Human Resources Committee on June 20th, 2023

[Susie Fortier]

One aspect on which we can comment is related to complaints about accessibility, and the uniqueness of each case, and the fact that many of them are very specific. This is very different from what we saw with respect to the protection of air passenger rights. Accessibility complaints require further review, and accountability is more difficult to demonstrate indirectly. On the other hand, access to information might provide a better understanding of the cases and be dealt with from the regulatory standpoint.

[Soraya Martinez Ferrada, Liberal, Hochelaga, QC]

I was trying to make the link in terms of responsibility, and also to property damage. The cost of damage to a regular or electric wheelchair is not the same as for a lost suitcase. And getting a wheelchair back can take months or even a year. As the person may be deprived of their equipment for a long time, their quality of life decreases. I was linking these situations to the rights of airline passengers.

You've spoken at length about data. Can you tell us more specifically what other data you would have liked to review?

[Susie Fortier]

Under U.S. regulations, airlines need to keep track of the number of wheelchairs on every flight as well as any damage that may have occurred. If this straightforward information were provided in Canada, it could be useful.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Martinez Ferrada.

Ms. Chabot, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank my colleague for her testimony. Even people who do not have a disability can encounter various problems when they travel. Everyone therefore understands just how time-consuming and sometimes demeaning it can be for persons with disabilities.

I can understand that these people may make complaints, because there are mechanisms for it. However, it's not always easy to assign responsibility. If we compare it to the health and social services system, where something might happen that makes someone want to lodge a complaint, but if that person got a response, they might forget about it and be happy to have sorted things out.

I would imagine that your audit mandates do not require you to consult the people covered by your report in order to determine how these incidents turned out. Beyond determining whether or not they made a complaint—and I'm sure that we might have a lot more testimony about this—how can we identify these people?

[Casey Thomas]

In the course of our audit, we called upon three advisors to ask the questions. I will therefore ask my colleagues to provide further details.

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

Have we received the advisory committee report?

[Casey Thomas]

No, it isn't a report, but rather a mechanism we use to improve our audits and make them more understandable, over and above the work done by our auditors.

[Milan Duvnjak]

It was an advisory service we looked to for advice. These are people with lived experiences.

Throughout the audit, we also consulted with and spoke to many organizations that either have or represent broad areas of people with various disabilities. Every conversation starts and ends with the fact that the most important part is consultation with persons with disabilities—the idea of “nothing without us”.

The second thing that came out of these discussions was prevention. If we consult with persons with disabilities, there's a much higher chance of preventing issues. If they're not prevented, we get into the identification, removal or mitigation of various obstacles. That's why our objective talks about “identifying, removing and preventing barriers”.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Chabot.

Welcome, Ms. Barron. We sit on another committee together. We couldn't have you attend and not participate.

Ms. Barron, you have two and a half minutes to conclude.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's nice to see you in the chair role.

Thank you to the witnesses.

I'm happy to be here, even for a short portion of this important study. I'm happy this work is being done. I'm looking at the report that has been provided. It looks like there is some good work happening, so that's good.

When I'm looking through the report—I don't know whether this has come up already—I'm seeing mentions of many of these invisible disabilities, such as brain injury and mental illness. However, when I'm looking at the framing around the regulation—the examples on how to provide accessibility and so on—it seems to be very focused on physical disabilities. Those are very important, but brain injury and mental illness, for example, are very interconnected and a very important part of this discussion.

I'm wondering if you can share whether this has been looked at. I know that, in my riding of Nanaimo—Ladysmith, we have what's called mental health first aid, so people know how to respond when somebody is having a symptom of a mental illness, for example.

Has any of that been looked at through this process?

[Casey Thomas]

I will start by talking about consultation and how important consultation is.

You're right: It needs to be done with a variety of persons with disabilities and a variety of experiences. I think it's through those types of consultations that barriers can be identified and then removed.

I'm going to ask my colleagues if they have anything to add about what we found during the course of our audit work.

[Susie Fortier]

In our audit work, we looked at this through the training component. There is a mandatory training component that needs to be included. It includes elements about the various of types of disabilities, including disabilities that may not be visible or the type of disability that you were mentioning. This type of training needs to be included in the training content. For the organizations we looked at, it was included.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Ms. Barron, you were disturbed by that...?

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

I'm sorry. It was really hard to hear the responses with the conversations that are happening. They are right in the microphone.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Please, those of you at the back, respect the committee members who are participating.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Hopefully, the translators caught it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Continue, Ms. Barron. You have time for another question. Then we'll conclude.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you very much.

I think I got the gist of your answer, but I don't have a follow-up because I didn't catch all of it, unfortunately. Could you just give me a few words on what you were saying?

Thank you.

[Casey Thomas]

Sure.

I mentioned that consultation is very important, and that the consultation needs to be held with a variety of persons with disabilities in order to address not just one type of disability but to enable this so that all barriers, regardless of the type of disability, can be identified, prevented and/or removed.

[Susie Fortier]

What I said was about the training.

There is mandatory training content. We did look at whether the content included the descriptions of the various types of disabilities and of some of the elements that you were mentioning about invisible disabilities and other elements that are maybe sometimes less thought about because they are less visible.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Barron.

Thank you to the witnesses.

That concludes today's meeting. Actually, it probably concludes the committee's schedule in this particular session.

To all committee members, thank you for your participation and do have a very good summer.

The meeting is adjourned.