Having advisers from the disability community is not the answer. One of the problems with advice is that they can take it or leave it. It doesn't empower the community of people with disabilities to bring forward the solutions or identify the barriers and expect them to change that. That doesn't happen. We've been doing this for decades and decades. This is not new.
All of these issues have been on the floor for every government since I remember back in the seventies. This has been sent to the next group, the next group, the next group. Here we are again, coming to you saying that not much has changed, because people are trying to find the least amount of effort, the lowest cost, to deal with what they perceive is the barrier. We are not at the table in power to say, no, that's not okay. We need to have an open discussion in public, as you're doing today, with us at the table asking them so they're on record with us. Otherwise the only place we have is the courts. Quite frankly, I'm 68 years old. Can we not just have a common-sense way of dealing with this?
The transition we need to make is.... Where something stops, there's a gap to the next piece, whether that's legislation, regulation, or who is responsible for what. The biggest issue is that there are no teeth in it. A fine of $100,000 to Air Canada is the cost of doing business. They're not going to change anything, and that money doesn't come back to the disability community. It goes in government coffers. How is that assisting us to move this forward? We are the poorest group, with the least amount of power, and yet every single case of movement forward has happened because the disability community has moved it forward.
With you, we can move it even further forward.
Thank you.