Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to rise in support of the member for Tobique—Mactaquac's private member's Motion No. 157, because it will help to launch an important debate that needs to take place in this chamber on the concept of visitability in housing development and our obligations to persons living with disabilities, as laid out in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities when we ratified it.
I salute the Canadian Centre on Disability Studies, whose excellent work on this subject has been central to my understanding of it. Visitability, for those not familiar with the term, as my hon. colleague has explained more succinctly, is a movement to change home construction practices so that virtually all new homes would offer a few specific features that would make the home easier for people with different mobility challenges to live in and visit, hence the name.
Key features of visitable housing are one level, no step entrances, wider doorways and hallways, and a wheelchair accessible bathroom on the main level. It is important to note that visitability designed homes are not fully accessible homes; they address basic needs on the main floor so that someone visiting in a wheelchair, for example, can visit.
In some cases, there are guidelines in the United States right now for a five-foot turning radius, let us say, in a washroom, but this does not address issues of full accessibility, as was mentioned. With full accessibility, for example, a bathroom would be constructed with reinforced walls around a toilet so that there could be grab bars. This is the differentiation we are making. Visitability designed homes address basic needs and encourage inclusive neighbourhoods.
Former NDP governments in Manitoba have been at the forefront of the visitability movement in Canada. Visitability is being applied to construction of all new units that receive financial assistance from Manitoba Housing, with 10% of all such new units designed to meet accessible design criteria. The Bridgwater neighbourhood, in Winnipeg, as my hon. colleague also mentioned, is one of the first communities in Canada to incorporate visitable housing as one of its key features.
The woman who launched the visitability movement is an American by the name of Eleanor Smith, and she is held in high regard in my office. Stricken with polio at age three, Eleanor has been leading the movement for disability liberation for several decades. She helped to found the organization Concrete Change, the first visitable housing advocacy group. In 1992, she wrote and helped pass an Atlanta, Georgia, ordinance, which was the first law in the United States requiring a basic level of access in certain dwellings. Since then, she has helped advocates in many locales press visitability issues, both legislative and voluntary. In 1996 she was founder of the national umbrella group the Disability Rights Action Coalition for Housing, which gives me a lot of information that is informative in my advocacy work. She was also instrumental in helping to craft the first national visitability bill. Its drafters named it in her honour: the Eleanor Smith Inclusive Home Design Act.
As for the motion being debated here today, my support comes with a few qualifications. There is no doubt in my mind as to the member's good intentions, yet the motion remains strangely insubstantial. It does not require the government to do much of anything. It emphasizes and encourages, rather than directs. It invites the government to address visitability, rather than calling on it to do so. It encourages the Minister of Science and Minister of Sport and Persons with Disabilities to address the topic of visitability in her upcoming accessibility legislation, due, we are told, to be tabled as early as June, instead of directing her to address it.
If the member intended something more substantial, he might have had his motion direct the minister to do something such as establish guidelines similar to those in Manitoba. Other governments have developed accessibility and visitable housing guidelines as well. This is certainly an area where we can do better.
At the very least, the motion debated today could direct the minister to launch a study of possible financial incentives, such as tax breaks and such, the federal government could deploy to promote visitable design elements, such as in housing construction and development in Canada. That kind of study would be within the acceptable parameters of a private member's bill, as it would not cost the government anything but would nevertheless result in something tangible. I am perplexed that the member did not take this route, particularly as he is a member of the governing party.
I am genuinely appreciative that the work of the member for Tobique—Mactaquac is bringing this important subject for debate in the House today.
Since the government plans to bring forward ambitious accessibility legislation as early as June, I do not see why a visitability bill, such as I have referenced, could not be enfolded into an accessibility bill. The NDP position regarding an accessibility bill is that it should be nothing less than enabling legislation for Canada's commitments under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. These obligations would fall under a Canadians with disabilities bill, and though the government has chosen the phrase “accessibility bill”, we fully expect it to fulfill the obligations we agreed to under the convention. Canada ratified this treaty in 2010, and persons living with disabilities—and we have heard that there are six million persons living with disabilities—and their families and friends, have been waiting for the government to act.
The government held lengthy consultations with Canadians between July 2016 and February 2017, and important stakeholder groups, such as the Council of Canadians with Disabilities, Barrier-Free Canada, and around 50 others, provided excellent input on what the legislation should look like. We also have existing legislation from other countries under the treaty.
For the CCD, the Council of Canadians with Disabilities, the immediate priority of an accessibility bill should be investments in disability-related supports. As they have observed:
Over two million Canadian adults with disabilities, or two thirds of the disabled adult population lack one or more of the educational, workplace, aids, home modification or other supports they need. The lack of these supports results in poverty, unemployment and exclusion from workplaces, schools and communities.
Along with the NDP, the disability community has been calling for a long-term disability strategy. An excellent way for the federal government to show real leadership on disability issues would be by regularly bringing together federal, provincial, and territorial ministers of social services to ensure that the establishment of supports became an ongoing priority for joint action. As such leadership would be a massive undertaking, the government should create a single agency for all federal accessibility standards and enforcement, which, as Barrier-Free Canada has recommended, could be called the office of the accessibility commissioner.
Bringing Canada in line with these obligations will require real leadership from the federal government and a sustained and ongoing sense of national mission. This formidable but vital undertaking cannot succeed if we accept the kind of half-measures or tinkering at the edges for which the governing party is notorious.
I hope this motion can bring our government to face our real responsibilities in this House.