Human Resources Committee on June 20th, 2023

[Casey Thomas]

I'll make a start on answering, and then I'll ask Ms. Fortier or Mr. Duvnjak to add details, since it's details you're looking for.

The Canadian Transportation Agency is responsible for monitoring the enforcement of regulations. Its representatives have conducted inspections over the two-year period of the audit, but owing to the pandemic, they were only able to do one inspection in person, given that the pandemic had clearly eliminated the opportunity to do more. They were nevertheless able to identify a number of barriers, but we found that these representatives only looked into how the services were designed, but not the extent to which they were actually provided.

I will now ask Mr. Duvnjak or Ms. Fortier to take it from here and provide further details.

[Susie Fortier]

One source of information on disability situations that might arise is the Statistics Canada’s Accessibility in Federal Sector Organizations Survey, which was a useful source of information for us. The survey reports on the frequency and types of barriers to travel that were encountered over the past two years.

As was mentioned, one of the most frequent barriers is access to information on websites. For travel, the types of barriers may vary considerably depending on the disability, no matter which form of transportation is used.

That's also why we recommended to the two Crown corporations we audited that they needed to work harder and analyze the complaints they receive. That would enable them to address the most serious situations in their specific contexts, based on an indicator…

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

Were these Crown corporations receptive to these recommendations?

[Susie Fortier]

They were, and they accepted all the recommendations made in the report, including the two I just mentioned. They are now working on an action plan…

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

Are there timelines?

[Susie Fortier]

Yes, their response provided timelines, along with their action plan, which was sent to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.

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

Personally, what stunned and surprised me was that at the Canadian Transportation Agency, the regulatory organization, there were only four people to handle the application of over 450 provisions for 130 service providers. Do you seriously think that the agency can do the work required, or should the number of employees be increased?

[Milan Duvnjak]

Thank you for the question.

We do state that four full-time equivalent staff—not necessarily four full-time staff—at CTA are doing this work. It is a large number of transportation service providers. Canada is a large country and that doesn't help, but it's not up to us to say what the right number is, because it's not just the number. It's the type of inspections that are done.

We noted how many inspections were done over a period of a couple of years. We also have a recommendation to the CTA to look at how it's doing inspections and of what type, and to look at the resources needed to do the proper inspections, because we also understand that these people have an increasing number of regulations—not just the accessibility regulations—that they have to look at and inspect every year.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Madam Chabot.

Madam Zarrillo, you have six minutes.

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

Thank you so much for coming today, and thank you for this work that's already resulted in change.

We heard today that Via Rail executives have already taken up the challenge and have done the work. I hope their understanding of the regulations and the gaps in their services are now well understood.

I wanted to go back to the comments that were made about the audit and about its being on schedule for the Crown corporations. When was the last similar audit to this? When is the next one planned?

[Casey Thomas]

I'm going to hesitate to say this is the first audit that we've done in this area. I believe it was 2019 when the act came in, so this is the first time we've had an opportunity to audit under the Accessible Canada Act.

In terms of follow-up work, we're in the process of determining what our next audits will be, and there are certainly topics related to this one that are on our radar. Another mechanism that we use is our update on past audits, and that's a way we can go in to look at the observations and look at our findings in the current audit. Rather than going back and doing a full follow-up to determine whether recommendations have been implemented, we follow up on whether the outcomes that we found in this audit may have improved—or maybe not. That's another mechanism we're thinking of in relation to the work we've done here.

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

Okay.

You mentioned that the Crown corporations were in here. I'm wondering when, and if, the airlines will be included in an upcoming audit, the next audit.... I know we hear a lot of complaints about persons with disabilities and their treatment on the airlines.

[Casey Thomas]

With respect to including the Crown corporations in our audit, as our mandate allows us to, we can go in and audit those organizations. Airlines are privately owned and run corporations, and therefore, they don't fall under the mandate of our work.

This being said, we can do work auditing the Canadian Transportation Agency to determine what it does in relation to regulating the industry.

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

That kind of goes to my next question. I did want to spend a little bit of time on complaints because dignity is top of mind for me as I hear from residents and the way they experience transportation.

You mentioned that the complaint data access is limited, especially for those private corporations. We hear that in housing too. We can't get a hold of data sometimes.

You mentioned that there are certain circumstances where data is not accessible. Can you let us know what those instances are? What are those certain circumstances, and how can we on this committee or the federal government help to get some of that data to improve the experience for travellers with a disability?

[Casey Thomas]

You've highlighted many of the reasons why complaint data is very important. I'll go right into where the CTA currently does not have access, and I'll ask my colleagues to add details.

At present, if there is a complaint made to an airline, for example, it is the individual sending that complaint who decides where the complaint goes. If it goes simply to the airline, the Canadian Transportation Agency does not become aware of that complaint.

To give a comparison, in the United States, every complaint that goes to an airline also goes to the U.S. transportation board. Therefore, in the United States, they get access to airline complaints, including, for example, if a Canadian airline has a complaint made against them. That gives them the opportunity to receive the data, to identify barriers and to take action, whereas right now, in Canada, the CTA doesn't have that possibility. That's as a result of their own mandate and their authority.

I will ask if there are any details.

[Milan Duvnjak]

I can add that we've noted this, and of course, we did get information from CTA. They agree that they should have broader access to information. We are not in a position to demand or request that legislation be changed.

In their response, the CTA has outlined some of the actions, and I believe they will be asking for broader access to this information, as Ms. Thomas said, like the U.S. regulators have right now.

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

I have a quick question. Do you believe that this committee should also make the recommendation that complaints go to the CTA as well, so that they have data to analyze?

[Casey Thomas]

I think that members of Parliament and committees have an opportunity to influence in a way that, as an office with our mandate, we cannot. I think it's up to the committee to decide what it would like to do.

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

I'll take that away.

In relation to the audits, were there any intersections identified such as gender, age or race? Was there any data collected in those categories, which are protected under our charter?

[Susie Fortier]

We didn't see any of that in detail, but we did recommend that a data strategy be put in place. A data strategy may allow the transportation service provider to be able to do those analyses on intersectionality. It's not something that was available because there wasn't a broad data strategy in place to be able to capture the data and have the data in a way that could allow those analyses.

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

Okay. Very quickly, for my next one, I wanted to talk about the training on physical assistance. I have heard from my constituents, many of them women, who have had a late flight or have come back late and have been transferred from their seat to their chair by a baggage handler, potentially, someone who has not been trained or does not want to do that work.

Is this something you've heard about or that arose in your audit, where you found out that.... I mean, we've obviously seen that people have not necessarily been trained, but did you feel that there were people in other areas such as baggage handlers who were being asked to ensure passenger transfers?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Give a short answer, please.

[Susie Fortier]

We didn't have access to these types of details, but we saw the regulation and training requirements, and when it was done and not done. We didn't have the specific mapping of those individual cases.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Madam Zarrillo.

Madam Martinez Ferrada.

[Soraya Martinez Ferrada, Liberal, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Chair, I would just like some clarification on when the meeting is scheduled to end, given that we started a little later than anticipated. I know that it would take the consent of members of the committee to conclude at 5:30 p.m. but if we are in agreement, could we make sure that all the members have the speaking time they need to ask a few questions between now and the end of the meeting? Are the members of the committee in favour of this suggestion?