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Disability rights advocates welcome long-awaited national accessibility legislation, tabled in Ottawa Wednesday, but say the law needs significant strengthening to meet its goals.
“It’s a good starting point and certainly the most substantial piece of legislation introduced by any government in Canada,” said Toronto lawyer David Lepofsky, who is blind.
“But it’s going to need substantial additions and improvements to be effective, including a deadline to reach full accessibility,” said Lepofsky, who has been advocating for provincial and national and accessibility legislation more than 30 years.
“It is an historic moment because it starts the parliamentary process we have been calling for,” he added.
The Accessible Canada Act, which covers federally regulated sectors such as banking, inter-provincial and international transportation, telecommunications and government-run services such as Canada Post, aims to “identify, remove and prevent” barriers for an estimated 4 million Canadians with a physical, sensory, mental, intellectual, learning, communication or other disabilities.
The government has earmarked $290 million over six years to implement the legislation, which includes fines of up to $250,000 for violations.
Kirsty Duncan, minister for sport and persons with disabilities, praised advocates for helping to shape the legislation during cross-country consultations held in 2016.
“We are here because of the disability community and their advocacy for decades,” Duncan said Wednesday.
A spokesperson for Duncan said concerns raised by advocates “would definitely be discussed in committee hearings” next fall before the act becomes law.
Under the legislation, a barrier is defined as anything “architectural, physical, technological or attitudinal” that “hinders the full participation in society of a physical, mental, intellectual, learning, communication or sensory impairment or functional limitation.”
Some of the barriers raised by people with disabilities over the years include banks with counters that can’t be reached by someone in a wheelchair, airport check-in kiosks that can’t be used by people who are blind, Via Rail trains that can only accommodate one person in a wheelchair at a time, and the lack of employment opportunities for those with intellectual or developmental disabilities.
To address these accessibility concerns and others, the legislation focuses on six areas including:
- Buildings and public spaces
- Information and communication technology
- Procurement of goods and services
- Delivering programs and services
- Transportation by air, ferry, rail or bus crossing provincial and international borders.
The Canadian Association for Community Living, which advocates for people with intellectual disabilities, lauded the legislation for going beyond conventional approaches to disability.
“Canadians with an intellectual disability continue to face systemic barriers in their day-to-day lives,” said Joy Bacon, the association’s president. “The requirements of this legislation mark considerable progress in making Canada an inclusive society.”
Advocates also praised the act’s proposed creation of a chief accessibility officer to monitor implementation and an accessibility commissioner to oversee enforcement. But they said both positions should report to Parliament rather than the minister responsible for the act.
“We have to make sure we have safeguards built-in to ensure they aren’t under the thumb of the bureaucracy, as we have seen in Ontario,” Lepofsky said, referring to accessibility legislation in that province.
The federal act also proposes a Canadian Accessibility Standards Development Organization, overseen by a board made up largely of people with disabilities, to research, develop and recommend standards to the minister responsible for accessibility. Standards would become law by cabinet order.
Lepofsky agreed cabinet should be able to decide what standards become law, but he said cabinet should also have “a duty” to enact standards to achieve full accessibility.
“If cabinet doesn’t have a duty to enact standards, a future government may decide to never enact standards,” he said, noting this is what happened with a 2001 Ontario accessibility law under the Mike Harris government.
Public- and private-sector entities regulated by the proposed act are required to develop and publish accessibility plans in consultation with people with disabilities, with updates every three years. They must also create public feedback tools and publish regular progress reports.
But Lepofsky criticized the act’s proposal to make the Canadian Transportation Agency responsible for transportation accessibility and for telecommunications issues to be handled by the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC.)
“That kind of splintered approach to implementation and enforcement is a formula for confusion, delay, duplication and ineffectiveness,” he said. “We would rather have it all under one roof.”
The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, passed in 2005, mandates the province to develop accessibility standards in areas such as customer service, built environment and employment and ensure the public and private sector meet them. The goal of the act, the first of its kind in Canada, is to ensure the province is fully accessible to Ontario’s 1.8 million people with disabilities by 2025.
Manitoba enacted legislation in 2012 and Nova Scotia in 2017. But this is the first time Ottawa has tried to address the issue at a national level. The United States, United Kingdom and Australia have all had federal legislation in place for years or decades.
Laure Monsebraaten is a Toronto-based reporter covering social justice. Follow her on Twitter: @lmonseb
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