With regard to VIA Rail passengers with reduced mobility: (a) how many anchoring mechanisms are currently installed per railway car to accommodate persons with reduced mobility; (b) does VIA Rail have a policy on accommodating people with reduced mobility and, if so, what is it; (c) does VIA Rail keep a file concerning accessibility requests for persons with reduced mobility and, if so, how many requests does it receive on average per (i) day, (ii) week, (iii) month, (iv) year; (d) how many accessibility requests for persons with reduced mobility have been received over the past five years; (e) how many complaints has VIA Rail received concerning accessibility for persons with reduced mobility over the past five years; (f) what were the grounds for the complaints to VIA Rail concerning persons with reduced mobility, did VIA Rail take concrete measures to correct the situation and, if so, what were they; (g) what changes does VIA Rail plan to make to its facilities to accommodate groups with more than two travellers with reduced mobility; (h) what is the estimated cost of modifying a railway car to accommodate more than one person with reduced mobility; and (i) are data available on the accessibility of VIA Rail trains for people with reduced mobility compared to other passenger trains elsewhere in the world and, if the data show differences in accessibility, why hasn’t something been done to address these differences?
In the House of Commons on November 7th, 2012. See this statement in context.