REPORT from OTTAWA Rapport d’Ottawa

by/par Carol Hughes Federal member of Parliament Algoma-Manitoulin-Kapuskasing

Recently, Auditor General Karen Hogan releasedareportthatexaminedtheaccessibilityof federallyregulatedtransportationservices,suchas planes and trains, for people with disabilities.The report paints a harsh picture of the difficulties and barrierspeoplewithdisabilitiesfacewhenitcomes toaccessingtransportationservices.

When discussing the report at the Public Accounts Committee, Auditor General Horgan statedtheissueinassuccinctamanneraspossible: “It'sfrustratingenoughtolandafteraflightonlyto findthatyourluggagedidn'tmakeit.Nowconsider the impact when that missing cargo is not your toothbrush or change of clothes, but your wheelchair--andwithoutit,youareunabletomove aroundindependently.”

The headline for the report indicates that “of the 2.2 million persons with disabilities who usedfederallyregulatedtransportationin2019and 2020, 63% faced a barrier.” When we get further into the details, the report indicates that “the Canadian Transportation Agency had insufficient tools and enforcement staff to address all the barriers. Just four full-time-equivalent employees attheagencywereresponsibleformonitoringmore than 130 transportation service providers and enforcing the Accessible Transportation for Persons With Disabilities Regulations, which contain more than 450 enforceable provisions.” And for the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA), the Crown corporation responsible for air transportation, the report states that,whenpeoplewithdisabilitiesfiledcomplaints about accessibility of services, that CATSA “categorized 83 complaints under persons with disabilities.However,morethan1,000complaints, many of which were made by or on behalf of personswithdisabilities,includedtermsrelatedtoa disability but were instead categorized by the operationalnatureofthecomplaint.”

The issues start even before many people arriveattrainstationsorairports.Themostfrequent barrierspeoplewithdisabilitiesfaceactuallybegin with booking sites. For example, screen readers, whichvocalizetextonscreenforpeoplewithvision disabilities, frequently would not function correctly on the VIARail booking site, providing incorrect departure times that may result in those travelersmissingtheirtrains.

The Auditor General's report seems to indicate the majority of issues come from the top. She noted that 39 percent of managers and executivesatVIARaildidnotcompletemandatory accessibilitytrainingontime,and17percentdidn't complete training at all. Further, 31 percent of