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, and I know that this committee knows that, as you're taking a closer look at what is needed.
When airlines treat people with disabilities as problems instead of as people, this has a profound effect and causes harm, not just financially, but also in loss of time, and physically and emotionally. All too often when something goes wrong—a mobility aid is lost or damaged—there is very little empathy from staff and no understanding that it isn't a piece of lost luggage.
Many mobility aids are custom fitted and replacements are not optional. It is tantamount to arriving at your destination without your legs. That person has lost a part of their body, their independence and their safety and well-being, so it is not an inconvenience: It's a catastrophic failure. I shouldn't have to explain this, yet I do time and time again, as do others with disabilities.
When these failures happen, the person who has been harmed is left to cope with the situation without adequate assistance from the airline. They are left to fight for a resolution that comes as too little, too late. It is ableism. It's pervasive. It runs through our culture. It's reflected in the way that people with disabilities are “other” all of the time, not just in air travel.
People with disabilities, though, are people first, and by that I mean that we are customers, we are passengers and we deserve equitable service. A friend of mine has a good line that he uses. He says: “I'm disabled. My money isn't.” That is to say, why is it expected and provided for that you have access to a washroom on a plane, but I do not?
Changing the culture so that this is deeply understood at all levels of air travel organizations is critical, because until that understanding is fostered, cultivated and embedded in operations, change isn't going to happen, regardless of the regulations.
In my role as chief accessibility officer, I'm an independent adviser to the minister responsible for the Accessible Canada Act. I also monitor, champion and challenge the progress being made under the act. I am not responsible for standards or regulations, compliance or enforcement.
I issued my first report as CAO two weeks ago. In it, I make a number of recommendations for mandatory training on accessibility and more regulation to ensure that organizations understand what they absolutely must provide. I talk about the need for more and better data. Also, as I follow the work of organizations under the act, I'll be looking for concrete progress on barrier removal year over year.
I'm not suggesting that it's easy. Accessibility is complex. No two people are the same, and what's perfect for me as a wheelchair user is not going to work for someone who is blind or someone who is deaf. Accessibility requires a lot of thought.
Planning for the longer term means looking to include things in infrastructure—the construction of planes for an accessible future fleet—and, for that, the signal from governments, ours and others, needs to be that this will be a requirement. This needs to be happening today.
Lots of good efforts are under way, and I do want to acknowledge the work, but more is needed and faster.
As CAO, I'm looking at what's happening in the industry in other jurisdictions and in the short term and the long term. What are the complexities of the issues and in finding consistent permanent solutions? Ultimately, the issues of accessibility go far beyond mobility aids. There needs to be a focus on the whole travel journey—inclusive of services and service providers—for travellers with the full range of disabilities and service requirements.
Time is limited today, of course, and I am just scratching the surface for you, but if I can summarize very quickly the key things that I think are priorities for action, they are data at a much more granular level and publicly available; air passenger protections specific to accessibility issues; training to focus on customer service; and an inclusive culture and mobility aid handling—finding ways to get it right every single time.
Thank you very much. I look forward to your questions.