Human Resources committee  I want to mention a number of economic studies that have been done on accessibility, and the costs of accessibility. It's a myth that it will cost more in the long term; it actually costs less in the long term. In comparing services that were designed for everyone, versus services where you have the service designed for the average group and then a separate segregated...or afterthought with respect to disability, what you find is that if you include people with disabilities right at the beginning in developing a service, it may cost a little more and take a bit more time initially, but over a five-year period, it will cost less.

Human Resources committee  One of the things I want to comment on is that we've been involved in quite a few discussions on the future of work. There is the discussion about how work will be changing, how automation and many of the new innovations that are coming about are going to be quite disruptive in work for everyone.

Human Resources committee  It was just a very quick comment regarding the issue of an aspirational deadline. I think that gives an inaccurate impression, because it implies that there is some point where accessibility or inclusion is complete, that we can know and will know everything that needs to happen to make Canada accessible.

Human Resources committee  I do work in quite a number of countries with respect to regulation. Where there is representation of the high-incidence groups of individuals with disabilities and specific groups that have well-organized advocacy groups, what tends to happen is that there are always individuals with disabilities who are left out.

Human Resources committee  Thank you. I am the director of something called the Inclusive Design Research Centre, which has the mission of proactively ensuring that emerging technologies are designed inclusively. We focus on inclusive design for our digitally transformed and complexly connected society. We turned 25 this year and are engaged in many collaborative and international projects.