repeat it quickly?
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
Would you support a universal direct payment for people with disabilities, similar to the CERB?
Director, Mouvement Personne D’Abord de Saint-Jérôme, Sainte-Thérèse et Saint-Eustache, Fédération des Mouvements Personne D’Abord du Québec
Absolutely. People with a disability sometimes have a severe limitation to employment. So they depend on social solidarity. Given what is currently happening, the pandemic is changing many people's habits. To make ends meet, some people have had to get food assistance, but that is becoming increasingly difficult. So people have additional expenses.
If there were a more financially viable measure than social solidarity, we would clearly not be against it.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Thank you very much, Mr. Villeneuve.
Thank you very much, Ms. Kwan.
We've now reached our allocated time for today's meeting.
Mr. Adair, I am so sorry. This is the second time I looked over there when you had your hand up, and we didn't get to you.
I want to thank all of the witnesses for their patience with the technical challenges that we faced today and remind you, especially when our time has been shortened because of those challenges, that you are absolutely welcome and encouraged to augment your answers or to provide any representations in writing that you wish. They will absolutely be considered by the committee, and we are extremely grateful that you were able to join us here today.
I also want to thank my colleagues very much for the accommodation in the second round to ensure that everyone was treated fairly.
With that, I wish everyone—
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
Mr. Chair, may I just raise one point? It may be a point of order.
I wonder, for future meetings, whether we could have our technical people do a test run with the witnesses before our actual meeting so that we know that they are set up. This seems to be an ongoing problem, and we lose a lot of time as a result. If we can prepare witnesses so that they are set up with their remote systems even the day before they are to appear, we can hopefully minimize the delays that are taking place as a result of technical difficulties.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
I'll undertake to have that conversation. Thanks for the suggestion.
Thank you very much, everyone. Enjoy your weekend.
The meeting is adjourned.