Human Resources Committee on Oct. 1st, 2024

[The Chair (Mr. Robert Morrissey (Egmont, Lib.)), Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

I call the meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 126 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, meaning that witnesses are appearing virtually and in the room with us.

There are a couple of points I would like to review before I introduce the witnesses.

You have the option to participate in today's meeting in the official language of your choice. In the room, translation is available by selecting the channel you wish to participate in on the microphone in front of you. Those appearing virtually can click on the globe icon at the bottom of your Surface and choose an official language. If there is a breakdown in translation services, please get my attention by raising your hand, and I will recognize you. We'll suspend while it is being cleared up.

Again, I want to remind those members who are using older microphones today to make sure you're on the channel that gives you the language of your choice. Also, for those in the room, please make sure that all of your devices are on mute, including any alarms that may go off. As well, please refrain from tapping the microphone boom to avoid issues for the translators of today's meeting.

In the first hour today, we have a witness appearing in person: David Lepofsky, chair of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance.

From Confédération des organismes de personnes handicapées du Québec, we have Paul Lupien, chair, by video conference, and Dominique Salgado, chair of the employee committee.

Appearing for Disability Without Poverty is Michelle Hewitt, and she is still connecting.

We also have Kevin Mills, goodwill ambassador for Pedaling Possibilities.

We'll begin with Mr. Mills, but before we do, for your benefit, if you're addressing questions to Mr. Lepofsky, please identify him so he'll know a question is directed at him, and identify yourself by saying which MP you are.

You have five minutes, Mr. Mills.

[Kevin Mills, Good Will Ambassador, Pedaling Possibilities]

Hello, everyone. I'd like to thank MP Tony Van Bynen for inviting me, and the HUMA committee for allowing me to speak about an issue that is really personal and important to me—accessibility.

I'm sure that everyone here has a loved one, whether a relative, friend or child, who has been affected by accessibility barriers. Thank you for your efforts to help improve and hopefully fix these obstacles that affect Canadians on a daily basis.

I recently had the opportunity to handcycle across Canada with my able-bodied friend, Nikki Davenport. In May 2023, we started our journey in Cape Spear, Newfoundland, and after over four months of effort, we completed our 8,400-kilometre trip in Victoria, B.C. I became the first quadriplegic to handcycle across Canada in my wheelchair.

I would like to start by saying how beautiful and amazing Canada is. We are lucky to live here. The thing that struck me the most was the people. Everyone was so kind and supportive. I met wonderful people in every province who wanted to help and were enthusiastic about what we were doing. We had people online who were following our trip, donating and spreading our message. Cars were honking in support and people on the side of the road were cheering us on and handing us food and drinks. The media coverage was phenomenal. We even had one woman come to our campsite to take our laundry home and wash it for us.

When we initially started planning this journey, we just wanted to do it. We quickly realized that what we were doing had the potential to help people and increase accessibility by starting a discussion encouraging Canadians, especially those with disabilities, to get outside and get active. We wanted to show that it was possible, so we created the not-for-profit Pedaling Possibilities across Canada.

One of the best parts about this trip was having people with wheelchairs and handcycles come in and join us for a leg.

I've travelled extensively, and when considering accessibility across our nation, Canada is doing well compared to many other countries, but there is still a lot to be done. I think the most important part of my message is that in terms of ability in the community of people with disabilities, there are vastly different levels of function.

I have paraplegic friends who can pop up a regular curb without difficulty, but for me, a three-centimetre lip might as well be 10 flights of stairs. At the same time, I have friends with more severe injuries who encounter obstacles I would never have thought of.

To continue to improve accessibility in Canada, you need to talk to and involve people with disabilities in the solution, which is what you are doing now.

I'm sure the committee is well versed on the challenges that Canadians with disabilities face in terms of travel, including flights, hotels and accessible showers. At one point in my journey, after not showering for nine days, the girls said I would not be allowed in the RV until I showered, so at the campsite they tossed me in a lawn chair and hosed me off. That mountain water was cold.

My main focus today is about an accessible bike route across Canada. Many people bike across Canada every year. What I did was not unique, but my perspective is. A lane that is wide enough for a bike is often too narrow for a wheelchair, rumble strips set off my spasms, which could send me into traffic, and gates that aid in animal migration are not possible for me to open.

Creating and making a truly accessible bike route across Canada would take time and resources. It is worth it. I have often heard the argument that not many people with disabilities would use this. While not many people will bike the entire route, many people will do sections.

I would also argue that it will not be used until it is established. We need to build it first. We have a great opportunity to invest in international tourism for people with disabilities. Let us make it happen.

My wife and I run a not-for-profit neurological recovery centre called Walk It Off, which has been helping people with disabilities for over 14 years. We are currently expanding to a larger facility so that we can help more people.

While looking for our new facility, it struck me that so many places were inaccessible, even in terms of basic things like automatic door openers. We eventually signed a lease to move into a building, but we had to negotiate to get automatic doors installed to enter the main building, which goes into a common lobby. Our not-for-profit is paying half. We are responsible for the doors entering our unit. This is crazy for 2024. If we are going to make Canada truly accessible by 2040, we need to act now.

Thank you for your time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Mills.

We'll now go to Mr. Lepofsky.

Mr. Lepofsky, welcome back to HUMA.

[David Lepofsky, Chair, Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance]

It's great to be here.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

You have five minutes or so. You have the floor, Mr. Lepofsky.

[David Lepofsky]

The federal government is to be heartily congratulated for deciding that Canada needs accessibility legislation to make this a barrier-free country for over six million people with disabilities. The federal government is also to be heartily congratulated for agreeing that we need new legislation to lift hundreds of thousands of people with disabilities out of poverty, which they do not deserve to suffer from.

However, the Accessible Canada Act, like the Canada Disability Benefit Act, have both proven themselves to be strong on good intentions but extremely poor in implementation and impact.

I invite you, as part of this review, to ask key questions. Since the Accessible Canada Act was passed in 2019, have we made 25% of the progress we need to make towards the goal the act sets, which is a barrier-free Canada by 2040, since we've now used up 25% of the time? What disability barriers has this act caused to be removed? What steps need to be taken to get us to that goal, since this act is not working to achieve its goal with the force and effect that is needed? What are the problems?

The act does not, at present, require any disability barrier to ever be removed or to be prevented in any organization that the federal government can regulate. Not one single accessibility standard that is enforceable in law has been enacted in the five years since this law was passed. As a result, progress towards accessibility has been glacial and agonizingly slow.

I was invited to speak at a conference in Montreal last spring called Accessible Canada Accessible World, with leaders on accessibility from across the country from obligated organizations and with the minister responsible. I don't recall anyone, in their many speeches, ever identifying a single barrier that has been removed in the past five years because it was required to be removed by this act. There may be some out there somewhere, but we should have an impressive list after five years and not be struggling to scurry and find a few.

I'm not saying nobody's doing anything, either to implement the act or to address accessibility barriers; I am saying that the Accessible Canada Act is itself, as a matter of legal force, not significantly contributing towards its own goal. Its implementation and enforcement is labyrinthine because the law is outrageously complicated to read and to even understand.

I have two law degrees. I practised law for over three decades. I now teach law part time, and I think I have a specialty in this area. I can't figure out what the damn thing says, and if I can't, I bet you can't either. If you can't, I bet your obligated organizations are having a tough time. If they're having a tough time, I bet people with disabilities are having at least that tough of a time.

People with disabilities deserve better. Our brief offers you 10 amendments that we need. We recommended all of these five years ago when this bill was before Parliament. Sadly, they were all turned down. Had they been accepted, we'd be in a better place. I'm going to mention a couple now. I invite your questions, if I get more time, to explain more.

Number one, we need to impose a deadline on the government to pass at least one accessible standard that is enforceable by law, not a voluntary guideline or standard that Accessible Standards Canada produces. That's thin gruel. Nobody has to comply with it. Pass one that's enforceable within one year and four more within two years.

We ought to be able to do that at this point.

Number two, this law's implementation and enforcement is splintered incoherently across three different organizations: the accessibility commissioner, the CRTC and the Canadian Transportation Agency, the CTA. Those agencies are in a race to see who can go the slowest.

People with disabilities deserve better. Can we just have a one-stop shopping agency that will do it all, implement it all, enforce it all, and bring the regulations to cabinet to do it all? We have Accessibility Standards Canada, but they can only give advice. It's a good start, but we have to do a lot better. Let's get rid of this splintered, incoherent, unnavigable mess.

It's good that the act requires obligated organizations to make accessibility plans and report on their progress, but it doesn't require them to be any good and it doesn't require them to actually implement them. We can't bring complaints, and those agencies can't enforce anything if the plans aren't any good or if the plans aren't enforced.

I have a final point. For the short part of our list, not one dollar of federal money should ever be used again to create new disability barriers. The act doesn't require that, its implementation doesn't require that, and as a result, the government is free to give out money to provinces and hospitals and others for infrastructure projects that can include disability barriers. Nothing is required in this act to stop it. People with disabilities deserve better.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Lepofsky.

We will now go to Mr. Lupien for five minutes.

[Paul Lupien, Chair, Confédération des organismes de personnes handicapées du Québec]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning everyone.

My name is Paul Lupien, and I am the chair of the Confédération des organismes de personnes handicapées du Québec, or COPHAN. I'm also on the board of the Institut national pour l'équité, l'égalité et l'inclusion des personnes en situation de handicap.

I am joined today by Dominique Salgado, secretary, COPHAN board of directors, and executive director, Comité d'action des personnes vivant des situations de handicap.

Incorporated in 1985, COPHAN is a non-profit organization working to make Quebec inclusive to ensure the full social participation of people with functional limitations and their families.

We represent—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Just a moment, Mr. Lupien, we're having an issue with the interpretation.

[Paul Lupien]

Mr. Chair, I'd like to ask whether you would permit Mr. Salgado to give part of the presentation as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Just a moment, please.

All right, it's working now.

You can start over, Mr. Lupien.

[Paul Lupien]

Mr. Chair, we'd like a bit more time since Mr. Salgado and I will take turns giving the presentation.

Good morning. My name is Paul Lupien. I am the chair of the board of directors of the Confédération des organismes de personnes handicapées du Québec, or COPHAN. I am a person with a disability. I am also on the board of the Institut national pour l'équité, l'égalité et l'inclusion des personnes en situation de handicap.

I am joined today by Dominique Salgado, secretary of COPHAN's board of directors and executive director of the Comité d'action des personnes vivant des situations de handicap.

Incorporated in 1985, COPHAN is a non-profit organization working to make Quebec inclusive to ensure the full social participation of people with functional limitations and their families.

We are the voice of nearly 60 regional and national organizations representing people with functional limitations or disabilities of any kind, for a total of more than 1.4 million people with disabilities across Quebec.

We are active across Canada and on the international scene in all areas that have an impact on the living conditions and social participation of people with functional limitations and their families.

COPHAN is the only francophone umbrella organization in the country that brings together organizations dedicated to people with disabilities.

The principles that guide our work are full inclusion, the rule of law, the right to equality, universal accessibility, accommodation and compensation for the additional costs associated with functional limitations. We want a barrier-free country.

In 2019, the Government of Canada passed the Accessible Canada Act, legislation aimed at making Canada barrier-free by 2040. The act highlights the limits and barriers that people with disabilities experience in a range of areas, from employment, transportation and the built environment to communication and information technologies. The government committed to working with people with disabilities, the business community and organizations to establish accessibility standards. Measures to monitor progress have been provided for. The goal is to ensure that people with disabilities can participate fully in Canadian society by 2040.

Organizations such as Accessibility Standards Canada play a key role in implementing that goal. Stakeholder consultations are under way to ensure that the specific needs of disability communities are properly taken into account.

I do want to point out, however, that the act does not require provinces to comply with accessibility standards established under the act. It does not have the teeth to impose accessibility standards on organizations other than those under federal jurisdiction. Provincial organizations are not required to ensure accessibility, unfortunately. None of the accessibility standards provisions in the act can be imposed on provincial organizations.

As Mr. Mills mentioned, a barrier doesn't have to be big to make something inaccessible to a person with a disability like me. If you don't want me to come over, all it takes is a two or three-centimetre high step to keep me from coming inside.

I think it is important for the Government of Canada to understand why imposing this legislation is so necessary.

Now I'll pass the floor over to Mr. Salgado.

[Dominique Salgado, Chair, Comité emploi-revenu-logement, Confédération des organismes de personnes handicapées du Québec]

Thank you, Mr. Lupien.

Good morning, Mr. Chair.

Good morning everyone.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you. The time has expired. You could address that in questioning, in questions that may come to you, but I do have to move to Ms. Hewitt.

Ms. Hewitt, you have not been tested, but begin, and translation will tell me if it's okay. If you could, please begin with your opening five minutes.

[Michelle Hewitt, Chair, Disability Without Poverty]

Thank you very much for inviting me to speak to you today on the progress Canada is making toward being barrier-free.

I am Michelle Hewitt, and I'm the chair of the board of Disability Without Poverty. I'm a disabled woman and a full-time wheelchair user. I live in Kelowna with my husband, who is also a full-time wheelchair user.

Talking about accessibility to any level of government is always complicated, because responsibility is siloed. However, our lives as disabled people do not work in this way, and I believe the tone set by the federal government trickles down to other areas of influence. Therefore, I believe it's your job to set the bar high and expect that everybody else at least meets that standard.

I need to clarify something about my comments. Once I saw I was on this panel with David, I decided to concentrate on getting some basic examples on the record, as David is far more knowledgeable than I am about the labyrinthine details of the Accessible Canada Act.

My husband and I have just moved closer to downtown Kelowna so that we can go out more independently. We thought we'd go to a relatively new place that offers dinner and a movie, but no. The movie part is upstairs, and there's no elevator. It's been open less than two years.

We have to check every place we go to to see whether it's accessible for us. That's not something non-disabled people have to do.

Recently, I went for a blood test in a relatively new office. Again, it's downtown and it's the main location. The cubicles the blood tests happen in are too small to fit my wheelchair, so I have to have my blood taken in a hallway, in full view of everyone, with no privacy. Being disabled often equates to having your dignity removed.

The last time I flew was to Ottawa in April. Ironically, it was to appear before the transportation committee. Before boarding the plane, while it clearly says “full assistance” on my file, I was asked to leave my power wheelchair behind at the check-in desk and walk onto the plane. It's just one example of the many things that happen when we're flying while disabled. We are second-class citizens.

The national director at DWP, Rabia Khedr, is blind. She cannot vote without another person reading out the candidates' names and her telling them her choice out loud. Rabia regularly receives letters in the mail from all levels of government with personal information. She has to get someone else to read them to her, whereas if they come by email, she has the technology to read them privately. She's denied these basic rights of a full citizen.

My friend Glenda, an award-winning master's student at Queen's University, is non-verbal. I asked her for a recent example of a lack of accessibility she has faced. She told me she currently has an issue with her business account at the CRA, and the only way they say they can fix it is if she calls them, but she can't speak. This type of thing happens day in, day out.

Through our work at DWP, we can tell you that barriers are hard-wired into the federal government programs that disabled people living in poverty try to access. In 2022, the Auditor General said the government doesn't have a clear picture of the hard-to-reach people not accessing benefits meant to support them. It's like the government can't connect the dots between the programs it has and the people who need them.

We can see this happening in new programs, and it's simply unacceptable. Both the Canadian dental care plan and the new Canada disability benefit, which David mentioned—the first payment will hopefully be in July 2025—require the disability tax credit as the entry point. It's a program that is woefully inadequate.

There are 1.5 million severely and very severely disabled Canadians living in poverty who should be receiving the Canada disability benefit next year. However, the government's own figures say that roughly only half a million Canadians will receive it, so a million Canadians living in poverty will not receive a benefit they're entitled to. These people can't wait any longer, and certainly not until 2040.

In 1966, Paul Hunt, a prominent English disabled man, said, “We are society, as much as anybody, and cannot be considered in isolation from it.” The examples I've given today show that disabled people are still considered in isolation from the rest of society.

Anyone who knows their sports history knows that 1966 was the only time England won the World Cup. While I might sound English, I was born in Canada during the 1966-1967 hockey season, which was the last time the Maple Leafs won the Stanley Cup. Therefore, I ask you this: What's most likely to happen first? Is it England winning the World Cup, the Leafs winning the Stanley Cup or disabled people in Canada being treated as full members of society? Which of these things, if any, will happen by 2040?

Thank you so much for your time. I welcome your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Hewitt. I appreciate the way you put that in perspective. I'm not a Leafs fan.

With that, we will begin with Mrs. Gray. Again, identify yourselves specifically to each witness you wish to question.

You have six minutes, Mrs. Gray.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm Tracy Gray, the vice-chair of this committee on behalf of the Conservative team. I'm wearing a black blazer with a cream-coloured blouse and I have blond shoulder-length hair.

My first questions are for Mr. Lepofsky.

I'm not sure if you heard of the situation that occurred last week at this committee when the House of Commons administration created a barrier to testifying virtually for a person living with a disability. He said he had testified previously. Within minutes of being notified of this, my Conservative colleagues and I took action. We tabled a motion—which passed—to ensure that the person is able to testify and that House administration does an immediate investigation and reports back to this committee within a month.

My question for you is this: Do you think we can have a credible conversation about a Canada without barriers when even the highest government institution in the land—Parliament—currently isn't without barriers?

[David Lepofsky]

Governments of all political stripes often talk about the importance of leading by example on accessibility. Now, we don't believe that anybody in the private sector needs to wait until the government gets it right. God knows, none of us are immortal. However, it is important for government to get it right, especially being at the core of democracy, and especially when the government repeatedly talks about its commitment to the disability rights maxim of “nothing about us without us”. Well, you can't do that if we have barriers to taking part.

I agree these things need to be done, not only because they're embarrassing at a symbolic level but also because they're so easy to fix. The barrier you're talking about does not require us to tear down any buildings or adopt any new technology. It's technology we know how to use.

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

Thank you very much.

You told the transport committee in March, earlier this year, that you “dread entering Canadian airspace.” Do you believe other countries, such as the U.S., have better accessibility standards than Canada?

[David Lepofsky]

When I go to the States, which I do often, I feel like I'm going through a time machine into the future. I'm actually embarrassed to say this as a proud Canadian, but they're way ahead of us. It's not because they invented people with disabilities before we did. It's simply because, at a legislative level, they decided to pass something strong and effective way earlier—1990, not 2019—at the federal level. They put in place much more effective enforcement than we have. Their federal government has much more effective enforcement because they enacted much clearer and more comprehensive standards.

Now, are they the paragon? There is a lot they could be doing better, but they're way ahead of us. With a billion people with disabilities around the world, it means they have an edge in the tourism market for people with disabilities, with the goal of ensuring they can fully participate.

They're certainly ahead of us on multiple fronts. We should be catching up. We should have caught up by now and passed them.

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

Thank you.

When I asked the minister of disability and inclusion in May, when she was at this committee, whether Canadians living with disabilities are facing a cost of living crisis, she wouldn't answer.

My question for you is this: Do you believe Canadians living with disabilities are in a cost of living crisis and have been disproportionately affected by it? As well, do you think it's more difficult when Canadians living with disabilities are disproportionately affected by the cost-of-living crisis? How does this play into creating a Canada without barriers, which this study is working on?

[David Lepofsky]

Absolutely, there is that cost-of-living crisis. When Parliament—this committee and the Senate—held hearings on the Canada disability benefit, you heard over and over how living with a disability costs more. During the pandemic, the federal government created a benefit for vulnerable folks across the country, and then it did another benefit for people with disabilities, but it was a once-only payment, and it took months after it was created just to get it out the door.

Yes, that is a huge problem, but just coming up with a Canada disability benefit that's only $200 a month maximum really shows that the criticisms of that legislation from many of us were correct. We warned that this could happen. It did. It also shows that those of us who criticized Bill C-81, the Accessible Canada Act, because it didn't impose more deadlines and detailed requirements on the federal government, were, sadly, correct. We don't take any pleasure, pride or joy in that. We wish we were wrong.

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

I have only about 20 seconds left here, so I'd like to ask this: Given that the Liberals promised, with great fanfare, that the Canada disability benefit was going to lift hundreds of thousands of Canadians with disabilities out of poverty, do you see this as a broken promise? Also, do you see it being fraught with redundant bureaucracy and red tape for persons with disabilities and those who support them?

[David Lepofsky]

All the criticisms of the benefit, I think, are valid. What we also need.... There's a federal election coming up—as I hear by rumour, and you folks may have heard it too—and it's going to be important for voters with disabilities to know what each of the parties will do on each of these, on the Accessible Canada Act and the Canada disability benefit. We'd like it to be treated by all parties as a non-partisan issue, because these laws were both passed unanimously, and all parties agreed we needed them, so we'd like all parties to try to outbid each other for what you'll do to fix them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Gray and Mr. Lepofsky.

We will go to Mr. Van Bynen for six minutes.