Transport committee  It definitely is a place where there are breakdowns. It's mostly reliant on, I would say, whether or not there has been adequate planning and staffing. This is an area where I think there's room for government and the sector to sort of work together. There's also a piece that

Transport committee  I haven't studied it. I have experienced it. Certainly from my conversations with other advocates and individuals with disabilities from other countries who travel, I'm not sure that any of the systems are great at this moment. I would say that if you talk to individuals from dif

Transport committee  It is complex and the system is complex. It's not just the airlines, but it's the ground crews, the airports and how all of those interact. An airline might have their own crews in one location but not in another, and that certainly is the case internationally. When we fly outsid

Transport committee  Thank you. It's nice to see you. You spoke at the last meeting about a number of distressing examples that have happened. The responses certainly express care, but I think they lack the required urgency. The defensive insistence on returning to language about 99% of passengers t

Transport committee  I believe better data is needed everywhere. Certainly I understand that's difficult. Data is always interesting from that perspective. If you don't ask the right questions, you don't get the right results. I think it is important that we have the data, because I think it's clear.

Transport committee  I think we often do things differently for good reason. I think it's important that in whatever we do we are clear about whether or not we're comparing apples to apples and oranges to oranges. I think it's necessary for us to move towards having more data available. I think we ca

Transport committee  From my outreach and from what I've been hearing so far, I don't know that anybody has it right yet. The reason I say so is that I spoke at the IATA conference in October, where it was clear was that airlines and the air sector know that accessibility is an issue everywhere. It's

Transport committee  I appreciate that Canada is leading the global air travel world in this space, with the one-person, one-fare policy. It is not the case in other places. This is something that is unique to Canada. I will recognize that inter-jurisdictional issues and business competition issues

Transport committee  Yes, ultimately, accessibility does need to be considered from the start. Unfortunately, I would say that the incident—my incident—thrust this issue into the spotlight, and if that had to happen, I'm glad it happened. The Accessible Canada Act is forcing organizations that are r

Transport committee  Thank you for the question. The short answer is no. I think there are good intentions, and I don't think, necessarily, that the content of the training is bad. I think the content, in most cases, is probably good. I think this is a situation where it needs to be repeated and rep

Transport committee  Well, after a difficult evening, and once I was back home the next morning, Air Canada notified me that my chair was in Vancouver and it was having it delivered to me. I had my chair back by about one o'clock the following day.

Transport committee  Luckily, I was at home and not travelling away from home when I arrived in Vancouver, and my husband picked me up at the airport. Once I was transported in an airport wheelchair to my car and was able to get home, my husband was able to assist me. I had a spare wheelchair at home

Transport committee  They can't, I would say, ensure that it won't happen to anyone else—at least not yet. However, they are working on it. Since that time, Air Canada has made a number of changes that it's trialing and testing whether or not mobility aids like mine, that can be taken apart or folde

Transport committee  Thank you. Good morning. It's a pleasure to be with you. I'm working on my French, so the rest will be in English today. Thank you for inviting me. I'd like to start by saying that accessible air travel is an issue that can't wait. Action is needed now. It's already overdue,