Human Resources Committee on Sept. 26th, 2024

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

I will participate in silence for my full six minutes. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Fine. Ms. Zarrillo, we will—

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Chair—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

I can only entertain a point of order.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

What is your point of order?

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Chair—

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

There's no point of order. I have the floor.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Ms. Zarrillo, a point of order can be raised at any moment.

Mr. Long, do you have a point of order?

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

It's basically a suggestion to take a recess for a couple minutes, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

No, she has the floor, and I will respect how each member chooses to use their time.

With that, we will run out the clock for three minutes and 15 seconds.

[Silence]

We will begin the second round.

I want to advise that it has been confirmed that the committee has resources until 1:15.

Mrs. Falk, you have five minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Chair.

I'd like to thank our witnesses for being here.

Ms. Cadieux, I'd like to start with you, if that's okay.

When this committee studied the Accessible Canada Act, we repeatedly heard concerns from witnesses that the bill lacked clear and consistent requirements, that it used permissive language and that it lacked enforcement measures. As I said earlier in the meeting—and you did, too, in your remarks—we're five years after the passage of this act. It's important to evaluate the progress that has been made and address inadequacies in the act that will prevent achieving a barrier-free Canada by 2040.

We had the CEO of Air Canada here earlier this year. His testimony to this committee raised concerns around the issue of accessibility training. He could not confirm how much or if any of the airline's executive leadership had undertaken accessibility training.

To change the culture and the conversation around accessibility, which we heard a little bit about with MP Chabot's time, how important is it that accessibility training be mandatory for everyone?

[Stephanie Cadieux]

It is one of the recommendations I made in my report. I feel that accessibility is only going to take root when leaders decide that it starts with them and that the culture goes all the way down through an organization. I think mandatory training is important, and I think it's necessary for us to move forward faster on regulations under the act because, ultimately, organizations will do what they have to do. Some will go further, and that's great, but the regulations will never set the bar where we would hope it would be. They'll set a minimum bar, and there will always be the ability to reach further and do better.

Some organizations, especially in some of these highly regulated sectors like transportation or banking, function well when they have guideposts. I think that, in some cases, unfortunately, that is necessary.

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

To segue into my second question for you here, should accessibility training be a legal obligation for federally regulated industries?

[Stephanie Cadieux]

That's not my decision to make.

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

But...?

[Stephanie Cadieux]

I would say that there are a lot of organizations that are doing it as a matter of course, that are choosing to do it and that recognize that it's necessary. Perhaps it should be: Have all of you taken it? Have I?

I have in lots of different contexts now, but yes, I think we all get something from that experience. We can't know what we don't know, and the training would vary. The kind of training would vary by job role and organization. That's where it would get tricky, but I do think that training is a fundamental piece of changing the culture.

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

Can we realistically expect to achieve a Canada without barriers without getting greater training requirements? Can we achieve a barrier-free Canada by 2040 without training?

[Stephanie Cadieux]

It would be hard. I say that because, again, we don't know what we don't know. The act is, I think, brilliant in some ways, in that having to involve people with disabilities in the creation of the plans and in the feedback mechanisms is essential, and we don't see that anywhere else in the world. That is leading, and everybody is watching us for that. That does get at rooting out and bringing to the forefront the real barriers that exist for people who haven't experienced them themselves and don't know.

I still think training goes that little bit further. It's a time when you have to sit down and think about it. You have to have a conversation about it, and you can't pass it to someone else to do it for you. You can't put the responsibility of creating the plan down below and then it's “we have one, right?” That's not the culture we want.

We want a culture where, right from the top, we're asking what we are doing about accessibility: What am I doing about accessibility? Am I making sure that I'm doing all of the pieces that I can do as a CEO, CFO or frontline service delivery?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mrs. Falk.

Mr. Van Bynen, you have five minutes.

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I appreciate the information that we've been gathering here.

My questions will also go to Ms. Cadieux.

As we've seen here today, in terms of the Internet being a source of information, there's only one person in this room who has a fully accessible website.

What role do you think the government should play in terms of requiring other governments and other levels of information and/or departments to have a fully accessible website, largely because the website is becoming more and more a source of information? How could that be implemented?

[Stephanie Cadieux]

In fact, that is already in the works. Accessibility Standards Canada has adopted the same standard for information communications technologies as the European Union, and it is my understanding that ESDC is moving forward with a recommendation to put that into a regulation here in Canada. That would be the first regulation under the act beyond the requirement for plans. That would affect MPs' offices, government agencies and all of the folks under the act.

I think it's very important, because, again, so much of what we do these days is dependent on websites or information technology apps. We're doing things on our phones all day long, and too many people are left out when that isn't considered.

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

You mentioned an earlier frustration on the difference between reports and plans, and that there was an absence of actions, timelines and accountability.

Is there a mechanism that you can do—independent audits or mystery shoppers—to determine if, in fact, some of these organizations have the level of interest that you think is important?

[Stephanie Cadieux]

I probably have the ability to do that. I don't know that I have the capacity in my office to do that. There's a lot to monitor, and we're having to pick and choose what we do and what we're looking at. Largely, at this stage, we've been working with the coalition of the willing, those who want to have conversations.

We have done a review of 100 or so of the accessibility plans, at random, to see and get a feel for where organizations are. There are thousands of very engaged public servants that are doing this work, both inside government and beyond in the corporate sector. There are people who are very committed. It's important to hold up those examples for others to follow.

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

You mentioned earlier that you would like to see some centres of excellence.

What would a centre of excellence look like?