Public Accounts Committee on April 17th, 2023

[Marie-Claude Cardin]

Yes, it is mandatory.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

There are two things. Seventeen per cent of managers and executives did not take the accessibility training at all, according to the audit; nor did 3% of client service staff. How is it possible that so many people were missed, given that it's mandatory?

[Marie-Claude Cardin]

It is an unacceptable situation, and that's why we've put in place a stringent follow-up going forward, to ensure that we don't have this situation anymore.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Could you explain how it got missed in the first place? Did someone just miss an email here and there, or was there a lack of communication to make it understood that it was mandatory? Could you just shed some light on how it came about in the first place?

[Marie-Claude Cardin]

I think it was well known that it was mandatory training. As I said, it was unacceptable, and the training should have been completed.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Of the 17% of managers and executives who did not complete the training, did any receive bonuses for the time period in which they did not get the training?

[Marie-Claude Cardin]

Our compensation regime is based on two main factors: individual contribution and corporate results. It was set up mainly to take into account the competitive environment for recruiting talent. Those who met key performance targets were compensated accordingly.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

If I understand you correctly, it is possible that some managers and executives could have received their bonuses, even though they did not complete the accessibility training. Is that correct?

[Marie-Claude Cardin]

I want to reiterate that accessibility is important, as are many other rules and laws that all Via Rail executives have to follow. As I mentioned, that's one of the key performance indicators we track. I can't be more specific than that, but I can tell you that a portion of our executive compensation is fixed and another portion is variable. We have to make sure that the compensation we offer is competitive for the market.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

I wonder whether you could provide a written response for the committee with the total number of managers and executives who received bonuses and did not complete the accessibility training.

[Marie-Claude Cardin]

We will provide the committee with that information.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Okay. Thank you.

I'll now switch gears and go to the witnesses from the Canadian Transportation Agency.

On page 16 of the report, it says that inspections to identify accessibility barriers were done virtually during the pandemic, then they continued a mix of virtual and on-site inspections after the pandemic was over.

For these virtual inspections, was it simply a Zoom meeting? I would be curious to know how one does a thorough inspection virtually.

[France Pégeot]

Perhaps I can share with you how we approached compliance with respect to that new regulation.

When the regulation came into force, we wrote to the 40 main transportation service providers and sent all of the regulatory requirements they had. We asked them for a written report on how they intended to meet those regulations. We received the reports and looked at what they answered, because it was a requirement. Then, we identified areas where there were some issues and asked them for a corrective action plan, which is a traditional way for regulatory agencies to ensure compliance with a new regulation.

After that, our enforcement officers went and did some on-site visits and checked certain aspects of those corrective action plans. In some cases, they actually went to terminals where, for example, signage was still a problem, and issued some administrative monetary penalties.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much, Mr. Kram. That is your time.

Ms. Bradford, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all the witnesses here today and to those online for their patience.

This is a very important report, obviously. People with disabilities rely even more on public transportation means. Because they often don't have the luxury, due to their disabilities, of providing their own transportation, we need to make sure it is accessible.

For my first questions, I'm going to turn to the Canadian Transportation Agency.

The Auditor General identified accessibility barriers through inspections and worked with transportation service providers to remove some. You just explained to Mr. Kram that the vast majority of these were done virtually. As you described it, it almost seemed like a survey. You sent out questions, and they answered. I think it's a bit difficult to see how things are actually working on the ground.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of virtual? I know it's probably more efficient. You could cover more, but I'm not sure how effective it might be.

[France Pégeot]

The way we look at trying to identify the barriers...for sure, it's on-site inspections. In the work we've done on the new regulations, we started by asking companies how they intended to meet them. That's one way.

However, we have different ways to identify the barriers, as well. We have, for example, an advisory committee composed of groups that are representative of people with disabilities. That's a forum through which they can share with us the barriers they encounter.

We also have complaints. We receive about.... It depends on the year, but I would say it's 160 to 170, more or less, per year. The complaints we receive are, again, another important source of information for us as to what kinds of barriers people with disabilities encounter. Then, of course, we have inspections.

I would say it's through a mix of those tools that we can identify barriers and focus our activities.

I should point out that there's also a new regulation that has to do with planning and reporting. All the service providers of transportation have been asked to prepare an accessibility plan in consultation with people with disabilities. Those plans are going to be put online. People will be able to comment. They will have to review them every three years. We're going to be using those plans, as well, to help inform ourselves on how the industry will advance on the issue of accessibility.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

You'll have to make sure that the online process is accessible, because that's been another issue, right?

[France Pégeot]

For sure, that's a very important point.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Also, the Auditor General found that you did conduct a few inspections, but you could request complaint data from service providers only in certain circumstances. That's troubling to me.

Why is that, and what are the certain circumstances? If you're supposed to be overseeing this, why don't you have access to the data all the time?

[France Pégeot]

The type of data the Auditor General was referring to was the complaints that the companies receive. Of course, we receive a certain number of complaints. We do some inspections, and in that context we can have access to the information we need to do our work.

The type of data we don't have access to includes all the various complaints that companies receive on accessibility, which for sure would give us a better sense of the barriers that people with disabilities identify and raise issues on with the company. For that information, we go to the transportation providers to see if they will share it with us on a voluntary basis. We know that in some cases they already do that in other countries, so we are going to look at that as well, and maybe eventually we will have some legislation here.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

I just wonder why it would be voluntary.

Ms. Hogan, you mentioned also that the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority and Via Rail focused on resolving individual complaints, but that they missed opportunities to use complaint data to better understand travellers' lived experiences.

Would you like to expand on that? It looks as though that process could be better. They're not getting the overall.... They're dealing with the individual....

[Karen Hogan]

Absolutely. I encourage you to ask, as well, representatives from the two organizations. It's great to have them here instead of your always hearing from me.

When we looked at Via, we saw that while they handled individual complaints, they didn't sort of take that step back to do a more thorough analysis of all their data to look for trends or bigger-picture things that might indicate a barrier that they were not aware of. They were just focusing on meeting individual complaints.

With CATSA, we looked at the way they categorized their complaints. They categorized them by nature and not necessarily by the status of a person. We analyzed some of the data and felt that there was an opportunity there to do better mining of their complaint data, because while they had registered only about 83 complaints related to individuals with disabilities, when we did a word search linked to disabilities, we found almost 1,000. While I recognize that not all of them will be linked to this, it just shows you that there's an opportunity there to better understand and dig into the data to identify barriers and opportunities for improvement.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Thank you very much for that.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

That is your time, Ms. Bradford, unless you have a short question. If so, please go ahead.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Thank you so much.

Ms. Pégeot, in an earlier answer you referred to three categories of flight. Can you elaborate on what those are?