Thank you for letting me know that. Many people like to use the mute button with me.
Thank you for having me here.
I have been involved in the federal transportation industry and disability since 1979. I was so happy when we finally got regulations, not voluntary codes of practice, which went into effect on June 25, 2020. Let me tell you, for someone who's been involved internationally and nationally around disability and travel, I thought, “What could possibly go wrong now?” In 2019, it looked like we were going to get there in one year, right in the middle of the COVID shutdown.
Do you think the airlines and the airports stopped at that point? No, they asked for exemptions, exceptions and extensions for putting in mandatory regulatory areas that they had to deal with, which they had a full year ahead, and all of a sudden, because of COVID, they couldn't do it.
We had to take the disability community and fight that request of the federal cabinet, and we had to have a global reaction to that. We should have been looking after our own people during that time, but we couldn't. Our people were hungry, they couldn't use cash, and they couldn't get proper health care assistance. We were hurting in the disability community, yet we mounted a campaign against the airlines to stop taking away the regulations we had fought for for dozens and dozens of years.
This is not new. We tried everything to make change with the industry. Now, we're not just talking about Air Canada; we're talking about interprovincial buses, interprovincial ferries and Via Rail. We have had to fight every inch of the way.
I noticed last month that some of the discussion was around “one person, one fare”. The Council of Canadians with Disabilities was the one that went to court against Air Canada to ensure that we had one person, one fare. Then one of our members followed that up with another court case to allow room for guide dogs and service dogs to be able to stretch out, because they immediately have to work after getting off a carrier.
Since those times and since those very important court cases, we've also gone against Via Rail because they were buying inaccessible rail cars. We fought them, and we won that, and the big principle that came out of that legal fight was that you cannot end a barrier by creating more.
We have regulations that embody some of those legal precedents that we set from the disability community. We didn't get any help. We had to do that on our own. We're still doing it on our own, and the biggest issue right now is that systemically it is not accessible.
If a person wants to utilize one person, one fare, every carrier does it differently. Every carrier wants a doctor's certificate. Every carrier uses a different type of certificate. They undermine what has already been won. I call it a death by a thousand cuts. Every time we try to enact what is already in place, there's some new barrier to change, which we have to then fight. It's like whack-a-mole. Every time you try to do something, it hits.
I'll tell you about the ridiculousness that David was talking about. I met up with a person who had just started on the accessibility desk for Air Canada at YVR. She was shaking. It was the first time she'd ever met a person with a disability. It's a good thing that I'm a nice person, because I helped her through it. I spent more time supporting her, but she, through two weeks in a classroom, had never met a person with a disability.
The question I have is, why is it that everyone is talking about us and everybody is doing their best for us without us? We've been here. We are always here. We are not stakeholders. Stakeholders come in and set the parameters, rules, of what they're in charge of. We are rights holders. When you look at the Constitution and section 15, you can see that people with disabilities are in there. We're at the very end, because in the first draft we weren't included. We had to fight for that, too, but we're there.
Every time we have to mount yet another campaign or another legal challenge, it takes people away from their families and from their regular lives, and we are all volunteers. We are not paid to do this. I am the chair of the largest and oldest disability rights organization in this country. We are 48 years old. We have been and are run mainly by volunteers, and we have made great strides to get us to where we are, but we need you.
We need this committee—and I'm so blessed to be here—not just to give recommendations but to follow them through. I would have loved to be able to sit in this morning and ask Air Canada questions. This big summit that's happening in a couple of months, the disability community has never been consulted about that. We need to be at the table with the same authority and to speak from that same authority to ask questions of Air Canada. They wove a pretty picture this morning, and some of it is pretty—they have done some good work and they have great staff—but systemically, when you try to get through to them, it's impossible.
I want to leave you with a very ugly picture. At WestJet, when a person is larger than the seats will allow within one person, one fare—that legal fight saw obesity as a disability—the demeaning process is that you have to have your butt measured. You have to put it on paper. A doctor has to sign off on it—try finding a doctor—and then you have to send it in. WestJet has an algorithm that they spent a lot of money on. It is proprietary. They take those numbers and they decide whether or not you get the extra seat. It is demeaning, embarrassing and expensive, and it is why many people with disabilities are not travelling anymore, because they're harmed. They're harmed through the process.