Debates of Sept. 19th, 2018

Accessible Canada Act

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Again, I want to remind the member that she is to address all of her questions and comments to the Chair. If MPs would stop using the word “you”, it would probably save a lot of headaches.

The hon. member for Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte.

[Alex Nuttall, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

Madam Speaker, I promise I will not say it incorrectly anymore.

First of all, yes, of course we want to get this legislation right. If the reality is that the government is not comfortable that the standards it has in mind are correct, it should wait until it has them right and then bring them back so that members will know what we are voting on. Members can then go back to Canadians in their ridings across the country and tell them what tangible effects would happen or the changes that would take place to improve their lives thanks to the said legislation.

Unfortunately, that is just not what we have seen to date. If this information exists, I certainly welcome it. Any time the member would like to provide more data to me, I am looking for it. At this point, it has not been provided.

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my honourable colleague for his interest in moving forward an agenda to make lives better for persons living with disabilities. In our party, we have a persons living with disabilities caucus, so I do not need the governing party to provide me with information. I get my information from non-partisan groups, and a lot of times it is our NDP caucus for persons living with disabilities that flags these kinds of issues for us.

I am sure one of the issues the member is cognizant of is that we did ratify, under the Conservative government, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons Living with Disabilities. After doing so, there was no movement to implement it, and not a penny was put into a fund to implement it over those 10 years. I have heard he is close, as I am, to people living with disabilities. We all have people in our lives with disabilities, and I am sure the member has these people in his constituency.

What does the member think should happen next? I am sure he has some tangible ideas on what he would like to see happen next for this to move forward. I would be very interested to hear them.

[Alex Nuttall, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

Madam Speaker, I could certainly hear from the members of her caucus, as well as different groups she has been able to consult with over the country on this subject. However, the member's response does not provide any clarity whatsoever as to the tangible regulations that would result.

The question asked of me was what tangible changes I would like made to the bill, as I understood it, versus what is currently in front of me. I have been very clear to this point as to the changes I would like to see. I would like to understand what the effects would be, what the standards and regulations are going to be, so that we can communicate these changes to Canadians before we pass the bill, not six years afterwards.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is interesting that during the hon. member's speech he talked about the tangible things the government is doing, and then followed that with, “name me the other tangible things”. That is an interesting way to go about things.

He asked why it is taking so long. The goal is to get this right. There are so many groups, so many individuals, and so many different kinds of disabilities and different types of stakeholders that need to be discussed. The government worked with those stakeholders and we heard back. From the MS Society of Canada, for example, we heard that the bill would work actively to remove barriers and promote inclusion of Canadians living with disabilities, including those that are episodic in nature, such as MS. From Spinal Cord Injury Canada, we heard that the proposed legislation “represents the most important federal legislative advancement of disability rights in Canada in over 30 years.” I can go on and on with the organizations that have praised the minister and the government for bringing this bill forward.

Would the hon. member support this bill, bring it forward and call for it to go to committee as quickly as possible?

[Alex Nuttall, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

Madam Speaker, of course I will support this getting to committee, but there are questions that need to be answered along the way. Those questions have not been answered to date. We have not seen any of the changes that are being presented or proposed. I would like to see that information either through some sort of interaction with the ministry or as a result of our asking the exact same questions at committee, trying to assess what this would look like for Canadians living with disabilities, what this would look like for the private sector and what the cost would be for the federal government going forward.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Madam Speaker, the Minister of Public Services and Procurement and Accessibility is also, in effect, the landlord of this very building. I was recently speaking with the esteemed editor of Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules and Forms, Sixth Edition, who brought up the fact that the west elevator in this very building is out of service and has been since Parliament returned. I wonder if the member might have some comments on that.

[Alex Nuttall, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

Madam Speaker, I certainly share the concerns about the elevator not working. It has had some ups and downs, no pun intended, over the years. I have actually been stuck in the elevator in question. I certainly hope that the government will take it seriously and get this dealt with so that it is easily accessed by all Canadians who are in our beautiful parliamentary building.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I am intrigued by the member's comments. Here we have a historic moment inside the House of Commons today where we had a minister bring forward legislation that would have a profoundly positive impact on Canadians in every region of our country. I look to the member opposite and I reflect on the years that I sat in opposition when Stephen Harper was here, and I suspect many of the stakeholders would loved to have seen legislation of this nature back when Stephen Harper was the prime minister. Would the member not recognize that what we are witnessing today is something historic? It is very positive, it is a wonderful step forward and this is a good day for communities of disability and families, and in fact all Canadians.

[Alex Nuttall, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

Madam Speaker, if we talk to Canadians we will hear that they expect results from us. They expect tangible, measurable results when a bill and a piece of legislation is coming forward. Unfortunately, we do not have that in this case. Going forward, what we will continue to call for is to understand what the results would be for Canadians in terms of the $290 million, in terms of 5,000 new positions, in terms of the cost to the private sector, in terms of the increased economic activity that could potentially come from this bill. Where are the data? Where is the information?

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Madam Speaker, these proceedings on Bill C-81, an act to ensure a barrier-free Canada, have the potential for tremendous historic significance. We are debating a bill that, if done properly, would create breakthrough legislation that would profoundly impact Canadian society for generations to come. I believe everyone in this chamber is cognizant of the importance of what we are doing here today. Therefore, I speak in support of this bill based on the premise the minister stated yesterday: to get it to committee as soon as possible so that we can make it as substantively great as we possibly can. I agree.

This bill is not all that it needs to be as it stands now. It will require substantial amendments. While we commend the government for tabling it, this bill will need to be altered dramatically in order to become good legislation. That is why New Democrats commit today to working with the government to provide good-faith amendments so that Bill C-81 can become the historic accessibility legislation that persons living with disabilities in Canada deserve.

New Democrats have long been committed to the rights of people with disabilities. It has been our long-standing position that all of government, every budget, every policy and regulation, every grant should be viewed through a disability lens. Our ultimate goal has always been to help foster a society in which all citizens are able to participate fully and equally. We believe that this cannot even begin to happen until all of our institutions are open and completely accessible to everyone.

In fact, New Democrats have supported the establishment of a Canadians with disabilities act for many years, and the call for a CDA can be found in our 2015 election platform. CDA uses the language of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. It was an early warning when that language was switched out in favour of an accessibility act, but I was assured that was because an accessibility act would meet and reach beyond the UN convention, which Canada is a state party to. It makes sense that any accessibility bill tabled by the government should essentially be enabling legislation for Canada's obligation to fulfill the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Canada ratified this convention in 2010, but until now, has done nothing to bring our laws into conformity with it. Indeed, I tabled a motion in this very chamber, Motion No. 56, that calls on the government to implement these obligations. The convention sets out the legal obligations of states to promote and protect the rights of persons with disabilities. It does not create new rights. There are a number of principles and articles within the CRPD that are extremely important to people with disabilities. These principles address rights, such as the ability to live independently, freedom from exploitation and violence, the right to an adequate standard of living, social protections and more.

Rather than considering disability an issue of medicine, charity or dependency, the convention challenges people worldwide to understand disability as a human rights issue. It establishes that discrimination against any person on the basis of disability is a violation of the rights, inherent dignity and worth of the human person.

The convention covers many areas where obstacles can arise, such as physical access to buildings, roads and transportation, and access to information through written, electronic and alternative forms of communication. The convention also aims to reduce stigma and discrimination, which are often reasons people with disabilities are excluded from education, employment, health and other services. It is crucial that societies eliminate these forms of discrimination, not just because doing so is the right thing to do, but because it will enable a previously ignored and sizeable section of our population to contribute their talents and abilities to the betterment of us all. Everybody wins when everyone is able to contribute.

It is important here to note that the convention is our ideal. It is up to governments to bridge the distance between these ideals and the lived reality of people living with disabilities. We debate one such bridge here today.

While the NDP supports Bill C-81, we do so with the understanding that it will not fulfill our obligations to the CRPD. It is one step in the right direction and I celebrate that significant step. Why? Let me tell the House some of the reasons.

First of all, it is the most comprehensive federal bill addressing issues faced by Canadians living with disabilities to be tabled in this House in over 30 years. This alone is significant. The previous government had 10 years' worth of opportunities to bring forward a national act and it emphatically chose not to.

Bill C-81's very title trumpets a worthy ambition, an act to ensure a barrier-free Canada. The stated purpose of Bill C-81 is to create a barrier-free Canada “through the proactive identification, removal, and prevention of barriers to accessibility wherever Canadians interact with areas under federal jurisdiction.”

Creating a barrier-free Canada is indeed my intent and why the NDP seeks amendments. We will work with the government to fine-tune this bill so that it truly realizes its own stated ambitions, until it becomes the kind of landmark legislation that people living with disabilities deserve.

Bill C-81 will establish several important new officials and agencies. These include a new accessibility commissioner for enforcement, a new Canadian accessibility standards development organization, which will elaborate model accessibility standards that the government can enact as regulations, and a new chief accessibility officer to advise and report on progress and needed improvements. It even creates a formal complaint process and a review process to gauge the bill's effectiveness over time. These two processes are especially crucial for a bill like this to have successful outcomes.

It is vital that a feedback loop be established between those who are to benefit from the bill and the bodies responsible for administering it. A complaint process allows for this, and the review process will allow for proper responses to the bill's shortcomings as they are discovered. Yes, these sections of the bill are both commendable and important. However, there are sections of Bill C-81 that I believe miss the mark and that undermine the bill's own stated goals. These are the provisions that I and my party will work in good faith with this government to fix, should our efforts be welcome.

Most obviously concerning is the bill's lack of mandatory timelines for implementation. It allows but does not require the government to adopt accessibility standards, and yet does not impose a time frame within which implementation is to happen. Without these, the implementation process, even its start-up initializing process, could drag on for years. Curiously, neither does the bill require all federal government laws, policies and programs to be vetted through a disability lens. This seems a strange omission indeed. I respect the current accessibility minister's commitment to this file and can only assume that this is an accidental oversight which she will correct immediately.

It might be helpful here to take a moment and explain to those listening just what is meant by the term “disability lens”. In this context, the disability lens is a way to examine public policy. It helps lawmakers such as myself make sure that when a new law, regulatory measure, course of action and funding priority is being debated or implemented, the needs of persons living with disabilities are taken into consideration. Just stopping to ask whether people with disabilities are even considered over the course of the policy's formulation can go a long way to making it better and more just.

I like the succinct way the Council for Canadians with Disabilities promotes using a disability lens. It encourages us to ask a series of questions.

Does the policy view disabled people as members of a minority group with special needs, or does it view disability as one of many variables in the population and thus aim to structure society so as to ensure universal access and coverage?

How would the policy relate to other policies, legislation, regulations and programs within the jurisdiction in question? How would it relate to others, or even within the same ministry?

This is another important consideration. Who will win and who will lose when this policy is implemented? How will the allocation of resources be affected by this policy? How will this impact other disability groups?

Of notable concern is that Bill C-81 would allow, but again would not require, the minister to work with provincial and territorial governments to improve accessibility. It would be absurd for a national accessibility act in a country such as ours with our unique brand of federalism not to include a requirement to work with provincial and territorial governments to improve accessibility.

The Council of Canadians with Disabilities has been a great resource for me as well. Another non-partisan resource I appreciate is the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance for its analysis of this legislation. Its outstanding work allows government representatives, bureaucrats and members of Parliament to do our jobs better when it comes to developing policy and law that provides meaningful impact.

One issue of great concern regarding Bill C-81 is the way in which it would give various public bodies sweeping and unaccountable powers to exempt any or all obligated organizations from a number of important obligations under the bill. This is especially concerning because it has been my experience that where such exemptions exist, they will be used.

Section 46 of the bill, for example, empowers the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, CRTC, to totally exempt any obligated organization it wishes within its mandate from any or all of the accessibility plan requirements. Worse still, the bill provides no means by which persons with disabilities can register their concerns before a decision is made to grant an exemption. This is deeply troubling.

Also problematic is that another section of Bill C-81 gives the federal cabinet the power to make regulations that can exempt any obligated organizations from a wide range of obligations under the act. The bill would allow cabinet to do this, and it need not provide any reasons when it does. Seriously, if cabinet is allowed to do this, why are we here today?

I also find it perplexing that while the bill requires obligated organizations to establish accessibility plans, it does not require these plans to be good plans. It does not require an obligated organization to implement its accessibility plan. This is curiouser and curiouser.

Potentially quite troubling is a situation created in section 172 whereby a regulation created by the Canadian Transportation Agency for example, without debate, could end up trumping obligations under the Canadian Human Rights Act. It should be a basic principle of Bill C-81 that no provisions therein supersede any human rights. This is a perfect example of some of the technical issues that need to be addressed, and I want our stakeholders who understand the impact of this troublesome section to know that we will seek to have it removed.

The bill likewise separates enforcement and implementation in a confusing way over a tangle of different public enforcement agencies rather than providing people with disabilities with the simple one-stop enforcement they need. The CRTC will provide enforcement for its obligated organizations and so too will the Canadian Transportation Agency.

The bill does this, despite the reality that both the CRTC and the CTA have an unsatisfactory track record when it comes to enforcing accessibility over many years. As this is not a new problem, it boggles the imagination as to why the important bill does not address the core problem. It is absolutely vital that persons with disabilities and stakeholder groups be able to navigate our federal system in order to effectively realize their rights and also that the various agencies and institutions are able to respond to criticisms.

Moreover, this snarl of enforcement and administration will result in very similar regulations being enacted by the very different agencies involved rather than by one single agency. The duplication will not just risk inconsistencies, it will create them, causing even further delays. The predictable result is the real possibility that some sectors of the economy will have these regulations ready for them before some other sectors.

The bill should be looking to eliminate the interdepartmental patchwork system that is already in place rather than making it more complex. We simply must fix it. Many of us who follow these issues were seriously expecting that Bill C-81 would include provisions to simplify these processes.

Earlier this year, a private member's bill of mine, Bill C-348, was debated in the House. It was designed to create a one-stop shop at the individual level to make it significantly easier for persons living with disabilities to navigate the programs available to them from the federal government. At present, persons with disabilities have to prove that they are disabled each time they apply for a federal benefit and with each separate application will typically have to pay a doctor for each time there is paperwork involved. This is an unnecessarily punitive system for so vulnerable a population.

My bill, of course, was voted down by the government. It was not a whipped vote, yet every Liberal member in the House that evening voted against it, every single one. I had hoped that such discipline on the part of the governing party meant that they perhaps knew something I did not know, that perhaps this upcoming accessibility bill would include provisions to streamline these processes, but no, this was not the case.

The complaint process will also be unnecessarily confusing. The splintering of the implementation and enforcement mandate will substantially weaken the bill. The likelihood of this creating confusion among many, including public servants, obligated organizations, and people with disabilities and their advocates who come to the federal government seeking justice is all but certain.

Stakeholder groups and disability advocates know from brute experience that this confusion will force them to run from enforcement agency to enforcement agency with their complaints, going around in circles. “Sorry, no, wrong agency” they will be told, they have to go to transportation. Persons living with disabilities have had enough of this particular brand of bureaucratic confusion. We know this is a problem. Let us fix this too.

I would also like to note that Canada's hearing impaired community has asked the government repeatedly that the Official Languages Act be amended to have American sign language and Quebec sign language designated as official languages so that accessible communication is taken seriously.

This sets the course for the direction of the NDP. This is where we are going in our support to bring the bill to committee. There are many provisions we will be looking to amend. Those that I mentioned here today are merely broad strokes of what we in the progressive opposition are committed to standing up for and remedying.

In closing, I would also urge the committee to hold its meetings in different places across this country. As the most significant piece of disability legislation since the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, we owe it to Canadians living with disabilities and the people who care about them to demonstrate our intention for meaningful legislation that fully includes every Canadian in the participation of our society.

[Carla Qualtrough, Minister of Public Services and Procurement and Accessibility, Lib.]

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her encouragement and support with respect to Bill C-81.

Like me, I know she has heard from so many Canadians, particularly those living with disabilities, about the need to be involved in the creation and implementation of accessibility standards. I would ask her if she agrees with the model of CASDO, the Canadian accessibility standards development organization, where the majority of the board members have lived experience, where they collaborate with industry to develop the standards so it works in real life, or if perhaps there is another model she likes better, because this is what we heard from the disability community was the best way forward.

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am so inspired by the work the minister is doing and her bravery in doing some really groundbreaking work.

I understand how important it is for those of us who sincerely want to see impactful change to work in a collegial way on these amendments together. I absolutely agree with her that these resources and models are there and we need people with lived experience to actually be a part of policy creation.

In my speech, I took great care to go into detail about a disability lens in the way we view people with disabilities. They are one variable among many in how we are all unique in our society. A universal access approach is extremely important. I look forward to working on the committee and with the minister and her staff so we can have some workable amendments that reflect this.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Madam Speaker, my colleague mentioned the UN convention on disabilities, and I wonder, if she had the ability, what priority actions the NDP would want to have the government take on that.

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Madam Speaker, some of the easy ones, some of the low-lying fruit, which I did mention in my speech are things like when one is required to design an accessibility plan one is required to implement it. That is a no-brainer. I would reiterate the reflection that no one gets sweeping powers and exemptions. There are a few of these. I do not want to get too technical. I hesitate now because my brain goes into the technical and I know that is not very interesting to listeners.

If a decision is made, people need to have a place to appeal that decision. People need to know the reason. Right now those provisions are not consistent. There are exemptions and there are places people can go where human rights are trumped by the protocol that someone gets to make a decision and there is no appeal process for someone with a disability. Those, to me, touch on some of the core issues within the UN convention.

[Kate Young, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Science and Sport and to the Minister of Public Services and Procurement and Accessibility (Accessibility), Lib.]

Madam Speaker, I am so glad to hear that the hon. member is supportive of this legislation. I think she said, “Everyone wins when everyone can participate”, and that is so true. The hon. member also mentioned that this is a step in the right direction and the opposition will work with the government to fine-tune it. That is what we need to do as we move this bill through the committee process.

I want to clarify one point she mentioned in her speech. She talked about how bureaucracy can really be a problem for people with disabilities. No doubt it is and has been for many years. The one thing we are hoping this legislation would do is to actually mean there would be no closed door. If a person with a disability goes to a federal agency and wants to lodge a complaint but it is not the right agency, the person would not be told that he or she has to go somewhere else. It would be up to that agency to talk to the other agency and make sure the complaint is processed.

That is part of the legislation that is so important because we know that barriers have been put in place over the years. Our role and our job is to break down the barriers. Would the member agree that this is a step in the right direction?

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Madam Speaker, I do not want to give a blunt answer that the approach, as I said in my speech, is misguided. This gives me an opportunity to say this is why, as the minister mentioned, it is important to have the input of people with lived experience, because I have every confidence they will demonstrate for us that there is a better model, a better way for us to do this. This is where we need to make an amendment on paper that says we have more options and open doors. It is actually through speaking to people with lived experience today that we will find that maybe we have been misguided in that approach and there are ways that amendments can at least clean this up.

It is hard for the bureaucrats as well who have to work on the front lines. I am sure that all of you have had the opportunity to speak with those people.

I will leave it at that.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I would remind members that they may want to stay away from the word “you”, because all of the questions and comments should be addressed to the chair and it would make life so much easier.

The hon. member for Longueuil—Saint-Hubert.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague for his speech, but especially for his dedication to this file.

When Quebeckers hear the name Pierre Nadeau, they think of a great journalist who had a following on television and radio, but in Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, Pierre Nadeau, above all else, is known as a prominent, social neighbour who loves to talk. I am not sure exactly what kind of disability he has, but he has some form of aphasia. He gets around using a mobility scooter and he is very active. He is a development officer at AILIA, a Quebec association whose mission is to make housing, including social housing, more accessible for those who need it.

Nearly half a million people in the greater Longueuil area do not have access to the Montreal metro because there is no elevator access to the Longueuil metro platform. Even if, by some miracle, someone manages to get on, there is no elevator at the central hub, Berri-UQAM.

Does my colleague think that this new legislation will fix these unjust situations?

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for his dedication and interest on this file and for being responsive to the people in his constituency as we try to make lives better for people living with disabilities.

A new agency is being established that is going to develop some of the model standards. I hope that they will reflect global standards, because we are already seeing that we are the beneficiaries of the work that other countries have done. People who travel in Canada and stay in American hotel chains have seen elevator buttons with braille on them. The corporations that do this kind of development said that they are going to have one standard and apply it in every country. Global investors like to see national standards that are reflected globally. It is easy and good for them.

For housing, it is the same thing. The developers in all constituencies are local guys who know their trade. They want to build accessible homes. They ask to be told what to do and plans are found for them. They want to do it, but they need us to provide these proven plans. It is so easy. People are eager, but we have to show them what we expect and they will meet those standards.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Order. It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Courtenay—Alberni, Indigenous Affairs; the hon. member for Essex, International Trade; and the hon. member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith, Natural Resources.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Sarnia—Lambton.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-81, an act to ensure a barrier-free Canada.

I want to say at the outset that I am pleased to see that the minister has brought forward this bill. I have absolutely no doubt about her sincerity in trying to improve the lives of people with disabilities. I too am aligned in that direction. I have listened carefully to the debate we have had so far talking about how to get people with disabilities the same rights and responsibilities as other citizens, how to make sure they are able to live independently and how to make sure they are free from violence. I am aligned in all those things. I think I have heard that all the parties in the House are aligned in how we improve the lives of people with disabilities, and what we can we do with this bill to make sure it is effective.

When it comes to deciding to tackle an issue, with my engineering perspective I will ask what it is we are trying to do. I think it is trying to get people to be able to live independently, to have the same rights and responsibilities as others and to be free from violence. What is the plan to make that happen? What mechanisms will we put in place in order to make sure the money or the incentives flow so the behaviours of people will take root?

In my speech, I am going to talk a bit about what has happened in the past and what the Conservatives did. Then I will talk a little about the Liberal record. Then I will talk about the situation in my own riding, some ideas about possible solutions and some concerns I have with the legislation as it is written today.

I know things were going on to help improve accessibility when the Conservatives were in power. Although I was not here myself, I saw all the announcements and improvements happening in my own riding of Sarnia—Lambton, where multiple millions of dollars were spent to upgrade different buildings to ensure they were accessible for people in wheelchairs and to put different aids in place to help people with disabilities. I note that was going on.

At the same time, we have heard other members in the House talk about the Conservative Party's introduction of the registered disability savings plan in 2008. This plan is quite a rich plan. I looked at the details of it when we were addressing an issue that I will talk about later. However, this is a plan where a disabled person can put in up to $5,000 a year and the government will match it threefold. That program has been going on for almost 10 years. Although it has not come to the point where people are collecting from the program, it is a very well thought out way of ensuring people with disabilities will have the wherewithal to retire in dignity.

I see that and see the efforts of the member for Carleton, who brought forward a very intelligent bill aimed at addressing the problem people with disabilities have when they want to go work and their benefits are clawed back. In some cases, the money they are getting from other disability programs is clawed back. I was really disappointed in the extreme that every Liberal in the place rejected that private member's bill. That bill would have been such a help to people with disabilities. We talked as well about the member for Calgary Shepard bringing forward a private member's bill on rare diseases, which was also rejected. I just heard a member from the NDP talking about her bill being rejected.

This is where one really has to question people's motives. When people say one thing and do another, they are likely to be called hypocrites. When I look at the Liberals, I see there is a lot of talking about helping people with disabilities, but then we look at the record of what has happened since the election in 2015. The first member who had the portfolio to do something here on accessibility, or helping the disabled, was the member for Calgary Centre. It was in the mandate letter, yet nothing was done. That member is also a person who has lived experience as a person with disabilities, but nothing was done. It was not a priority.

It was then passed along to the member for Etobicoke North. However, I do sympathize with her. She is the Minister of Science and has a lot of very important things to do which, of course, I, as a fellow science person, cannot criticize. Again, nothing really came forward.

Then when I looked at the bill to see what was in it, I thought that perhaps there would be a lot of infrastructure money. We know there are a lot of buildings that are not accessible and they need a lot of money in order to repair them so they will be accessible. In some cases, those could be incentives. There is a number of ways that could be done, but nothing in the bill talks about that.

In fact, the bill has sort of an element of what the minister's powers would be. It has an element of a standards organization that can talk about what the right thing to do would be. There are mechanisms in the bill to complain. There are mechanisms in it to inspect. However, there are no action words. There is really no doing of anything. It is going to be consulting and spending a few more years to try to figure out what we should do, when we already know some of the things we should do. Some of the things we should do involves investing the same kind of infrastructure money that was previously done under the Conservatives.

I have heard the government speak about the $180 billion of infrastructure money that it will invest over the next number of years. In fact, the Liberals got elected on a promise to spend very small deficits in order to put infrastructure in place. That was going to create jobs and drive the economy and repair our roads and bridges, etc. None of that ever happened. My point is that there was a lot of infrastructure money that was planned to be spent. Even though the government has had difficulty getting that accomplished, as I think it has only spent about 40% of what it planned, it has still racked up way more deficit but not on the intended things.

There is an opportunity for the government to do something immediately with respect to infrastructure to improve accessibility. Those are things where the building codes exist today. The specifications exist today. The standards exist today. No work needs to be done to consult anybody on that or have new standard organizations to do it. This already exists. All it really needs is political will to put that money in place.

Instead, the government has basically a different political will, if we look at where the billions of dollars that the government is spending is going: $4.2 billion on foreign aid; $2.65 billion on climate change support for foreign countries like China and India; $5 billion for the Syrian refugees; $1 billion for the asylum seekers; and multiple billions of other things that are spread around the world but not for Canadians and not for the disabled. When we look at where time, energy and money is put, that determines what our values are or what our priorities are.

It has been three years before seeing any kind of legislation and the legislation does not have any strong actions in it. It is more of “we'll put structures in place to consult”. I really question whether there is enough political will to achieve good outcomes here.

As I mentioned, I have some good examples from my riding that I can share. I know that the previous member of Parliament, Pat Davidson, was very active. She really cared about improving accessibility. Elevators were put in multiple buildings. We had accessibility all over the county of Lambton. As well, we have upgraded many of the schools to be accessible.

The Sarnia Arena is going under remediation. I was there for an event this past weekend and all of the entrances and front sidewalks, etc. have been improved for accessibility and all of the standards have been met.

Not everything is wonderful in my riding. We have a situation in Port Lambton where the post office, which is a Crown corporation and is under the legislation being proposed, is not accessible. It has been there for a long period of time and was grandfathered, but it is not accessible. We are having a municipal election and people are going to have to go to Canada Post to vote. In Port Lambton that is pretty much all there is. However, it is not accessible. People have known about it for a long time. My office has called and nagged and has been told that they will get to it. However, no one has got to it.

Here is an example where the solution is known. It just needs to get done and it needs to get done in a hurry. Again, where is the will to force these solutions to happen?

I have a tremendously great example of a fellow named Dan Edwards in my riding. Unfortunately, he had an accident which rendered him unable to walk and left him in a wheelchair. He has been super inspirational in the riding. He does fundraising for mental health efforts and different things.

This is one of the things he did. We have a fundraiser in Sarnia—Lambton called the Dream Home. It is a fundraiser for the hospital. He decided to get together with the architect who was going to build the latest Dream Home for a lottery to raise money for the hospital and decided to make it a visitable home. A visitable home is a home where any person in a wheelchair would be fully able to access everything, from cooking to the entrances. Everything is ground floor. It is very well done.

I had the opportunity to tour the home and see what he and architect had designed together. He shared with me a lot of information about the very many plans like this. It is quite possible. We have these solutions that we could put in place to allow people to live independently. That would be great. Again, money and political will is some of what is required here.

The other piece of advice I would give with respect to solutions and rolling out the infrastructure money is to ensure that it is well-distributed. Of the $180 billion that was announced over 10 years, only $2 billion of that was earmarked for rural communities. When we look at improving accessibility, I think we will find that there is even more need in the rural communities. In many cases, they have grandfathered their buildings. There are more older buildings, and they have not been made accessible. As well, there is less of a population base to bring in the revenue to do these things of their own volition. That needs to be considered.

With respect to some concerns about the legislation, $290 million has been proposed. I heard discussion earlier about 5,000 new public servants. I was not clear if that was 5,000 public servants with disabilities who would be hired while attrition happened, so over time, or whether that was 5,000 additional public service employees. Of course, I would be opposed to increasing the size of government.

Another concern I have with the bill has to do with leaving things for the regulations. As a parliamentarian, and a detailed-oriented one, I do not like to leave things to chance. I have seen before, under some of the legislation that the Liberals have brought forward, where it is all left to regulation.

With Bill S-5, for example, the Liberals decided, from the plain packaging and the vaping, they were going to leave a lot of it to the regulations. We were approving a bill, and as the point was made, that we really did not know what the final outcomes would be. We were going to leave it to the regulation.

In the example of Bill S-5, the Liberals want to go to a plain package. The dimensions of the plain package are produced by machines that are obsolete, that are no longer owned by anybody who is legitimately in the business. The Liberals have given businesses six months to convert.

They would have to redesign the old, obsolete machines and get them built somewhere, and that is certainly an 18-month deal, or they would have to be shut down altogether in order to achieve this plain packaging goal, or let them use the existing size. That is an example of where when things are left to regulations, they do not always get done the way that we might want. That is why parliamentary oversight is important.

Bill C-45, the cannabis legislation, is another example where the Liberals decided to leave a lot of the details to the regulation. The problem is that the regulations did not come out quickly enough to address all the unanswered questions that were still out there. Now we are left with a situation where we will legalize on October 17, and there is still a huge number of things that are not addressed in the regulations. Again, there is no parliamentary oversight to talk about them.

This point came up again on Bill S-228 with the regulation that we most recently talked about, which is the one that prohibits the marketing of unhealthy foods to children. Instead of defining what the healthy foods are, the comment was that it would be left to the regulations.

As parliamentarians, we have a right to know what that list will be and have some opportunity to object or give input if we do not agree. By leaving it to the regulations, we would be passing a blank bill that says we would be doing something. We have no idea what the something is and we have no input on the something, but we are expected to vote in favour of it. I have an issue with that.

When it comes to accessibility, we have been much too slow in moving forward and addressing these things. For example, there are a lot of the grandfathered buildings. My mother is 84 and walks with a rollator. There are a lot of places she cannot go because of staircases or it is too narrow to get through. Something needs to be done there and I look forward to seeing what solutions will be brought forward are.

I will talk a little about some of the things the government could do that would make people have more faith in its wanting to help disabled people.

Members may remember when I was here on a Friday, asking a question about the disability tax credit. Through that whole event, we found out that where 80% of people with type 2 diabetes were previously approved, all of a sudden 80% were disapproved. We raised the concern, and the Liberal government insisted that nothing had changed. Of course, as the scandal went on, it came out that indeed things had changed. There were instructions given to interpret the criteria differently, and it went very broad. It affected not just people with diabetes but people with other disabilities, such as autism and mental disorders like bipolar. It took months and months to get justice for those people. This is what undermines people's faith that the government is sincere in its efforts to improve things for people with disabilities.

I will give members another example. For people with multiple sclerosis, it can be very difficult, because people are not always be at the same degree of wellness. It is sort of intermittent where there may be periods where they cannot work and other times they may be fine.

However, the current EI rules are not flexible enough to allow a person who has MS to be on EI and work intermittently, the same total benefits as someone who takes it consecutively would get. I raised this issue with the Minister of Labour. There is an easy fix there. If 670 hours of eligibility are required and there is a certain amount of hours that people get in benefits, then allow the intermittency. Those are the kinds of things we can do for people who have disabilities to be able to live independently, to work and to engage. We need to do that.

I did take the point that was made earlier that no disability lens was used for the legislation. When we do legislation, we do it with a gender-based lens. Therefore, it is very appropriate here to take that recommendation from the member and put a disability lens in place.

I also do not like the powers to exempt in the bill. I find that when we allow exemptions and have cabinet decide, we get into trouble. We saw this with the carbon tax. The government had the power to exempt and it decided to exempt the largest emitters up to 90% of their emissions. There is an example where having the power to exempt is really not what we want.

In summary, I absolutely want to see persons with disabilities have the independence they need and have the help they need. However, it has to happen faster. I call on the government today to start putting money into infrastructure for accessibility and do the solutions that we already know about, while we craft improvements to the bill.

[Carla Qualtrough, Minister of Public Services and Procurement and Accessibility, Lib.]

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her interest and keen attention to detail on the bill.

If members will indulge me, I would like to pay tribute to the late Hon. Jim Flaherty and acknowledge the work he did on the RDSP. That was a game changer. As someone with a disability, I admire the work he did, and it changed lives. I would like to put that on the record.

I have a question for the member around the use of regulations and standards and some of the thinking behind that, being not putting specific technical details in law. The idea is that the standards organization might create a standard around the specific height of a counter or the specific Braille requirements on an ATM. Is it your suggestion that perhaps we should put that in law as opposed to establishing that through a more nimble, flexible organization? Where is the kind of sweet spot around certainty and flexibility and not being over technical in the bill?

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I will not tell the minister whether or not I am going to go that way. However, I would ask the minister to address the questions and comments to the Chair.

The hon. member for Sarnia—Lambton.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would say that one of the things that we need to get right is not to have different standards federally, provincially and municipally. A lot of times when it comes to accessibility standards, we will find there is a mismatch. Therefore, while I would not want to see 700 pages of technical detail go into a bill, because that would not be good, I think what should be clear is the pecking order in these things and how we are going to align them and what the constraints are. Is it accessibility or being able to get into a building and operate freely within the building? There needs to be language that describes exactly what the regulators are going to do and the scope of their work so that they do not wander too far from the intent of the bill.