Human Resources Committee on Sept. 26th, 2024

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

In point B, in the English version of the motion, it says "committee" and, in the French version, it says “commission”.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

So we're clear, on Mrs. Gray's motion, it is the House administration. The motion will read in French and English “the House administration”.

We have Madame Chabot.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

You're right, the motion refers to the House Administration. I wasn't at that part of the motion, but in the part that says “Given that".

In English, it says “committee”, and in French, it says “commission” of the House Administration.

It's not the same thing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

I will have the clerk read the motion with the two friendly amendments into the record.

I'm removing “committee” unless there's an objection, and we'll only reference the House administration in French and English.

Go ahead, Clerk.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Philip den Ouden]

The motion reads as follows:

Given that Mr. Christopher Sutton of the Wavefront Centre was invited to participate in the committee's study on the goal of achieving a Canada without barriers by 2040, that Mr. Sutton was blocked from participating in this study because his audio assistive technologies did not meet the House administration's headset rules, and that this represents a clear barrier to access for deaf, deaf-blind and hard-of-hearing Canadians, the House of Commons administration unreservedly apologize to Mr. Sutton, reschedule the appearance of Mr. Sutton, and investigate the committee's audio device rules and report back on what changes they will be making, within a month, to remove this discriminatory barrier to access.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Ms. Chabot, do you agree?

I see that Ms. Chabot is in agreement.

Seeing no further discussion, I'm calling a recorded vote on the motion by Mrs. Gray, as read into the record.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 11; nays 0)

Thank you, committee members, for a very understanding process that I fully expect will result in a satisfactory solution.

With that, Ms. Cadieux, you have five minutes for your opening statement.

[Stephanie Cadieux, Chief Accessibility Officer, Office of the Chief Accessibility Officer, Department of Employment and Social Development]

Thank you for inviting me to be here today.

I'm pleased to be here.

It is hard to believe that we've already reached and gone past the five-year anniversary of the Accessible Canada Act's coming into effect. I am encouraged by the level of engagement and progress made to date in areas where action has been taken, but, like many in the disability community, I am frustrated by the slow pace of change overall.

We have momentum and we have intent, but more actions need to be taken and more quickly. We need clearly communicated commitments, timelines and accountabilities, and we need more regulations, unfortunately. There is still a long road ahead.

Over the past two years, I've met with hundreds of accessibility-focused organizations, federal government departments and agencies, private sector companies, provincial and municipal entities and individual citizens.

My first report to the minister, which was tabled in the House early this year, was developed in large part based on what I learned through these engagements. Ultimately, the aim of that report was to paint a picture of the current state of affairs, how far we’ve come and where we need to go.

The report highlighted four key areas where I know, if we focus our efforts, we can effect real and meaningful change. Specifically, those are mandatory training, the ongoing development of regulations, dedicated accessibility funding and the gathering, sharing and publishing of data. These are areas that provinces, communities and the private sector should also be encouraged to invest in, because an accessible Canada doesn’t stop with the federal government.

My report also considered the first slate of accessibility plans that were released over the last year and a half or so and offered examples of some of the promising accessibility initiatives undertaken by agencies and organizations inside and outside of government, including Via Rail, TD Bank, Service Canada and Ingenium. ISED and Bell, while they were not mentioned in the report, are also making some really good efforts.

I mention these examples not only to celebrate progress but to encourage others to do the same and to demonstrate what accessibility in action looks like. I have noted that, while there is a lot of willingness and good intentions, many still aren’t sure what accessibility really means and why it matters. As we've seen just today, confusion, timelines and other real issues sometimes come into play and come into conflict.

That lack of understanding is definitely one of our biggest challenges. Federal government departments and industry need clear directives and expectations set for them, and continuous follow-up communication at all levels of organizations is required.

The Accessible Canada Act is still very poorly understood by many both internal and external to government. There needs to be much more proactive communication. I'm going to continue to monitor all seven areas identified as priorities under the act, but in the absence of being able to do it all, in the months ahead, employment and transportation will be my primary areas of focus.

I'll focus on employment because many people with disabilities have identified it as a priority. Ultimately, it will make a difference in so many different areas. It has an impact on the quality of life of people with disabilities but also on the economy. The more people with disabilities are represented in our workforce, the faster change will come, because they will show positive examples of how and what needs to be done.

Transportation is the other area where I’ll be placing focus, as your committee also has, including air travel, which has been making a lot of headlines, but not exclusively air travel. The stories in air travel just illuminate the problems that exist across many other sectors.

My hope is that other sectors are going to take notice of the conversations happening around air travel and realize that they, too, need to be taking action. It’s clear that we’ve arrived at a real turning point. We’ve seen that, when the disability community speaks with one voice, there is action.

It's worth noting that most accessibility plans didn’t cover transportation; rather, organizations suggested that they didn’t do transport, so they didn’t need to discuss it. Let's face it: There's no benefit in increasing employment opportunities for people with disabilities if they can't get to work.

For all the progress, the culture still has a long way to go in rooting out ableist attitudes and perceptions of people with disabilities, their needs and the obligations of society to include them.

There is a lot of work to do, but I thank you for your attention to these issues, which are of crucial importance to Canada.

I look forward to your thoughts and your questions today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Cadieux.

Madame Pierre, you have five minutes, please.

[Paule-Anny Pierre, Senior Assistant Auditor General, Office of the Auditor General]

Mr. Chair, thank you for inviting us once again to appear to discuss our report on accessible transportation for persons with disabilities, which was tabled in March 2023.

Our audit covered a period of about two and a half years, which ended in 2022. I would also like to point out that we have not audited the measures taken by the government since our last appearance before this committee.

I would like to acknowledge that this hearing is taking place on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people.

Joining me today are Milan Duvnjak, principal, who was responsible for the audit, and Susie Fortier, director, who led the audit team.

In this audit, we examined whether VIA Rail, the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority, or CATSA, and the Canadian Transportation Agency, or CTA, worked to identify, remove and prevent barriers for travellers with disabilities. In 2019 and 2020, more than one million people with disabilities who travelled on a federally regulated mode of transportation faced a barrier.

We found that all three organizations had identified some barriers and taken steps to improve accessibility. VIA Rail conducted consultations with persons with disabilities during the design of its new fleet. The corporation also held consultations on its accessibility plans and training programs, as did the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority.

However, improvements were still needed in many important areas. For example, online information wasn't fully accessible. According to Statistics Canada, this is one of the most common barriers experienced by travellers with disabilities. Inadequate accessibility means that information is hard to find or incorrect when someone is using a screen reader. This makes it difficult for people with disabilities to plan or book a trip on their own.

We also found that staff and management did not always complete accessibility training. This can affect the service provided to travellers with disabilities and their companions.

As the organization responsible for enforcing accessibility regulations in the transportation industry, the Canadian Transportation Agency identified accessibility barriers through its inspections, and it worked with transportation service providers to remove some. However, we found that the agency conducted few inspections, and it could only request complaint data from service providers in certain circumstances. Consistent access to this data would help the agency improve its oversight.

Meanwhile, the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority and Via Rail focused on resolving individual complaints, and they missed opportunities to use complaint data to better understand travellers' lived experiences.

Everyone has a right to participate fully and equally in society. If access to these rights is delayed or denied, the impact is that some members of society are excluded or left behind. To further improve accessibility of trains, planes and other federally regulated modes of transportation, responsible organizations need to broaden their consultations with persons with disabilities. They need to make their online content fully accessible and use complaint data to identify, learn about and prevent barriers.

This work is necessary to achieve the federal government's goal of a barrier-free Canada by 2040.

Mr. Chair, this concludes my opening statement. We would be pleased to answer any questions the committee has.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Madame Pierre.

Before we open for questions, I want to advise the committee that I've requested resources to take us to 1:15.

For this panel, we would go through group one and two to give everybody an adequate chance, which means we would conclude after the two-and-a-half-minute round with Ms. Zarrillo. This first hour will get extended to 12:30 or 12:35.

With that, I would ask those members appearing to accommodate us.

As nobody is objecting, we will begin with Mrs. Gray for six minutes.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here today.

My first questions are for Stephanie Cadieux, please.

Ms. Cadieux, during your time as chief accessibility officer, do accessibility complaints regarding federal departments or federal organizations come across your desk?

[Stephanie Cadieux]

They do in a limited way, occasionally but not really. Most complaints go directly to the agencies themselves through their feedback mechanisms and/or to the commissioner's office because I'm not an enforcer of the act.

That doesn't mean I don't hear from people about what they're feeling, experiencing and so on. When I do, I take that information in for the purpose of encouraging organizations to solve those issues and making sure those get moved to the right door, because we're not the right door in that situation.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thank you.

Do you think that it would be useful for the work that you do to receive those types of complaints from the different government agencies in your office? Would that be helpful to the work that you do, even if it's more on an information basis?

[Stephanie Cadieux]

From an information point of view, yes, I think it would. I mean, it does. However, we are small, so it could be very overwhelming, I expect.

The good thing that is happening is that I chair a table of the different groups associated with the monitoring and enforcement of the act. This includes the CTA, CRTC, the labour relations group, the commissioner, Accessibility Standards and ESDC, which is the government department that is overseeing the act implementation. At that table, we have the opportunity to share. All of those organizations have been very forthcoming.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thank you.

In your 2023 report on accessibility in Canada, you wrote that in 2023, the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion and the Minister of Transport issued a commitment to “the mandatory collection and sharing of better data about” persons with disabilities.

Later, two entirely different Liberal ministers of transport and disability, in a press release following the National Air Accessibility Summit, only committed to “explore ways to collect and share data with Government representatives”. This sounds like the scenario of more government announcements without substance or action.

Is data sharing between transport operators and government regulators needed to better track and identify barriers, from your perspective?

[Stephanie Cadieux]

Yes, I would say it is.

My understanding is that Department of Transport and the CTA, through the bill that's currently in second reading, are looking at or hoping to put in place measures by which they can collect that data.

In my conversations with the airlines directly and with the air sector more broadly—I'm spending quite a bit of time with the air sector more broadly, including organizations outside Canada—this is actually a very big conversation. Everybody is aware of this as an issue, and it comes down to how those individual private companies collect and share data for the purpose of moving passengers.

There is a complexity to it that the industry is aware of. I think that government, whether that be Parliament or through the CTA as the regulator, will need to define and push for the data that is needed to really home in on what the issue is and how we fix it.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

I'm glad you mentioned the airlines, because that leads to my next question.

In your response to the National Aviation Accessibility Summit, you welcomed the commitments made by the airlines, but you also wrote the following:

But progress overall is slow. People with disabilities are rightly fed up. Rights are not being respected, they are being “accommodated” in haphazard, often disrespectful ways, and when something goes wrong, remedies are inconsistent, time consuming, and physically and emotionally stressful for the person affected. We need concrete changes. Quickly.

You also wrote that the commitments made by the airlines didn't have deliverables or timelines attached.

We know that we have another new Minister of Transport. It's sort of a part-time minister.

With no given deliverables or timelines, how can Canadians living with disabilities trust that the commitments made at the air accessibility summit are actually going to happen? Do you have any comments?

[Stephanie Cadieux]

Yes.

I think timelines and accountability matter well beyond the air sector. It's a recommendation I'm making for all organizations that fall under the Accessible Canada Act. The plans themselves that organizations are putting forward, in many ways, look more like reports. Plans have actions, timelines and accountability. That's something we need to see in order to see progress.

In the case of airlines, I will say that I am encouraged to see that work is under way and going on. I'm encouraging the airlines and the Department of Transport, through the deputy minister, to be more public about those timelines and the work that's under way.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Mr. Collins, go ahead for six minutes.

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Welcome to the witnesses this afternoon.

Ms. Cadieux, I'll start with you.

You mentioned four points in your opening statement. I come from the municipal sector, and there are a number of elected representatives around this table who formerly served as either a mayor or a city councillor. One of the things that always bothered me in my time on council was the lack of resources made available to municipalities. We would often, municipally, receive recommendations from our accessibility committee. We all have people in our community, at the grassroots level, who are trying to help their municipal councils create a more accessible city. That could mean anything from brick-and-mortar or transportation policy changes to a whole range of services that fall under municipal jurisdiction. One of the most frustrating parts was funding. We had those same frustrations with the province as well, which guided our legislation from a jurisdictional perspective.

Can you comment on how the federal government could do a better job in terms of supporting stakeholders—in this instance, municipalities—to assist with the accessibility plans they have, in order to make inroads and make life more accessible for people in their communities who have disabilities?

[Stephanie Cadieux]

I'll make two recommendations.

One, there needs to be, I believe, a centre of excellence of some type, so organizations know where to go for advice, good information about how to do this and so on. That's needed beyond the three levels of government and the organizations involved. It's right down to your local coffee shop. There's a need and a desire out there for trusted information. There is a lot of information on the Internet. How do you get trusted information, though? I think there is a need for that. The U.S. Access Board is one model I've seen. There could be a version in Canada.

Two, when it comes to resources, there is a need for dedicated accessibility funding in all budgets. Anyone in charge of a budget should have a line item for accessibility and be thinking about what that means. There will never be enough money. As a former politician, I understand the challenges at all levels with that. Certainly, there's only one taxpayer.

I want us to think about how we look at accessibility. We have traditionally looked at it as something that is charitable. It's something we do if we get money or when somebody gives us money. We don't look at it the way we should. It's as essential as heat, lights or any other piece of business we do. Disability affects 27% of the population. That means it affects 27% of taxpayers. They deserve to have their needs met just as well as any other taxpayer. It's a shift in how we think about accessibility and what's necessary.

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Thank you for that.

I'm going to go to the flip side of that coin.

Sometimes we have partners who are reluctant to make investments in these areas. They see it as charitable and don't treat it as a priority. It goes back to that old saying of show me a government's budget, and I'll tell you what its priorities are.

You've worked at the provincial level. What can the government do, without stepping on the jurisdictional toes of the provinces and the rights that they have to govern, to create some healthy tension in terms of bringing some of our reluctant partners to the table?

I'm in a province where the ODSP rates haven't changed much in the last 10 years. People are probably getting $20 a year extra from an income support perspective. It tells me that my provincial government really doesn't see the disabled community as a priority. I'm looking for your advice in that regard. You served at the provincial level, and you certainly understand jurisdictional issues.

How do we bring our provincial partners to the table when, in many respects, some of them just don't see this as a priority and haven't provided sufficient funding in this area?

[Stephanie Cadieux]

I would say nobody has really prioritized this in the way it should be. The Accessible Canada Act, passed unanimously by government, sets a tone and it sets a stage for co-operative work. It does say that everybody, mostly everyone, does understand that people with disabilities are equal and deserving of having their needs met.

We've seen that with provincial legislation to this effect as well. It tends to be non-partisan and accepted. However, when it comes to actually doing the work and getting to the actions, that's where we run into challenges and that's where those competing priorities always come into play. The federal government does have an opportunity, through mechanisms like funding for infrastructure or other funding that flows through to the other levels of government, to insist on accessibility from the start. If government is issuing a program, service or funding, how is accessibility built into the qualification for that?

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

The national housing strategy does that with minimum requirements for accessible units. Would that be a good example?

[Stephanie Cadieux]

Yes, it's a good example.