Orders of the Day

Hon. M. Farnworth: In this House, I call second reading of Bill 6. In Committee A, the Douglas Fir Room, I call the estimates for the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture.

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 6 — ACCESSIBLE
BRITISH COLUMBIA ACT

E. Ross: I’m talking to the accessibility bill. I’m just double-checking my signal here. Can you hear me okay, Mr. Speaker?

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

Deputy Speaker: Thank you, Member. I’ve just taken the chair. I can hear you.

I have had a request for a five-minute recess, if that’s all right. I would like this House to be in recess for five minutes so we can appropriately hear all the remarks. Thank you, Members. We’re just in recess for five minutes.

The House recessed from 2:26 p.m. to 2:29 p.m.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

Deputy Speaker: Apologies for the slight confusion at the end there — my recognition of the member for Skeena for being ready to go when we called on him.

[2:30 p.m.]

As we are introducing a new bill, Bill 6, I want to recognize the appropriate minister first, and then we’ll go onwards from there.

Hon. N. Simons: It’s my pleasure to stand today. With thanks to everyone who took part in the development of this legislation, I move Bill 6, Accessible B.C. Act, be read a second time.

This bill signifies the beginning of a new chapter in the history of the rights of people who, because of barriers, haven’t always been given the chance to fully participate in our communities. As a province, we expect British Columbia to be as inclusive and as accessible as possible. As a government, our laws and our regulations should reflect the expectations of its citizens. This legislation that has been developed reflects British Columbia’s way — the path we’re going to take to ensure that they do.

This law, the Accessible British Columbia Act, finally allows us, as a society, to define with care and precision what we should expect of our government and other organizations when it comes to being accessible. Specifically, it gives us a way of identifying barriers, removing barriers and preferably preventing them from being established in the first place.

Now, this legislation has been in development for many, many months. We are the largest province without such legislation. So I’m absolutely honoured to be part of the process to bring this legislation to life. I’d like to acknowledge the work of all of those who are on the accessibility committee; the previous minister; the secretariat in my ministry, which worked very hard to ensure that this legislation laid the foundation for the important work that will take place in this province over the next months and years, in fact.

The legislation that we wrote, that we developed, is enabling legislation. To describe that, I would say that it gives government the ability to establish regulations, which we call standards, to exist not just in government space but in other organizations that are prescribed by government as well. These could be institutes of higher learning. They could be government agencies. They could be businesses and corporations. But fundamentally, this act allows government to set in place the process for the establishment of these standards.

Now, key to our approach in this process is to ensure that the voice of people with disabilities and those who advocate for them are accurately reflected and, in fact, form the fundamental nature of this relationship, based on the premise that we do “nothing about us without us.” In other words, the work that we’re doing to reduce barriers in our society needs to be informed by those who face them most often. In most cases, we’re talking about the disability community, as broad and diverse as that community is.

The province engaged in extensive consultation processes with the disability community, Indigenous communities, the general public, various organizations. For many months, these groups got together to discuss what was essential, what was needed to be in this legislation so that we could take the next important step. This is not the most important step of all, as we continue to address barriers in our society.

I’d like to acknowledge the hard work of everyone in the advocacy circles of the disability community, as well as their allies throughout British Columbia and, indeed, in other parts of Canada, who have ensured that our interest in making our province accessible and inclusive came to this stage.

[2:35 p.m.]

Now, we might be behind other jurisdictions, but here we are ready to take the important steps of establishing the rules, the structures around which we will ensure the proper regulations are put in place.

The legislation calls for the creation of a provincial accessibility committee, a committee where at least of half of the people on the committee would be people with disabilities or advocates who work with them. They will include Indigenous representation. In fact, it’s part of our expectation as government that we engage in a consultative progress that is rigorous.

Now, let me just say that it doesn’t mean that all the consultation we undertake results in consensus at every conclusion, but the process of coming together and of discussing the elements of legislation that are needed creates communication. It creates the relationships that will be an essential part of the building of standards and plans for our province.

One of the first expectations of the accessibility committee, which will be run through the Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction, is to establish a plan for the province, a plan on how we will go from this important step to the time where we will be able to say that this will actually have a day-to-day impact on people’s lives — from the now, where we are creating the conditions and the legislative framework to make the rules, and when the rules become part of our community, when the rules are put in place.

This isn’t a simple process. It’s actually very complex. Because of that, we need to rely on the ongoing expertise of those who are familiar with the subject and interested in the same goals that we have as a government.

I remember asking about accessibility legislation when I was serving in the opposition. At the time, the reason for not creating legislation here in British Columbia was to wait for the Accessible Canada Act. We have it now. I’m so pleased that the work that we’ve done here in B.C. serves to complement the federal legislation.

It’s not the reinvention of the wheel that British Columbia has undertaken here. It is definitely British Columbia’s perspective and British Columbia’s path, but in fact, we have relied on the experience of other jurisdictions such as Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia. We hope to be able to use the learning that we get from those jurisdictions to help influence, promote and encourage us as British Columbians to enthusiastically embrace the desire to make our province accessible and inclusive.

In fact, I would like to see this legislation — in fact, I see this legislation — as ultimately going to be resulting in rules, regulations, standards and expectations that we have as a province, that we have of each other. This legislation will reflect the expectation we have of our province in being accessible, inclusive and, as one member of the committee mentioned just after the first reading, a kinder province. I’m very pleased that this foundational enabling legislation is going to allow us to take the next steps towards making British Columbia a more inclusive place.

[2:40 p.m.]

Now, I would also suggest that by tabling this legislation and by debating it, with my expectation that it passes, we don’t have to wait for this to have an impact on people. I think the fact that we have tabled this legislation and that we have highlighted it as a symbol of how we hope our province to be shows people, who may not have had the same optimism, to maybe have a little more optimism.

To those who may have a cynical view of government, I hope it’s slightly less cynical. For parents worried about their children with disabilities, I hope it gives them some comfort that, in fact, we are establishing rules that will make the quality of life of their child better.

My hope is that with the passage of standards, we’ll allow those who may have been precluded from opportunity because of a different ability, a diverse ability, a developmental disability…. Perhaps they will now have more opportunity to overcome the attitudinal barriers that exist in our society. This is about physical barriers, this is about attitudinal barriers, and this is about the way that we break those barriers down and create a more inclusive and accessible province.

Now, there have been questions around the province: “Who will this legislation apply to? How will it show up in our communities? How do we know what our roles will be?” Well, the first step is that with a consultative effort, with a cooperative effort among those who are on the accessibility committee, we establish what organizations we expect to have plans in place to reduce barriers so that they are accessible to as many British Columbians as possible.

What organizations are going to have to take steps? What will those steps be? All of this gets established early in the process in order to demonstrate the goal of government to ensure that regulations are appropriate, that they are embraced and that they’re followed.

Organizations will be expected to create their own accessibility plans in a manner that reflects the interests of their business and of the broader community. These organizations, which are yet to be identified specifically, will be asked to make sure that their plans to make their organization more accessible are clear, informed by the public and informed by people in the disability community, their advocates and their allies in order to ensure that those standards are, in fact, the reflection of our community’s values.

Once these organizations establish their plans, and once they participate in the process of establishing standards, there’s a mechanism for ensuring that standards are met. I say that’s way down the line. The compliance and enforcement aspect of this legislation is robust and lengthy.

In my view, this legislation, as a reflection of British Columbians, is not going to meet with great controversy. That’s my hope. It’s my expectation that we share a belief that our society should be inclusive. We share a belief that people should be able to participate in their society to the best of their abilities without unnecessary barriers being put in their way.

[2:45 p.m.]

The legislation takes the social model approach towards disability in that it defines the barriers as the problem and the issue. The barriers that exist, whether they’re physical barriers or attitudinal barriers — we take the approach that what need to be addressed are the barriers that have precluded full participation in society.

I would point out that the definitions that we use are broadly aligned with the definitions of other accessibility legislation and the United Nations convention on the rights of persons with disabilities. When I refer to the social model, I’m meaning to define it as a structural issue in which society is responsible for removing the barriers.

As one takes a look through the legislation, people will see that the role of the minister in this is to ensure that he or she or they promote accessibility in British Columbia. That is the role. The minister has a role to deliberately promote accessibility in this province. We define AccessAbility Week and enshrine it in law to ensure that there’s a time, if not on everyone’s agenda, for everyone to recognize that as much as we have a province that is welcoming, it is sometimes more welcoming to those who do not face the barriers that we see.

I call this a new chapter, in recognition of the generations of people who have fought for the rights of people with disabilities. We can all think of the large advocacy groups who have been instrumental in ensuring that this be on the agenda of governments. But we probably could all think of people in our communities who have steadfastly made the arguments to us as MLAs, to their communities, that we need to do better. We need to do better. So many businesses and organizations have taken steps to become more accessible, to be more inclusive. But we need to do better.

This legislation, while it is strong on the compliance and enforcement…. My hope is that this legislation will be an encouragement and a guide, a guide for us as British Columbians to achieve the goal. Annual reports from the minister will ensure that there’s accountability in the system, description of the events and objectives and mechanisms that they have undertaken, that government has undertaken, to pursue the goals of this legislation, and it ensures public accountability. The public wants to know that government is actively interested in ensuring that standards are developed in various sectors.

In addition to the annual reports, which the minister will issue and publish, there will be independent reports on the success of accessibility legislation. Every five years, an independent review will be undertaken. My hope is that after the first five years, we’ll have a lot to be proud of. That will depend, of course, on the energy and the enthusiasm that I’ve witnessed already to continue and be continuing in this endeavour.

I look forward to the public consultation that will take place. I look forward to the Parliamentary Secretary on Accessibility, the member for Chilliwack, to be busy with this important work. I know that he’s looking forward to meeting people in the disability sector — communities, individuals, agencies around the province — to ensure that our accessibility plan is good.

[2:50 p.m.]

Thank you for your patience as I find my notes or, as the case may be, as I don’t find my notes. However, we’ll manage.

In addition to the public accountability that is required, I’d like to just talk a bit about the standards that we’re going to be developing or that accessibility committee will be developing in conjunction with technical experts as part of that process. We’ll be looking at establishing standards in…. There’s a list in the legislation that defines employment, the delivery of service, the built environment, transportation, health and education. This is just an unexhaustive list of potential areas where standards will be de­veloped.

Each of those standards will have their own expert committees or advisers to ensure that they meet the needs of our province. I know we’re going to hear a lot about the standard development as we proceed through the next months and years. I’m looking forward to that process a lot. We’ll obviously be following the principles identified in the act, which include: inclusion, adaptability, diversity, collaboration, self-determination and universal design. Again, it’s not an exhaustive list. The approach of this legislation is that it is not heavily prescriptive, but it does define what is to be expected in our province.

No legislation and no regulations can be developed without the active participation of people from Indigenous communities, and I was pleased and will continue to be pleased to ensure that voices of Indigenous People are reflected in the legislation. At this time, I would say that it’s also important to recognize the intersectionality of the issue, the intersectionality of disability and the complex nature of the relationship between LGBTQ, racialized communities and the intersectionality with the disability issues.

My intention is not to go into the details of the specific elements of the legislation, as we reserve that for committee stage, as the Speaker knows.

Despite the fact that I haven’t been able to find my notes, I would just like to say that I got on to this train as it was moving. I’d like to acknowledge former minister Shane Simpson for beginning this process and making sure that we were all on the way to ensuring that we had legislation by this time. It is an absolute honour that my first piece of legislation as a minister is one that serves to raise up all British Columbians together.

As a society, we often talk about how we treat those without a voice or those who are more marginalized and that being a reflection of our society.

[2:55 p.m.]

I think this is an example of legislation that is seeking to make our society more equal, that is seeking to ensure that we’re conscious of the barriers that exist and that we’re conscious of the importance of removing those barriers so that people of all abilities can reach their full potential.

It’s a pleasure that…. I’m sure that there are going to be comments from my colleagues. I’m looking forward to hearing those. With that, I take my place.

S. Cadieux: As I take my place in this debate today, I will admit: it is a good day. It is a day that, as a member of this House, I am proud. Let me attempt to illustrate why.

Imagine for a moment: what if you were the keynote speaker at an event, but you arrived, and you couldn’t get on the stage? What if you couldn’t speak and were not allowed to have a trusted person speak for you while receiving medical services? What if you booked a vacation of a lifetime and arrived at the destination to be told that they didn’t have the room you carefully booked? What if you applied for a job, but when they called to book the interview and they learned you had a disability, they hung up?

What if you wanted to attend a sporting event or a concert with friends but couldn’t sit with them because you were limited to sitting with only one other person, and when you tried to sit with your friends elsewhere, you were asked to leave because you were considered a fire hazard? What if you took your three-year-old to the park to play but were barred from getting to the playground equipment with them? Worse yet, what if you were six years old, and you were the only kid that didn’t get to go to your friend’s birthday party because your friend’s house was inaccessible?

Have you ever had to decline an invitation to go to an event or an activity with friends because there was no accessible washroom? What if you’re blind or have limited vision, and you go to a restaurant for lunch, and they haven’t got large print and braille menus? What if you had a cognitive impairment and couldn’t understand the form you needed to fill out to receive a service because the form used technical language, long sentences and multisyllable words? Would you be frustrated? Would you be sad, disillusioned, feel left out, angry?

The reality is that the barriers are very real. They still exist today, in 2021. They still exist in British Columbia. But today we start a process to try to change that.

Now, I’ll state for the record: my quality of life is not diminished by my disability. I am not unhealthy or unwell because of my disability. My disability is not a personal tragedy. It is not something that needs to be cured nor something I have to overcome. It is simply part of what makes me, me.

We must, as leaders, help to shift the definition of disability from a personal deficit to what occurs because a person’s needs are not addressed. Today this Legislature is a big part of that change, seeing the ability and removing the barriers.

I am repeatedly told by businesses when I suggest some improvements to their accessibility that “I’ve done what I’m required to do by law.” I certainly would have hoped that people’s thinking would have evolved by now, nearly 30 years after my injury brought me into this community. But it hasn’t — at least, not enough.

Being truly inclusive means that people of all abilities have the opportunity to fully participate in their communities. It means we continually challenge the attitudes and beliefs about disabilities and then recognize the value of contribution.

In 2017, 22 percent of Canadians aged 15 and over — about 6.2 million people in Canada — had one or more disabilities. Women were more likely than men to be a part of that group. Among those with disabilities aged 25 to 64 who were not employed and not attending school, 39 percent of them wanted to work. That represents nearly 650,000 people with disabilities. These facts are taken from a Statistics Canada report titled A Demographic, Employment and Income Profile of Canadians with Disabilities Aged 15 and Over, published in November 2018 as part of the Canadian survey on disability.

[3:00 p.m.]

I’d like add for the record here today, as well, that a report published by the Conference Board of Canada in January of 2018, titled The Business Case to Build Physically Accessible Environments, shows that the number of Canadians living with a physical disability that impairs their vision, hearing or mobility will rise by 1.8 percent per year — remember that number, 1.8 percent per year — between now and 2030 while total population growth in Canada, over that same period, will average less than 1 percent.

The same report also suggests that implementing measures to improve workplace accessibility would enable 550,000 Canadians with disabilities to work more hours, increasing GDP by $16.8 billion by 2030. This larger pool of available workers would boost the total income of people with disabilities by over $15.5 billion. That would be a true and real poverty reduction strategy.

This is the kind of impact we want to see for individuals as a result of this legislation. These are the types of outcomes that we hope will follow.

Now, my own experience with disability does lend me a perspective — my work within the disability community broadly, both as a board member of Disability Alliance B.C. and my work with Spinal Cord Injury B.C. and other disability groups many years ago, and as a former minister responsible for social programs in British Columbia. All have broadened my views and exposed me to the vast and varied experiences of people with disabilities. It’s taught me the importance of the challenges associated with bringing those diverse experiences to a common goal. Today’s legislation, I feel, is one common goal we should all agree on.

Over my last decade serving in this B.C. Legislature, I’ve been able to move the accessibility agenda forward. At the cabinet table, I made significant changes to our persons with disabilities income supports, specifically around earnings exemptions and asset and trust exemptions. I was able to champion a provincewide consultation that led to the commitment to Accessibility 2024, which essentially listed 12 building blocks of items government did to advance access and inclusion, and a commitment to legislation.

I’m very pleased that this government and this minister have brought this forward now. I hope the community has been well served by this government in their consultations prior to the bill’s introduction, and I hope those consulted will share any concerns they have with the bill, anything they believe has been missed or doesn’t reach far enough. Indeed, some of those groups have already done so.

I’ll pause for a moment, as well, as the minister did, to thank the team in the Ministry of Social Development, specifically the team led by Sam Turcott, who I know put great energy, enthusiasm and effort into bringing this bill to life and who took most seriously their endeavours to include the community in consultations and to best reflect those learnings in the bill we have before us.

Be it the built environment, employment, communications, service delivery, transportation or procurement, the reality is that barriers continue to exist and even to be erected. We now have the express intent to proactively confront those barriers and break them down. So let’s get it right. At first blush, I think the legislation has the bases covered, and we can delve into all of the detail in committee.

We do need to learn from those who’ve gone before, and we do need to attempt to move to a national standard and away from creating yet another standard. There are examples of good work already done. I know government has considered these, and we see elements of other pro­vinces’ and the country’s legislative efforts in this bill.

We need to recognize that an act, apart from other standards like the building code, will be ineffective unless there is a requirement within existing processes, such as building permits, that have to adhere to the act. For example, in Ontario, despite great efforts to provide a built environment standard that would ensure access and inclusion, it was deemed unworkable and not included in the bill.

That enabled the lesser minimum standard to still be how buildings are permitted, leaving businesses in a difficult position and a building code that doesn’t conform to the requirements to meet the human rights code or the AODA. Confusion still rules, and people with disabilities still pay the price. We can, again, discuss this further at committee stage as to how we will ensure that doesn’t happen in British Columbia.

I know from the consultations we did prior to Accessibility 2024 and that this government did in preparation for this legislation…. We have heard about the struggles that Canadians with disabilities face on a regular basis. We have heard, I believe, that British Columbians with disabilities hope it will lead to more consistent experiences of accessibility and that it should apply to all areas of provincial jurisdiction and be aligned with the federal and municipal rules. We know it needs to be enforceable, and it needs to include penalties for non-compliance. It must have a mechanism for complaints and oversight.

[3:05 p.m.]

Again, today I’m sharing my thoughts here from a number of perspectives — as a person with a disability and as someone who has been an advocate and a service provider and a legislator.

Equality rights are at the core of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and certainly are entrenched in our constitution. Guarantees of equality to all persons before and under the law go far beyond formal words in section 15 of the Charter. Article 9 of the United Nations convention on the rights of persons with disabilities, which Canada ratified in 2010, outlines society’s obligation to ensure accessibility for persons with disabilities. This provision requires that we “take appropriate measures to ensure to persons with disabilities access, on an equal basis with others.”

Upholding these rights to equality is why we need stand-alone accessibility legislation. I recognize there are challenges in legislating the depth and breadth of things we want to see changed. There are limitations on what legislation can and can’t do effectively.

For the deaf community, the recognition of sign languages as primary languages is a very positive step. Indeed, this was an amendment to the federal legislation, before that legislation passed. However, the deaf and Deafblind community has expressed concern that Quebec sign language has not been included and that full recognition of the community as a distinct cultural linguistic community is necessary to ensure their unique needs are covered by this legislation.

I will have questions on many things as we move through committee stage, but I expect to have a few more significant reservations or, perhaps, suggestions for im­provements before we pass the bill. And they follow.

Unlike the Accessible Canada Act, the sole responsibility for the act implementation and oversight sits within government rather than an independent office. Like Bill 6, Nova Scotia’s Accessibility Act depends on government-appointed inspectors, but in addition, it provides a process for complaints by members of the public when organizations do not comply with accessibility standards. C-81 federally, the Accessible Canada Act, goes even further, creating an accessibility commission to independently investigate complaints about non-compliance with accessibility standards.

I, like many advocates, am concerned that the lack of an individual complaints process could create additional barriers for people with disabilities seeking remedy on the infringements of any rights that they may be trying to access, which may be provided by regulations and standards that may be developed under this act.

Now, it is clear that government has chosen to focus on government and, likely, government entities with this legislation, at least for the immediate term, and not on the private sector. While I understand the approach — and it may be the right one — it does also mean that true positive change and the removal of barriers for people with disabilities in their everyday lives, in their economic lives, may still be delayed for many more years.

All of those examples I gave earlier and so many more will still be left to individuals to advocate for change. I acknowledge that it is possible the regulations that may be written following this act can prescribe other organizations so that the Accessible B.C. Act will apply to parts or all of the non-profit and private sector. But it is not guaranteed by this act.

Furthermore, even if other organizations are prescribed, there’s nothing in Bill 6 that prevents government from unprescribing. This leaves the act vulnerable to influence from both the private sector or, in fact, other entities even inside government. We feel strongly that people with disabilities, British Columbians, deserve to feel certain that this act is, indeed, going to ensure and enshrine their full and meaningful access and participation in society writ large, not just government.

The Accessible Canada Act’s definition of disability means “any impairment, including a physical, mental, intellectual, cognitive, learning, communication or sensory impairment — or a functional or limitation — whether permanent, temporary or episodic in nature, or evident or not, that, in interaction with a barrier, hinders a person’s full and equal participation in society,” while this bill fails to include learning and communication in the definition at all. For clarity and consistency, I feel strongly that the definition should be in alignment with the Accessible Canada Act.

This act provides for accountability through annual reports and independent reviews. However, there are no prescriptive timelines for the removal of barriers. And since when has a government report been enough to guarantee the meeting of goals in a timely manner?

[3:10 p.m.]

Finally, unlike other accessibility laws across Canada, nowhere in Bill 6 does it explicitly state that nothing within the law diminishes the existing rights of people with disabilities. Other Canadian accessibility laws explicitly state that they’re supposed to work in alignment with other human rights law — in our case, the B.C. human rights code — to prevent discrimination of any kind. In Ontario, for example, there is a reference in the AODA that specifically references that in any dispute or conflict between laws or standards, the higher standard of access wins. The final authority is the law that gives people with disabilities the most access.

There is no doubt we have much to do, and the most positive thing, in my mind, is that the stars have been aligning in terms of understanding the need and value of diversity in the workplace and accessible environments. I really believe we’ve largely reached a place of consensus that more does need to be done. And as we move forward and as this act takes life, we will undoubtedly be confronted with many more challenges in coming to common understandings and agreeable compromises in order to bring out this legislation and regulations to move forward.

There will be, I understand, attempts to engage further with the private sector, and that’s good. In doing so, I urge government to help reframe the face of accessibility — yes, as a legislated responsibility but also as a necessity for the fact that this 25 percent of the population that has an accommodation need is not a discrete group. It is not a group that needs something special. But in fact, it’s 25 percent of every group, of every market segment, every target, every cultural group, every workplace and every community.

It’s clear that people with disabilities continue to feel disenfranchised by policies that are ineffective because they were not developed with a lens on accessibility. Governments and private sector organizations have, in fact, for years espoused the values of inclusion and accessibility. But accessibility too often isn’t required and gets missed. Even worse, frankly, unconscious bias allows folks to decide a lens on accessibility isn’t needed, and we go forward [audio interrupted] problems. Then when people with disabilities are confronted by a barrier to access, the message that sends is: “You’re different, and you aren’t welcome here.”

This act can and hopefully will be a radical agent of change for British Columbians with disabilities. It does send a message that government and, indeed, every member of this Legislature, I hope, is taking action to advance accessibility and inclusion. The advocates and, perhaps even more, the disabled will be looking for this act to bring about both systemic and societal attitudinal change. It is a big expectation to fill, but it is the right thing to do. It makes economic and social sense.

I look forward to examining it in detail during committee stage and hope other members will join me in ensuring the legislation is as robust as we can make it, as we start out.

As my friend, the Hon. Carla Qualtrough said, as she spoke to the third reading of the Accessible Canada Act, Bill C-81:

“For too long, Canadians with disabilities have had to fight on their own when it came to advancing their rights. By bringing in new measures to improve accessibility, with a focus on accountability and transparency, we are moving forward toward a new culture of accessibility.

“The Accessible Canada Act would work to put an end to the practice of exclusion. With Bill C-81, we can have a system where our institutions, not individuals, are responsible for enabling change. We can move forward from the principle of ‘nothing about us without us’ to simply ‘nothing without us,’ because everything is about us.”

Let’s hope this House approaches this Accessible B.C. Act with that same spirit and intent top of mind.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I’ll say thank you.

[3:15 p.m.]

D. Coulter: It gives me great pleasure to speak in support of Bill 6, the Accessible British Columbia Act. The introduction of this accessibility legislation is a significant step forward in building a barrier-free B.C.

I just wanted to start my remarks by acknowledging some of the incredible staff team I’ve had the privilege of working with for the past couple of months.

Sam Turcott has been leading our efforts as the executive lead in the accessibility secretariat. His leadership and support in getting the minister and I up to speed on this critical work has been greatly appreciated.

Krissi Spinoza, our director of stakeholder relations and Guillaume Dufresne, our director of policy, have been cornerstones in establishing the positive work culture and incredible performance of the secretariat.

Finally, Tess Hawkins, policy analyst; Shaylin Williams, policy analyst; Brynne Langford, policy analyst; Amanda Arnet, administrative assistant; and Denise Clair Smith, assistant to the executive lead. This small but mighty team of eight staff have made this legislation possible, and I’m looking forward to working with them all in the years ahead as we work to get these standards right.

I wanted to begin by acknowledging the evolution of disability in B.C. All barriers start as ideas, and it’s important to recognize where the barriers we face today originated from. Historically, policies and practices have been designed to exclude and, in some cases, eradicate disabled people.

B.C. opened its first asylum in 1872, rebranded as the Provincial Asylum for the Insane in 1878, which would later be renamed Woodlands School in 1950 and again to just Woodlands in 1974. This institution was open for over a century, having closed in 1996.

Woodlands was supposed to provide care for children and adults with developmental disabilities and mental illness. But we know the legacy of the institution, one that was riddled with systemic abuse. In 2002, former provincial Ombudsperson Dulcie McCallum determined that there had been widespread sexual, physical and psychological abuse of Woodlands residents. However, the provincial government at the time did not accept the findings in the McCallum report.

In August 2002, a class action lawsuit was put forward by former Woodlands residents. After it was certified, the province sought and won a ruling at the B.C. Court of Appeal to exclude former students who lived at Woodlands prior to August 1, 1974. This decision was applied to the settlement agreement eventually reached in 2009 and approved in 2010, establishing a compensation claims process.

In 2018, the Premier and Minister of Health announced that former residents of Woodlands who attended the school before August 1, 1974, would finally receive compensation for systemic abuse suffered at the provincial institution. At the time, the Health Minister had this to say:

“I want to recognize the Woodlands survivors, many who I met on this issue more than a decade ago. They have persisted against prejudice and mistreatment from the province for decades, even after the school shut its doors and a settlement agreement was reached with some former residents. Today’s announcement brings some small measure of justice for them, and I am very proud of the Premier and many advocates for making it happen.”

Now, we’ve come a long way since eugenics, forced sterilization and institutionalization, but we must recognize the history that has shaped the conversation about people with disabilities.

There are over 926,000 British Columbians over the age of 15 that have a disability. This makes up nearly 25 percent of the population. In B.C., a higher proportion of women, 26.5 percent, report living with a disability, while only 22.9 percent of men report living with a disability.

Disability prevalence is also much higher among Indigenous People across Canada. So 36 percent of Indigenous women and 26 percent of Indigenous men report having a disability. These figures are based on Stats Canada’s 2017 numbers and exclude Indigenous People living on reserve.

We know that the percentage of people reporting a disability increases with age and that people with disabilities are diverse in terms of their experiences, backgrounds and needs. Disability types vary.

[3:20 p.m.]

The highest proportion of disability type is related to pain, but we know people also face disabilities impacting their flexibility, mobility, mental health, seeing, hearing, dexterity, learning, memory, development and more.

The way in which people experience their disability also varies greatly. Some disabilities are continuous, while others are progressive. Some are recurrent, and others are fluctuating. According to a survey conducted by Stats Canada in 2017, three in five Canadians with disabilities do not fit the conventional view of disability as continuous and unchanging. We also know the severity of disabilities also varies greatly.

These statistics show the sheer diversity in how disability is experienced. It’s therefore important to remember, as we move ahead with the development of accessibility standards, equity and the equal access to opportunities will be critically important for consideration.

I’m sure all members in this House have noticed that I use a wheelchair. What some members may not know, however, is that I’ve been using a wheelchair for over two decades, as a result of a serious workplace accident. Despite using a wheelchair for many years, my knowledge of disability, up until quite recently, was relatively limited. I was aware of barriers I encounter on a regular basis, whether that’s the need to circle the exterior of a venue more than once to assess if there’s an accessible entrance and corresponding parking spaces or, once inside, trying to identify where the closest accessible washroom is or figure out if the venue itself has appropriate elevators or lifts to navigate between floors.

Because of the inaccessible environments that surround us, there have been many times where I’ve had to rely on the help of those around me, whether it’s my aging father doing the herculean task of lifting his son up a set of stairs — and I haven’t been getting lighter, I’ll just say that — or my friends trying to come up with innovative ways for us to get around downtown Vancouver as a result of accessible taxis not being available, or my staff and caucus colleagues doing everything they can to ensure that I’m able to effectively navigate this Legislature that I have the privilege of speaking from today.

Barriers to being a wheelchair user exist all around us, but these types of physical barriers represent only a subsection of the barriers people with disabilities face in their everyday life. In many ways, as a white cisgender male in a wheelchair, I am what many think of when they hear the words “disability” or “disabled.” Up until recently, I wasn’t actively considering all of the barriers people with disabilities experience.

Since becoming the Parliamentary Secretary for Accessibility, I’ve had the opportunity to meet with many individuals and groups who have shared information about the barriers they face and the opportunities we have with this legislation before us today to get this right for all British Columbians. I’m grateful for these conversations, and I’m committed to using my role and my privilege to advocate on behalf of all persons with disabilities.

In 2018, the Canadian Human Rights Commission noted disability as the ground of discrimination in 52 percent of its cases, an increase of 33 percent since 2008. The fact is we live in a world that is primarily shaped by people without disabilities. This unfortunately leads to increased barriers, stigma and discrimination for those living with a disability. One of the goals of this legislation is to proactively identify and remove barriers in every sector of society.

One of the biggest types of barriers we face is, in fact, attitudinal. There is simply a lack of knowledge surrounding disabilities. I recognize that as a society, we have a lot of work to do when it comes to education. I will be the first to acknowledge that despite having a disability myself, I by no means consider myself an expert. I, too, have more learning to do and am committed to doing it. But too often there is a belief that having a disability means you’re different.

When we equate difference with negative or undesirable conditions, we reduce people with differences as lesser citizens. This lesser-than mentality supports the illusion that people without disabilities are normal or whole and that those with disabilities are not. But when we recognize the sheer diversity of humanity and that bodies of all forms, including bodies with impairments, make up this humanity, we begin to see people for who they are.

[3:25 p.m.]

People with disabilities, like all other people, are people full of possibilities and potential. We can set aside the outdated notions that we are different and instead come together as people committed to supporting one another regardless of ability.

This milestone would not have been possible without the advocacy and support from former Minister of Social Development and Poverty Reduction Shane Simpson. I know Shane personally, and his contributions to this province through the work of this ministry are undeniable. I feel incredibly lucky to now have the opportunity to support this work in my capacity as B.C.’s Parliamentary Secretary for Accessibility.

In fall 2019, Shane and our amazing staff in the accessibility secretariat led an extensive consultation and engagement process, which garnered feedback from nearly 7,000 British Columbians. This work included ten regional community meetings around the province in Vancouver, Victoria, Surrey, Fort St. John, Prince George, Kamloops, Nelson, Terrace and Comox.

There was also a virtual town hall. It seems odd to think that although only 18 months ago, it was a new technology back then. I think we’ll be doing more virtual town halls in the future.

There were 75 independent community conversations, specific engagement sessions for Indigenous peoples hosted by Naut’sa mawt Tribal Council and an online questionnaire that garnered significant feedback.

Advocates and organizations from across the province provided detailed submissions of how they would like to see this legislation shaped, which has resulted in the comprehensive bill we now have before us. The engagement process was based on the document Framework for Accessibility Legislation. A guiding principle in the document and throughout the consultation was “nothing about us without us.”

Fortunately, people with disabilities have and will continue to play a leading role in this legislation. It’s with their continued input that we’ll be able to ensure all British Columbians can participate fully in their communities.

One group that has been formative in the development of this legislation has been the Accessibility Legislation and COVID-19 Advisory Committee. The Accessibility Legislation and COVID-19 Advisory Committee is comprised of leaders from every corner of our province. Their insight has helped shape the bill before us today.

Membership comprises of people with disabilities, representatives of disability organizations and representatives from the B.C. Chamber of Commerce, B.C. Federation of Labour, and Union of B.C. Municipalities. Their continued advice has led us to putting forward a better bill. I’m looking forward to continuing to work with these individuals during the development of subsequent accessibility standards and regulations.

Current members of the committee include: Chris McBride from B.C. Spinal Cord Injury; Sarah McCrea from Prince George Brain Injured Group; Albert Ruel, formerly of Canadian Council of the Blind; Forrest Smith, the Greater Vancouver Association of the Deaf; Christopher Sutton, Wavefront Centre for Communication Accessibility; Lois Turner from Communication Assistance for Youth and Adults; Karla Verschoor from Inclusion B.C.; Tania Vrionis from the MS Society; Neil Belanger from British Columbia Aboriginal Network on Disability Society; Helaine Boyd from Disability Alliance B.C.; Sheryl Burns from the B.C. Federation of Labour; Marylyn Chiang from Union of B.C. Municipalities; Ross Chilton from Community Living B.C.; Doramy Ehling from Rick Hansen Foundation; Jonny Morris from the Canadian Mental Health Association of B.C.; Sheila Pither from Council of Senior Citizens Organizations of B.C.; Rob Sleath, Access for Sight-Impaired Consumers; and Timothy Stainton, UBC Centre for Inclusion and Citizenship.

I was thrilled that they were able to virtually join us for the event celebrating the introduction of this landmark legislation.

Another advocate who joined us at the announcement was Sarah Cheung, a board member of Disability Alliance B.C. I just wanted to share some of Sarah’s words that really resonated with me.

[3:30 p.m.]

“I have a physical disability, and my parents were told that I would never go to school or gain meaningful employment. However, I have two undergraduate degrees from the University of British Columbia, work part time as a lab manager and volunteer my time on various disability advisory committees.

“Despite enduring countless barriers, I have learned to become an advocate for myself and those with disabilities who do not have a voice. I’ve experienced barriers with regard to health care, education, employment, transportation, housing and community participation, but refuse to let my disability define what I can accomplish.

“Some examples of significant barriers I’ve encountered over the years are: (1) attitudinal biases from those in authority, health care professionals and employers; (2) the lack of financial support for basic physical and medical needs; (3) challenges with accessing specialized health care; (4) struggles to obtaining meaningful employment; and (5) the lack of subsidized accessible housing.

“Creating accessibility legislation would remove systemic barriers and ensure that all individuals, regardless of their ability, could have equal opportunities to participate and be included in society. I’m extremely excited to see how the B.C. government will make B.C. more accessible and be a leader in accessibility so that people with disabilities can continue to live, work and thrive.”

Sarah’s words outline many of the areas that our government is committed to improving through the adoption of this legislation. As we move ahead in this process, we’ll need the perspectives of advocates like Sarah to help ensure that we get this process right.

Also at the announcement, we had Lisa Beecroft, owner of a small business in Port Moody and co-chair of the Presidents Group. Presidents Group is a group of business leaders who are committed to creating inclusive and accessible workplaces.

Members of the Presidents Group, also known as the Accessible Employers, are aware of the many advantages of having a diverse and inclusive workforce. They have found that hiring inclusively can improve company culture and increase employee retention. They’ve also found that 90 percent of consumers prefer companies that employ people with disabilities. The Presidents Group currently has 25 members, ranging from local small businesses like Tacofino and Save on Meats to large corporations like YVR, the Port of Vancouver and Vancity Credit Union.

[N. Letnick in the chair.]

Current membership of the Presidents Group includes Lisa Beecroft, who is the owner and co-chair of the group and owns Gabi and Jules Handmade Pies and Baked Goodness; Daniel Bregg, president of Buy-Low Foods; Tom Conway, CEO of Small Business B.C.; Devin Currie, CEO, Maple Communications; Agnes Garaba, chief operations officer, SAP Labs; Eric Hopkins, president and CEO of BCAA; Nicolas Jimenez, president and CEO, Insurance Corp. of British Columbia; Ash MacLeod, managing director and partner at Save on Meats; Kevin Millsip, executive director of the British Columbia Libraries Cooperative; Santa Ono, president and vice-chancellor, University of British Columbia; Chris O’Riley, president and CEO of B.C. Hydro.

There’s Walter Pela, managing partner, greater Vancouver area KPMG; Erinn Pinkerton, president and CEO, B.C. Transit; Robin Silvester, president and CEO, Port of Vancouver; Ryan Spong, co-owner of Tacofino; Kirsten Sutton, chief technology and information officer with Vancity; Caroline Tose, chief operating officer, HSBC; Marilyn Tyfting, senior vice-president and CCO of Telus International; Tamara Vrooman, president and CEO of Vancouver Airport Authority, who is the ex-co-chair of the Presidents Group; Marsha Walden, president and CEO, Destination Canada; Sarah White, COO and cofounder of Fairware; Sam Whittaker, assurance market leader west, Ernst and Young; and Russell Zirnhelt, executive vice-president of Ledcor construction.

That was a lot of names, Mr. Speaker. I’m reading them because I think it’s very important that these people are recognized for their work on this legislation. The Presidents Group has set, in their own words, “a big, hairy, audacious goal” that by 2030, 51,000 more people with disabilities in British Columbia will have appropriate employment that fulfils their work potential and the needs of our labour market.

[3:35 p.m.]

Many people assume that people with disabilities are unable to work as a result of their impairments, but we know this is only part of the reason that many are unable to find work. Discrimination, negative perceptions and a lack of workplace accommodations are all conditions preventing the employment of people with disabilities. More than that, we know that accessible transportation options, information and communications are all important components to ensure that workers are set up for success. Fortunately, with leading employers like SAP Labs committed to employment equity, we’re heading in the right direction.

We know that an employer’s willingness to accommodate differences, particularly through workplace accommodations, can make all the difference in building an inclusive workforce. During this pandemic, we’ve seen how workplaces have been able to adapt to keep people safe. Many of these workplace adaptations, whether they be changes to workstations, flexible work hours or the addition of new technology, are the types of accommodations that would directly benefit people with disabilities. A change as small as incorporating a scent-free workplace or eliminating noise within the office can make all the difference.

I do want to acknowledge that our goal with this legislation is accessibility. Employment will be an outcome for some, and that’s fantastic, but we recognize that there are many different ways for people with disabilities to contribute and participate in society. That’s why employment is only one of the proposed areas for standard development.

In order for us to make life better for people with disabilities, our government is committed to breaking down these barriers. We’re not the first government to put forward comprehensive accessibility legislation, but I believe our government has learned from the experiences of other jurisdictions and is putting forward a better bill as a result. Bill 6 defines disability as “…an inability to participate fully and equally in society as a result of the interaction of an impairment and a barrier.” Disabilities can be physical, sensory, mental, intellectual or cognitive and can be temporary, episodic or permanent. We’ve provided a broad definition of disability and have also defined “barrier” and “impairment.”

As I mentioned earlier, a large part of this work will be focused on increasing awareness and supporting a culture change. This work will begin with government taking the lead by developing a comprehensive accessibility plan, outlining opportunity across all ministries to make our operations more accessible and inclusive to people of all abilities. This will be important work that will require the participation of our professional public service, and in time, this legislation will also identify organizations that need to chart forward similar plans.

This legislation also makes it clear that the minister has the responsibility to promote accessibility through initiatives like AccessAbility Week, which will be happening this year from May 30 to June 5. This fourth annual AccessAbility Week is an opportunity to celebrate the valuable contributions of British Columbians with disabilities and to recognize the efforts of individuals, communities and workplaces that are actively working to remove barriers to accessibility and inclusion.

I recognize that people with disabilities need to have ownership over this legislation. This legislation will call on the formation of a new provincial accessibility committee, which will advise the minister on the development of new accessibility standards and regulations.

As I mentioned earlier, a guiding principle of our consultations and of the legislation is “Nothing about us without us” and the UN convention on the rights of people with disabilities. When Bill 6 receives royal assent, government’s first action is to appoint a provincial accessibility committee, and at least half of the members must be people with disabilities or representative of a disability organization. Membership must also reflect the diversity of British Columbians, including having Indigenous representation on the committee. This committee will advise the minister on the development of accessibility standards and regulations.

We know our province is incredibly diverse and that one, single committee may not reflect our province perfectly. That’s why this legislation also calls for the development of technical committees to support the standard development process. Technical committees, comprised of experts in their field, will assist in ensuring that we get this right.

I also want to acknowledge this bill will call for the creation of a new online feedback mechanism to ensure that all British Columbians can regularly comment and engage with government directly on this legislation. Staff are currently working on developing the online tool, and I’m looking forward to its launch. This feedback tool is aimed at being complementary to the work I’ll be doing across the province, ensuring that the voices of British Columbians are heard and understood.

[3:40 p.m.]

Bill 6 lays out the foundation to develop accessibility standards. The bill lists eight potential areas for standards development: employment, delivery of services, the built environment, information and communications, transportation, health, education and procurement. This is by no means an exhaustive list.

We’ll be looking to the provincial accessibility committee to provide its advice and input into determining which standards should be developed first. As I mentioned, technical committees will be formed to provide advice on the development of a particular standard.

My role in this process will be focusing on engaging British Columbians in every corner of the province to ensure our legislation is effective and well understood. As we continue to get closer to a post-COVID-19 world, I’m looking forward to the opportunity to meet British Columbians in person to get a better understanding of how these accessibility standards will work best for them. We know this process will require culture change, and while, as a society, we’ve made progress in some areas, there is still more to do.

I do want to acknowledge the novelty of this legislation. In this chamber, we have fierce debates about how we want to shape our province, but on the issue of accessibility, one of clear human rights, it’s fantastic to see the House stand in unison on the need to move this important work forward. This work is not partisan. This work won’t be completed by a single government alone. The truth is, we will continually need to take steps to address barriers as they arise. This legislation sets out the framework for us to do this.

I do want to also acknowledge the words of my colleague from Surrey South. We’ve exchanged our thoughts on accessibility in the past in this House, and it’s a delight to hear the excitement and commitment to getting this work done from the opposition benches.

The member recently spoke in this House on the need to address the gaps in accessible parking. I couldn’t agree more. The member has also spoken about the barriers faced in the Legislature. In my couple of visits here, I’ve experienced them myself, and the member has spoken about how this work will be transformative in ensuring all British Columbians have an equal opportunity to participate in this province. This, my friends, is a goal that we all share and one that I’m delighted we are united in working towards.

In conclusion, I just want to circle back to an earlier statistic I shared regarding the prevalence of disability in our province. Nearly one in four British Columbians over the age of 15 in B.C. identify as having a disability. As individuals are self-identifying, there is a good chance this number should, in fact, be higher, but beyond that, we know that, as our population ages, the prevalence of disability will increase. Whether it’s genetics or, in cases like mine, an accident, more and more British Columbians will find themselves living with a disability.

Like I’ve mentioned, I’m supported by an amazing partner, familial network and friends. The barriers I face are felt by those around me. Passing this legislation demonstrates that this government and, truly, all members of this House are committed to moving toward a barrier-free B.C., one where every British Columbian, regardless of ability, is fully included in our incredible communities.

The current barriers people with disabilities face are not because of their personal problems but rather inadequate policy and design that hasn’t kept them in mind. By placing the needs of people with disabilities at the forefront of our work through this legislation, we can lift the burden off of advocates and instead work with them as full and equal members of society. Whether it’s in our workplaces, schools or transportation systems, in the way that we communicate or deliver services, the way in which we receive health care or navigate our built environment, this legislation provides us with a path to a barrier-free B.C.

With that, I’ll conclude my remarks. I look forward to hearing words of support from colleagues on all sides of the House.

[3:45 p.m.]

D. Davies: I appreciate having the opportunity to rise and speak in support of Bill 6. I want to thank my colleagues from Surrey South and Chilliwack for their personal stories. I think it’s what really gives a face to this issue that we’re all talking about here today and why we are in support of it.

I want to go back. I’m not going to talk a long time, but I did want to give my points. In 2015, I was elected to city council in Fort St. John, and we had the opportunity…. I think it was through the Rick Hansen Foundation, supported by SPARC B.C. It was called Measuring Up the North. It was an opportunity, and it was spearheaded by one of our local advocates in Fort St. John, Lori Slater. Some of you might know her.

It allowed us the opportunity, and what it was is…. We, as our city council, spent an entire afternoon in a wheelchair, and we were sent out into our community to try and carry on a normal afternoon. It gave me incredible pause when I was put in that situation. Looking at some of the small little things that, I think, we take for granted, that when a person who is in a wheelchair…. It is a barrier. It really made me think, as a city councillor, and certainly now as a provincial legislator, how we need to be looking at these things and how we can improve and eliminate these barriers that are all around us.

Just going back. I had the opportunity, actually…. I think we did it for three or four years in a row. We did this awareness campaign. A couple of little things that really, really stood out to me were that little rise between the curb and the street, which doesn’t look like very much until you’re in a wheelchair. If it’s even anything much more, you could quite easily struggle to get up on to the curb, and now you’re stuck on the street, or it just brings you to a complete dead end. In fact, in one case, I almost actually fell out of the chair that I was in.

The other thing that tied quickly into that — I noticed this in Fort St. John, and I’ve seen this in other communities — is the crosswalk countdown, how much time you have to cross the street. You don’t think about that when you’re just walking across the street, but it’s significantly different when you’re in a wheelchair or you have a mobility issue. That little tiny clock that ticks across underneath the walking person really is not enough time in many cases.

Doors into businesses. You really start to appreciate the size, the proper size, of a door accessing businesses, accessing our public buildings. The ramps. We’ve all probably seen ramps that go into a coffee shop or go up into a store out of a parking lot. I’ve never thought about it. You would walk by this ramp, and as a person that walks, you would look: “Okay, they’re accessible.” But they’re not very well.

In fact, the one that I tried — I’m not going to mention the business; I believe they may have fixed it since then — I could not, and I’m pretty buff in the arms. I could not get myself up this ramp to go into this coffee shop. They had a ramp, but it was so steep that I could not get into this coffee shop.

It was an incredibly powerful experience for me. I do encourage others to try this in their own communities if they want to see accessibility in their communities, if they want to see how a half-an-inch curb lip is a barrier for people with mobility issues.

I also want to talk quickly about another advocate who lives in my riding as well, up in Fort Nelson. Her name is Kristi Leer. Kristi was in a horrific accident about 2½ years ago. She severed her spinal cord and is now in a wheelchair.

Before, of course, Kristi was a very active person in her community. I’m so happy to report that being in a wheelchair has not changed that at all. In fact, she is feistier than ever, and she has taken on a huge advocacy role in the community of Fort Nelson and has got that community to recognize some of these barriers that they have in the small town of Fort Nelson.

[3:50 p.m.]

Looking at parking…. We’ve heard, I think, from other members already in this House about parking spaces and how most of them aren’t very good.

Kristi has…. In fact, it’s interesting. She was featured on CBC just recently. She has a side ramp out of her van, and she has many pictures that she’s shared where vehicles will park right beside her. She has to wait until that person comes out and moves their car. If they’re shopping in the store for 20 to 30 minutes, she has to wait outside until that person moves their vehicle — again, something that I think most of us take for granted. We don’t think about the issues and how much that impacts someone who relies on ramp access into their vehicle.

In fact, she has started up a Facebook page. It’s called Step Up on Facebook. I encourage you to check it out. She is trying to advocate and get these larger parking spots designated specifically for people in wheelchairs that have ramps in their vehicles. In fact, I believe that in the coming week, she’s going to be doing a presentation to the Fort St. John city council to talk to them about adapting some of these great things, like parking, into the communities.

I will say, though, that over the many years — I’d like to think I’m a young guy, but I guess I’m middle-aged-ish — I’ve seen an incredible amount of how things have come along in regards to awareness for people, with accessibility. I think back to when I was a kid. I don’t recall ever speaking much about accessibility, looking at ramps or doors, when I was younger. But I see it now. I see people talking about it. That is a good thing.

Many of you probably know the gentleman by the name of Bo Hedges. He is a Paralympic gold medallist for wheelchair basketball. We’ll give him a shout-out. He’s a Fort St. John boy, and of course, an Olympian. A lot of work that he has done with other organizations across the province has been really amazing at advocating and bringing awareness to this issue of mobility and wheelchairs. One of the things that he is really big in, of course, is wheelchair basketball. When I was teaching in Fort St. John, before I was in this place, I was at one of the schools that was actually granted a number of wheelchairs to start a wheelchair basketball program in our school.

I think as we start looking at that…. We hosted the B.C. Winter Games here. It seems like a long time ago, but it was about one year ago and a little bit — February of last year. The wheelchair basketball was one of the most attended events out of the whole games. It was an amazing event. I think a lot of that excitement is coming from this raised awareness. People are talking and recognizing that people that have a disability are just people.

My colleague from Surrey South talks about…. It’s who she is. She doesn’t want to change it. She wants to be recognized for her as a person. I think we all need to do more of that. We all need to be looking at people. How do we overcome, making it best on these individuals so that they can participate fully in everything that we may take for granted?

I definitely want to do a big shout-out to Bo Hedges. He also hosts an annual wheelchair basketball event in Fort St. John, which is well attended. Again, it builds up on this awareness. I believe that coming up toward the end of this month, in a few weeks’ time, is national access awareness week. These things help. These events help, where we can focus on looking at helping remove these barriers for folks.

[3:55 p.m.]

I don’t want to take too much time. Looking at a couple other components of this…. In fact, recently, I’ve just met with a family who has a son that is deaf. We’ve been out working with some folks in the deaf community. There are many lacks of support across the province. It doesn’t matter whether it’s in education. It doesn’t matter whether it’s in our care facilities. There is a lack of supports for people that are deaf or with hearing impairment.

We need to be looking at how we support these communities. How do we support people that have these disabilities — to drop those barriers, to remove those barriers? That is something that, obviously, this legislation that we are looking at today, Bill 6, certainly looks at, at a high level. But it leaves it open for the time frame, before we can actually see these issues being dealt with.

Again, being on city council for a number of years, we’ve been talking about accessibility issues for a long, long time. We need to start seeing action. I hope that this piece of legislation brings forward really solid moves and a plan to see these barriers dropped.

Last year some of my colleagues and myself visited a school called James Cameron School. I think it’s in Maple Ridge, if I recall. It’s an incredible school that works with children that have severe dyslexia and other learning disabilities. But this school is an independent school because they cannot get those supports in our public school system.

Again, speaking as a school teacher, previously, I saw firsthand the challenges that our teachers and support workers face in the classroom, in our schools. We need to make sure that we are giving the tools to our teachers, the tools to our school districts so that they can support children that have these special needs, whether it’s hearing impairment, whether it’s mobility issues. We need to make sure that we have the tools for them.

I know I have other colleagues that do want to speak here. Just looking more around at…. This bill — one of the concerns, and I just briefly touched on it — leaves us to wonder about future legislation. Once it’s passed, this bill, what is it going to look like to implement it? How does it roll out, moving forward?

We need to recognize that COVID-19 has disproportionately impacted people with disabilities. How can this legislation ensure that those people that have been so impacted for the last 18, 19 — well, whenever this is all over…. How do we ensure that there are supports in place for them so that they can move on, whether that be through education, whether that be through retraining, whether that be through employment opportunities for people?

How is this going to help people like Kristi Leer, who lost her job in Fort Nelson due to her accident? What supports can we give her to get retrained up so that she can move back into being gainfully employed?

Again, it looks different in Fort Nelson than it does in downtown Vancouver. It looks very different. So we need to be making sure that we are looking at the geography of this province, which is so incredibly diverse.

I’ll conclude. We are obviously supportive of the intent of this bill. We look forward. We will have questions during committee, which is what it’s all about. We certainly want to thank all the staff and the minister for the work and the previous minister for the work on this legislation. We do look forward to looking at it in committee stage.

With that, I’ll take my place.

[4:00 p.m.]

Hon. K. Chen: I am really excited today to be able to speak to the Accessible British Columbia Act and also share my support for this really historical legislation that will help to create a more inclusive province for all British Columbians, which is something that our government strongly believes in and has been taking concrete actions on since 2017.

I definitely want to begin by recognizing that I am speaking here from the unceded traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples from my community office here in Burnaby-Lougheed. I really want to take this opportunity to thank the incredible work the Minister of Social Development and Poverty Reduction and also the Parliamentary Secretary for Accessibility, the MLA for Chilliwack, have done, for their incredible work on putting this legislation together, and also recognizing that the work has really been done and started by the former minister responsible for this file, Shane Simpson — for his tireless advocacy and putting together the foundation work for this legislation.

This is teamwork, along with the work and advocacy from countless organizations, community groups, families and individuals. Thank you all so much.

First of all, as the MLA for Burnaby-Lougheed, I definitely want to thank all the constituents who have shared with me their stories and feedback on how important it is to create a more diverse, inclusive and more accessible community for everyone. I’ve always learned so much from my local constituents and families with their diverse experience, feedback and stories so I can do my job well as a representative for our community.

Through my work as the Minister of State for Child Care, I’ve also learned so much from communities and families across the province, including families with children who require extra support. British Columbia really takes [audio interrupted] in our diversity. As a government and as a community together, we can take all the necessary steps possible to create an inclusive province for all, regardless of a person’s physical, mental abilities, socioeconomic status, age and diverse backgrounds.

This new accessibility legislation will really set British Columbia on the path to a more accessible, inclusive province for people with disabilities and their support networks. If passed, the Accessible British Columbia Act will allow government to establish accessibility standards in identifying, removing and preventing barriers to accessibility and inclusion. This legislation will also help to confirm our commitment to the United Nations convention on the rights of persons with disabilities.

People with disabilities have been leaders in shaping this act from the beginning, and it is with their continued input that we will be able to build a barrier-free B.C. Our government will continue — and we’ve committed to continue — to engage and consult and work hand in hand with people with disabilities, advocates, business owners, Indigenous peoples, stakeholder groups and the public, together, to make sure we get this right. This is why it is so crucial to be able to establish a provincial accessibility committee to ensure that people with disabilities and other partners are leading and working collaboratively together to implement this legislation, to undertake this historical work together as a community.

Today there are about 900,000 British Columbians living with a disability, and many of them are individuals from my own community here in Burnaby-Lougheed. As I said, I have learned so much from them. I’ve also learned so much from them about the barriers and the challenges they face, whether it’s a curb cut, an automatic door, an elevator or closed captioning.

Many of the people, my constituents living with disabilities, rely on these services to better navigate our shared environment that we all share together. Some of them, unfortunately, have been negatively impacted with that lack of access to inclusive and accessible environments. Some of them have lost employment opportunities. Some cannot reach and utilize their full potential. Some face daily barriers and challenges that many of us do not experience and may not have even ever thought about.

I remember when I volunteered for a local food bank in Burnaby last year. I had the opportunity to hear some of the stories and situations that people living with disabilities face on a daily basis. One of the gentlemen I met shared with me how he struggled to even find proper housing that works for his mobility needs. The reality, the very sad and unfortunate reality, is that people with disabilities are twice more likely to live in poverty, and that is not acceptable.

[4:05 p.m.]

This legislation will really help us to pave the way to develop accessibility standards, respecting the identification, removal and prevention of barriers across all aspects of society. That includes, but is not limited to, employment, education, delivery of services, transportation, the built environment, information, communication, procurement and health. There’s so much we can do and need to do to make sure that we move away from the patchwork that has existed for years but has never really worked for people.

We knew this when we became government in 2017 and when the former B.C. Liberal government failed to look at the solutions. That has left, unfortunately, B.C. as the largest province, by population, in Canada that has not passed comprehensive accessibility legislation like this.

I’m really proud that our New Democrat government is getting this done and has been working on solutions and has introduced this accessible B.C. legislation. This legislation will be a key start to building a foundation and, really, to creating a more inclusive environment for all as we continue to work hand in hand together to remove the barriers and have more British Columbians fully participate in our communities. Really, we need to do this not only for people living with disabilities today but also for our future generations — to create a more inclusive environment for our generations to come.

I’m very thankful and honoured…. Through my work as the Minister of State for Child Care, I’ve met with many families with children who require extra support, across the province, and have learned firsthand many, many barriers they face. I have met, at the doorstep — of course, before the pandemic — families within my community sharing their struggles when they have to find the extra support and accommodation.

Personally, I feel the word “accommodation” is not the right word to use. It’s really to make sure we have the equitable support for families and people living with disabilities and, also, children living with disabilities — to lift them up and to make sure that they get the services that they need.

We know how early intervention and support are so crucial to children who require extra support and children who live with disabilities. It is critical that we create an inclusive environment — whether it’s their child care, early learning environment, K to 12 or their daily lives — to ensure that they can thrive and reach their full potential since a young age.

I would love to see how, through this work and through this legislation, that will connect to many of the other work that our government is doing, such as the Childcare B.C. plan, to make sure that we are able to provide that equitable environment, our shared environment, together, as a start, regardless of a person’s age, background and, again, socioeconomic and other situations and environments.

Through plans such as our Childcare B.C. plan…. We have, for example, invested in numerous measures to increase the access to more inclusive early learning and care opportunities, including the millions of dollars that have increased funding, during the past 3½ short years, through our supported child development program.

That is the work that we can look at, to do it together, through this legislation. That will all work hand in hand with many of our government’s efforts and measures to support inclusion. I hope that all this work will come together to really, at the end of the day, create a more equitable and inclusive environment for everyone, starting from a person’s childhood.

I’m also really thankful to hear that the Minister of Social Development and Poverty Reduction, during his remarks, emphasized, also, the importance of having an intersectional lens when we implement this legislation. We need to be so mindful of the diverse experiences people have in our province. A person living with a disability may also be a member of the Indigenous, Black, people of colour or LGBTQ+ communities or with some other diverse experiences and backgrounds.

That intersectional lens is so crucial to be applied to all the legislation and all the policy work that we do in this Legislature. We need to make sure…. Everything we do has to apply that lens because people with diverse situations and backgrounds may be impacted very differently by the same policies.

[4:10 p.m.]

I was very thankful and happy to hear when the minister mentioned about the intersectional lens. I really hope that will be something…. I know the minister and the parliamentary secretary can work together with the community to ensure that when we’re implementing this legislation, we have that lens applied through every work we do and also applied to all the other work our government does as well.

It is also important to recognize that this legislation will not only impact people with disabilities. The truth is, whether it’s age, genetics or workplace accidents, disability has a way of reshaping all of our lives. Even if it’s not you personally, there may be a good chance that a loved one, a friend or a co-worker of ours will develop a disability. Building a barrier-free B.C. is in the best interest of all of us.

Here I really want to give a shout-out to the Parliamentary Secretary for Accessibility and the MLA for Chilliwack. Personally, we’ve known each other for many years, and I’ve learned so much from him — his personal experience, his advocacy, his passion for creating a more accessible and inclusive society for everyone. I really want to thank the parliamentary — for accessibility….

Through him, I had the opportunity to reflect, and learning from him but reflecting on my own personal views, privilege and how I perceive my own environment. Really, it’s the environment that we all share with our diverse people and communities across this province and within our own neighbourhoods, to be able to find ways to make our shared environment better for all.

I really want to end my support for this legislation by quoting what the Parliamentary Secretary for Accessibility has written in an op-ed lately. I found his words very powerful and something that I’ve learned so much from:

“Passing legislation that requires organizations to remove bar­riers to accessibility is one thing, but if we want to live in a province that is truly accessible, we all have work to do in tackling our own biases. These ‘attitudinal barriers’ are often the most pervasive and will require our collective understanding of disability to evolve.

“People with disabilities are not unhealthy or unwell. Nor are they lesser than because of their disability. They do, however, have needs that aren’t being met by their environment — be that physical, social or technological.

“By proactively taking action to eliminate these barriers, we can make serious headway in building a better province that works for all of us. While our conversation about accessibility and inclusion in B.C. is not over, I know that by working together we can build a barrier-free B.C. that works for everyone.”

Those are the words from the parliamentary secretary responsible for this file. I’m so thankful and so proud to know him as a friend, as a colleague. We really, really do have a responsibility to work on this together. I want to make sure I continue to learn about issues like this that are so critical, to create the equitable society and community we all want for all British Columbians, for our community members, our constituents.

As a mother with a young child, this is the type of province I want to support, I want to see for my child, for my grandchildren — to live for generations to come. Again, this is historical legislation. We need to make sure we put our supports behind it, that we work with people living with disabilities, stakeholders, community members, all the organizations and advocates, to make sure we can get this right. We can do and take the critical steps to create the equitable society we all want for all generations to come.

Thank you. I hope we can do this work better, starting by passing on this legislation.

S. Bond: I wanted to take just a few minutes. I know there are probably others that want to speak. But I wanted to take a few minutes to just reflect on this bill for a moment. It’s called the Accessible British Columbia Act. One of the things that I think all of us recognize is that this bill doesn’t get the headlines that it should.

[4:15 p.m.]

I would also like to thank the Parliamentary Secretary for Accessibility for pointing out that this is not a partisan issue, despite some comments that have been made a bit to the contrary just previously.

We should be clear that in this Legislature, there have been powerful advocates for change for a very long time. I’ve been in this building for quite a period of time. It looks very different than it did when we first arrived here. People with disabilities had to come in the back door. It was very difficult to access this building, the seat of government for all British Columbians. So to suggest that we are beginning a journey…. We are enhancing that journey. We are building on the work that’s been done previously.

It’s about the removal of barriers. Think about the actual physical example of removing the barriers of access to this building. It’s a powerful image for me. I remember how emotional it was to think about, first of all, having been part of a government that made that promise, and then how difficult it was to make sure you could change the physical space. But it was important. It was the right thing to do. This legislation is the right thing to do as well. It’s about the removal of barriers that exclude British Columbians.

What I think is so important is that we shift our thinking from use of the word “disability” to the word “ability.” This is about including all British Columbians. It is a process. It’s about recognizing diversability. I think that gives us an unprecedented opportunity in this place and beyond to actually make a substantive difference.

I think one of the things we actually have to grapple with is that when we come to this chamber and we ask questions — you know, maybe not the question period kind of questions — in committee and throughout debate, that’s an important part of this process. It isn’t being critical of the fact that the government has brought a bill to this chamber. In fact, we’re here today to say we support and recognize the government for bringing the bill forward. But that doesn’t mean that by working together, we can’t make it better. That’s our job.

When you stop and think about the fact that nearly 25 percent of British Columbians over the age of 15 live with some form of disability, I’m thinking it’s probably a pretty critical piece of legislation. Yet so often, all of us, British Columbians more generally, fail to take into consideration the capability of nearly a quarter of the people who live in British Columbia.

I want to just stop and recognize for a moment the member for Surrey South, because her words today were very powerful when she provided a series of examples that spoke to the kinds of circumstances that I personally have never experienced. Think about even finding a parking space, or the story that my colleague shared, where people have to wait for a vehicle to leave so they can get out of their car. Taking your grandchild to a playground that perhaps they can’t even access. I want to say to the member for Surrey South, who, along with former MLAs Michelle Stilwell and Sam Sullivan, taught us so much…. We’ve learned some very difficult lessons.

When you have a caucus that is very diverse, we’ve learned that some communities do not have enough, for example, accessible hotel rooms. So when you’re planning to visit a community…. I can remember one specific example, where we were checking in to a particular facility for a meeting in a community. My then colleague Michelle Stillwell went to the counter and checked in, and the facility had no elevator. Her room was on the second floor.

[4:20 p.m.]

Now thankfully, it didn’t matter to me. I said: “I’ll take the room on the second floor, and she can have the ground floor room.” We’ve had to rethink. We have had, because of the incredible colleagues that have been a part of our caucus, to think about those things that, before, we probably would have taken very much for granted.

I think this is one of those situations where we know that there is agreement in this House, yet there are questions that need to be answered. I know that the minister will be engaging in that dialogue. He wants the bill to be the best it can be as well. That’s an important part of this process. It’s not partisan. It’s not for it or agin it. It’s about: how do we make it the best possible bill that it can be? We all want the same thing: we want to remove barriers that exclude British Columbians.

We do think this bill is a step in the right direction. Does it go as far as it could? Perhaps not. Those are the kinds of discussions we’re going to have. In fact, advocates have already spoken out about some of the issues they’re concerned about. I’ve heard the minister reflect on some of those today. So I look forward to that kind of discussion as we move into committee stage.

One of the questions and one of the things that’s been raised by leading advocates in our province…. Those who have been seeking greater accessibility for decades have concerns that this legislation is not as strong as it is in some other jurisdictions. I think all of us would agree we want B.C. to be a leader. We want them to be at the head of the line when we have legislation of this nature.

What I wanted to raise today was really an issue that has been brought to my attention on a number of occasions. The bill isn’t explicit about it, but I was really, really pleased to hear the minister reference, in his opening remarks, the concept of universal design, because that is so essential to the work that we’re going to do in the province in the days ahead.

We’ve heard others speak about champions in their lives, and I wanted to reflect on someone who has taught me so much, in my community, about the importance of universal design and thinking about what our communities look like. In fact, my colleague from Peace River North mentioned Measuring Up the North. That was an unbelievable project that involved the engagement of municipalities. Entire communities were engaged. It was absolutely fantastic. It was led in the north, over a series of years, to look at literally measuring how we were when it came to accessibility, how we functioned as communities.

I couldn’t let this debate go by without mentioning Nancy Harris, because Nancy is a champion like none other. She works with Spinal Cord Injury B.C., and she has done such a great deal of work to champion accessibility in Prince George and northern British Columbia. In fact, she’s even moved on to some other important initiatives that are provincewide.

Nancy is the regional development liaison for Spinal Cord Injury B.C. and has had a career spanning decades of important advocacy for increased accessibility for people with disabilities in our province. As I mentioned, she was instrumental in the program Measuring Up the North and the conception of a project called Access North, which has now been transformed to Access B.C.

I can tell you that the work that she and the organization are doing, including others from UNBC, in particular Dr. Mark Groulx, the UNBC associate professor in the School of Environmental Planning…. They have looked at the concept of using universal design. Where? In recreation, leisure, tourism, the built environment and community planning. What a difference it has made.

One of the questions that I hope we’re going to explore as we look at the bill is: what does the built environment include when it comes to the definition in this bill? Because accessibility isn’t just about being inside. It’s about being outside, as well, and looking at how all British Columbians have the ability to access parks and outdoor spaces.

[4:25 p.m.]

Outdoor recreation is an incredibly important component. I wanted to be sure that we reflected on the fact…. We want to be sure that outdoor recreation spaces are a distinct priority, particularly when it comes to standards and regulation development. We know that that has been acknowledged and is considered a component of the built environment. So I was very pleased, as I said, to hear the minister talk about universal design. I hope we can have a discussion about what it means for outdoor recreation spaces as well.

Let me give you just two examples of incredible spaces outside. Near Prince George, we have a trail called the Great-West Life Mobility Trail. It is designed for people with mobility challenges, whether that’s perhaps a person who is elderly and needs to use a walker or whether it’s someone who more permanently uses a wheelchair or some other mobility aid. It is designed for universal access, and it is a beautiful space. There is accessible parking. The trail itself is accessible. There’s an accessible washroom. There’s also the development, potentially, of an accessible campground. Think about the opportunity for people who have mobility challenges to enjoy that particular mobility trail.

Another example is Chun T’oh Whudujut, the Ancient Forest — as many of you know, something I’m very passionate about. We were so very pleased to see it designated as a provincial park, as an inland rainforest, in northern British Columbia — spectacular place. Hundreds and thousands of hours by volunteers have resulted in there being an accessible, universally accessible, boardwalk. I have been there when I have seen the joy and the exuberance of families who get to experience that remarkable place together as a family. So that is incredibly important.

The Access B.C. program…. Spinal Cord Injury B.C. is collaborating with the tourism sector, local government and academic partners to advance its work assessing the availability of outdoor tourism and recreation spaces across B.C. according to the best available standards. As you can imagine, that work is exceptional. In fact, you can go to the Access B.C. website, and you can take a virtual tour of campgrounds and places in British Columbia that would give families and individuals a sense of whether or not they can actually go and visit and have that opportunity.

The other important part of the work that’s being done is that the organization is actually employing persons with disabilities. They are being hired as new access and inclusion team members across B.C. That’s in northern B.C., Cariboo-Chilcotin, the Kootenay Rockies, Thompson-Okanagan, Vancouver Island. The many regional tourism partners, local governments, community stakeholders are being supported with resources, expertise and workshops. They are learning about the importance of access and inclusion, universal design and accessibility education, including the production of new online training modules.

There is some phenomenal work going on in British Columbia, which is why I speak about this bill, this piece of legislation, being part of a process. It’s not a starting point. There have been advocates who have spent their entire life, including some in this chamber — who, for many years, have worked to increase access.

Is there more work to be done? Absolutely there is. But we want to make sure that when we have a discussion about this act, we are looking at it from the perspective of: how can it be the best possible legislation that will make a difference in terms of increasing accessibility?

Timelines also matter. There has been a lot of discussion about how we create a more accessible British Columbia. We do know that there’s some anxiousness. People want this to move ahead fairly quickly.

[4:30 p.m.]

I know that it’s a long process. We’re going to have consultation, and that is an important feature. We also want to make sure that we’re not talking about this years from now. Those are important questions as we ascertain: what are the timelines? How is the consultation going to work?

The other thing that’s always worrisome…. I always enjoy this conversation, because I remember, when we were in government and the current government was in opposition, the thought of making regulation was raised in every piece of legislation, because that doesn’t take place here. That takes place elsewhere. What we want to make sure is that as those regulations are created….

I’ve heard very encouraging language today about the importance of consultation, inclusion and making sure that it is a thorough process, because the last possible thing we want is to pass a piece of legislation and then put regulations in place that people who have been advocating for change are unhappy with or they have not felt like they’re part of that process. Now, obviously, there has been extensive consultation, and certainly, the parliamentary secretary and the minister referenced that. Let’s make sure that in the creation of regulation, it is an inclusive process. The same applies when we look at implementation of the bill.

We also want to ensure that as standards are created, we are looking at how they align across jurisdictions. Whether it’s the federal government or municipal governments, there are already standards in place. You know, we had one of the members previously speak to sort of a patchwork. Well, we don’t want to be adding to a patchwork. It actually needs to be thoughtfully aligned with work that’s being done in other jurisdictions. That’s an important consideration as well — the timelines, the alignment with other jurisdictions, making sure there’s an inclusive consultation process.

I hope there will be some discussion at the committee stage about definitions and, in particular, something that I am very passionately interested in. That is the built environment as it applies to things like parks in our province, roadside stops. I know we did some work on making sure that those were more accessible. Will those kinds of things be considered? I’m very encouraged; I see the minister nodding in a positive way. I’m very happy to hear that.

I again want to recognize the government for bringing forward the legislation. I know that as the official opposition, we are encouraged by what we see. I certainly hope that the minister will take the opportunity to work closely with members, like the member for Surrey South, whose passion, hard work and insight I think would be most helpful. This bill is not about the time for small measures. It’s about a time for significant progress and bold action.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

Mr. Speaker, good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to bring some comments. We look forward to further discussion at committee stage and being part of moving this bill forward in a way that is bold and inclusive and that indeed breaks down some of those barriers that 25 percent of British Columbians face. Thank you for the time this afternoon.

M. Dykeman: Thank you for the opportunity to rise today and speak in favour of this bill and talk about some of the fantastic elements.

I’d like to start off by thanking the opposition leader and the MLA for Prince George–Valemount for her very enthusiastic support of this bill and her kind words on the government’s work and all of the other fantastic input that she provided through this and her well-thought-out comments.

[4:35 p.m.]

Although there are many who came before, putting work into improving accessibility within British Columbia, I would like to take a moment to thank and congratulate the Minister of Social Development and Poverty Reduction and, also, my close friend the Parliamentary Secretary for Accessibility for his hard work and for all of the consultation and thoughtfulness they put into bringing forward this important bill, which is committed to improving the lives of people living with disabilities. This legislation truly does mark the next step in building an inclusive province that works for all of us.

Listening to the previous speakers’ comments, one of the things is that this legislation does recognize the work that’s been done prior but also recognizes the important steps that need to take place moving forward — that there hasn’t been enough done and that there is more to do and that there needed to be a wider consultation. When I look at the backgrounder that was provided that talks about all of the various strong and important groups that work every day to improve accessibility in British Columbia, I’m really very moved by the comments that are in here and how many people were consulted.

We look at Chris McBride, executive director of Spinal Cord Injury B.C. and executive director of the B.C. Paraplegic Foundation, talking about the provincial government’s commitment to improving access, inclusion and full participation for all in communities throughout British Columbia.

Sarah McCrea, the executive director of the Prince George Brain Injured Group says that 1.5 million Canadians live with acquired brain injuries, which is close to 4 percent of the population. She goes on to say: “When we look at promoting accessibility and brain injury, the scope reaches beyond physical aids.” She says: “This legislation is a step forward to a world where people with brain injuries can not only live but thrive.” The list goes on and on and on, pages and pages of people who have been consulted, who have provided input and have offered up their support for this bill.

Accessibility truly means that all people can take part in their communities through work, play and other daily activities. Accessibility is important for everyone, especially for people with disabilities. In my community of Langley East, we have a lady by the name of Zosia Ettenberg, and she is the executive director of Langley Pos-Abilities. Zosia is an incredibly strong advocate for a more accessible world for all. She has headed up many programs, in addition to the advocacy work that’s done.

She also, within Langley Pos-Abilities, has a catalogue of equipment for people who can’t access the equipment that they need, the ability to have your equipment repaired and also a program called “Try On a Disability,” which promotes awareness, understanding and empathy for people who face barriers within their community.

When I think of the work that she has done and I look through this legislation, I see how this really will offer up more opportunities for people to have a more accessible community, something which people like those I spoke of earlier and Zosia Ettenberg have been advocates and proponents for, for a long time. To a be a truly inclusive province, we must integrate accessibility into all aspects of our lives so that people living with disabilities can fully participate in their communities.

This story is actually a little bit more personal. My daughter Mac, many years ago, broke her leg. Her leg was broken in such a way that she — I don’t know how she did it; it was broken in multiple spots — for several months was using a wheelchair to move around.

Although she hasn’t experienced a life of barriers, this short two- to three-month period really opened her eyes to just how inaccessible our communities are. She would be going to school, and there was no ability for her to use the washroom on her own. She had to have someone go to the washroom with her or else she couldn’t get out of the bathroom. There was no way. She’d just be there. The ramp that was built with the best intentions wasn’t built to a pitch that allowed her to go up. She would actually flip the wheelchair backwards if she didn’t have someone to push her up.

[4:40 p.m.]

In just hearing the two months of stories of someone with a broken leg, it’s impossible to imagine what it would be like to have a life filled with barriers, the inability to access the most basic things, like getting to your next class or going to the washroom or all the other things that we’ve heard about through this.

That’s what this Accessible British Columbia Act will allow for. It supports the identification and removal of barriers to accessibility and inclusion for people with disabilities, supporting the development of accessibility standards in areas like employment and the built environment, and delivery of services to ensure that all British Columbians can fully participate equally in their communities.

It’s guided by the principles of the UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities, “Nothing about us without us,” which, in addition to continuing, you can see in the information, the extensive consultation, that went in. Once again, I’d like to thank the minister and the Parliamentary Secretary for Accessibility for their hard work in ensuring that those that are the most affected are consulted and part of this process.

This legislation supports the development of new accessibility standards in areas like employment and delivery of services by removing and preventing those barriers. The work of the Parliamentary Secretary for Accessibility will ensure that this legislation is effective and well understood by advocates, businesses and the broader community.

When you speak to the parliamentary secretary, you see just how passionate he is about this. Having his own lived experiences, he really has the real strong understanding of the needs of the communities that need to be consulted with. Watching him speak about this — I had the opportunity recently to talk to him — you could see the passion and the conviction that he had in ensuring that this was done in a proper way.

Developing accessibility standards in close consultation with persons with disabilities, Indigenous Peoples and community stakeholders and also based on experience in other jurisdictions, it looks like it could take about two years to develop each standard. But I notice they’re committed to expediting standard development wherever possible. That thoughtful balance between taking the time to develop things in a way that will allow them to be properly implemented and understanding the urgency from these changes is something that I really appreciate about this process that the ministry has been undertaking.

With that, I know that there are many, many people who want to speak about this bill. I don’t want to take too much time, because I know how many people are passionate about this. I would just like, once again, to congratulate the minister and the parliamentary secretary on this important bill, allowing it to pave the way towards building a barrier-free British Columbia for the benefit of us all.

A. Olsen: Good afternoon. It is an honour to be able to speak to the Accessible British Columbia Act at second reading. This legislation creates a framework to create a more accessible and inclusive province. I think those are values that we all share in this Legislature, no matter where your place is in the chamber. These are goals that we’re all striving for, for British Columbia.

I share the sentiment of all of my colleagues that have spoken previously to Bill 6. I would like to echo the comments from my colleague from Surrey South. Today is a day that we should be raising our hands in gratitude for the opportunity to be debating this legislation and to celebrate the steps that, I think members from all parts of the chamber have noted, have been a long time in coming. Here we are today, being able to debate a piece of legislation that is going to create a safer, more equitable community and province for all British Columbians to be able to live in.

There’s no doubt that, as we go through this legislation, we’re going to have questions that we’re going to ask. But it’s very important to acknowledge, at this stage, that the B.C. Green caucus supports the efforts of this government, over the last number of years, and the governments over the last decades, who have been moving us towards the ability to have this discussion here today.

[4:45 p.m.]

As the minister has noted, and the ministry has noted in the briefing that we received, this is a process that’s an ongoing process. It’s not one that is going to have remarkable changes overnight, but that change is going to come over time. This is a multi-year project.

Indeed, I think it requires, actually, an ongoing effort, one that…. When you’re looking at dealing with barriers such as attitudes, practices, policies, information, communication, technologies and all of the intersections that are included in that discussion, this is, indeed, going to be a project that we have to continue to nurture as a chamber. Future parliaments, parliaments which likely many of us won’t be a part of, are going to continue this important work of destigmatization and removing the barriers and obstacles that have been unnecessarily put in the way of many, many British Columbians.

As has been highlighted, more than 925,000 British Columbians live with a disability that keeps them from the full and equal participation in their communities and in our province. That is equal to about one in four British Columbians over the age of 15.

I’ve met with many constituents who live with a disability. As an able-bodied person, I appreciate their advice and their willingness to share their experiences with me. I live a privileged life and will repeat here, on the record, a commitment that I made a couple of years ago to them to support the government in the development of this legislation. It was really important for them that they heard from me that I was going to be an advocate and supportive of this initiative.

I also want to raise my hands specifically to Charlene Froom, to David Willows and to Stephanie, who have all come in and advocated on their own behalf but, as well, on behalf of members of their family. I want them to know that their advocacy, to me, has had an impact on the way I view the work that I have in this chamber and the work that we have ahead to ensure that this legislation does, indeed, do what the intention of it is.

It’s also important to acknowledge that this bill was a priority of the former minister, as has been mentioned by previous members. Previous Minister Shane Simpson had this as a priority of his and was working on this legislation for the last number of years, prior to the election. I met several times with former Minister Simpson. I know that this was a passion of his to get this legislation passed. It’s, I think, only a bit of unfortunate timing — on the part of COVID-19 and some other things, of course, that have disrupted our lives so immeasurably — that former Minister Shane Simpson wasn’t able to bring this legislation in.

This is not to, obviously, cast aspersions on my colleague the now Minister of Social Development and Poverty Reduction. But it is important that we do acknowledge the fact that he and also the parliamentary secretary, who are working on this bill now, benefit from the work of their predecessor and that we lift up and elevate former Minister Simpson for his passion on making sure that this is part of the agenda that we’re dealing with today.

It’s important, also, that in this process we raise concerns that are being raised by others, namely that there’s no timeline for implementation, non-committal language and a lack of a complaint mechanism. In fact, we’ve all received — the members of this House — the notes from Disability Alliance B.C. I’m going to go into them a little bit further.

These are all questions that I look forward to asking the now minister, who has this legislation, so that we can get it on the record. I’m sure that my colleagues also will be asking questions about this in the committee stage. This is, of course, not to disrupt this process but to ensure that this legislation is, indeed, the best legislation that we have, going forward, and best serves all British Columbians.

[4:50 p.m.]

As I noted, this bill supports the identification, removal and prevention of barriers to ensure the full and equal participation in our society of persons with disabilities. It requires the government and other organizations to establish accessibility committees and develop accessibility plans by providing for the development and enactment of accessibility standards.

This bill applies to the provincial government and its organizations and prescribed class of organizations. Essentially, this is a bill that is addressing the provincial government as an institution.

I’m interested in how this bill will impact local government, as an example, and the powers that they have with respect to land use, building design and landscape features. This is just one example of the problem that I want to highlight here with enabling legislation, because as we look at Bill 6, there’s very little in it that is specific and little clarity on the specifics. As was mentioned previously, this is a situation where you have enabling legislation, where it comes down to: you pass the legislation and then put your trust in the minister and the ministry to get the regulatory process correct.

There’s very, very little input that we, as members in the opposition, have to be able to raise these issues, other than in this part of the debate, and just hope that the regulations that are developed once this bill has passed final reading and becomes an act…. We put our trust in the minister and the ministry, that they will follow through to ensure that the important things that are raised in this debate, that are raised by the advocacy groups, find their way into the regulations.

I’ve learned that the lack of consistency across re­gions…. For example, this was when I was talking about municipalities. We addressed this, and we heard the member for Surrey South raise this a number of months back with changes to the building code — questions about the lack of consistency from one municipality to another in how building codes are implemented and executed.

It just raised a concern from my constituents that having each municipality develop different approaches is really problematic. I think that that can be taken, as well, not just from municipality to municipality, community to community, but also recognized province to province. The legislation that was created at the federal level…. We need to be consistent with that legislation. We need not recreate the wheel but work in complement with it.

I just hope that in recognizing the challenges that many people who have disabilities face and the obstacles and barriers that are put in place with design, as one example that was raised by the Leader of the Official Opposition, that the effort that gets put into just going out for a day gets recognized and that we create consistency so that when someone lives in a place like the greater Victoria area, with 13 municipalities, that we ensure that this legislation that we’re creating today gives them a consistent experience as they move across municipal boundaries to do their regular business.

I’ve learned from one of my constituents who is in a wheelchair the type of effort that needs to go into going to a meeting, for instance, in a place where she’s not attended a meeting in the past, requires so much forethought and so much planning to find out, as has been pointed out previously, what is that building like, what is the location of the building, what is the geography of the building, what are the streets, where is the parking, where are the entrances. All of these things matter.

For an able-bodied person like me, I don’t think about those things. But it’s important that we recognize there’s an awful lot of effort that’s put into attending a meeting in a foreign place like this that oftentimes requires a trip the day before to go and case the situation out. If those parking spots are not available or are not designed properly or they’re being used, that can often mean that that important appointment that was made — a doctor’s appointment, as an example — has to be abandoned because my constituent, as one example, is not able to park their vehicle and get out of their vehicle and go about the business that they need to go about.

[4:55 p.m.]

It’s important that we understand that these barriers…. There’s no way that I can articulate them clearly, but that’s the important part of the work that needs to be done and why I recognize that a lot of this work does need to be done through regulation, because it’s going to be informed by people who have a completely different experience of the world than the way I’ve experienced it.

As well, I think it’s important to recognize that these are not just physical impairments, but also, there are other impairments that need to be considered. I recognize the constituents who have raised and advocated with me for policies that have been put in place that limit the ability for one person with a developmental disability — for example, the ability to marry without having the impact of that be on the income and the supports that are provided by the provincial government.

In the very initiative that we’re celebrating here today, the ministry that’s putting this forward also has policies that need to be reviewed and need to be changed in order to be able to ensure that all British Columbians can live and love in this province and not be held back based on antiquated policies. I really hope that the ministry and, in fact, all ministries take a look at those policies that they have in place, that have been in place for, in many cases, decades and ensure that they are not also obstacles and barriers to the full enjoyment of this beautiful province that we live in.

This bill creates definitions and establishes a framework. The work is really going to be happening in the implementation. It’s the diversity of disabilities and the need for a comprehensive response that requires that investment of time, as I was saying. On one hand, while it’s important that we recognize the importance for the full involvement of this chamber that we’re a part of in the development of legislation, it’s in this situation where I think it becomes very difficult to have all of the potential changes and regulations in place at this stage of it.

I understand that this bill is not the end product. The minister has stated that he’d like to see something by the end of 2022. I really think that it’s important and it’s critical that we recognize that just because there’s going to be an amount of time that’s going to pass between when this becomes an act and those regulations are in place, that timeline doesn’t need to be a long timeline, nor does it need to be stretched out.

As one of the advocacy groups, Disability Alliance B.C., has…. I say criticized but it has pointed out that one of the challenges that they have with the legislation as it is, is that there is no timeline right now for when this bill is going to be fully enacted and the regulations are going to be in place. It’s important at this stage of the debate to really, I think, put a marker down that we need to ensure that the work continues on this at the appropriate pace. It need not slow down unnecessarily and take years and decades before we see anything. We’re really, really hoping to see action on this sooner than later.

There have been a number of issues raised by a number of different advocacy groups. I think that it’s important that we do get on the record here, at this stage of the second reading debate, some of the specific things that have been raised so that when we raise them again during the committee stage of this debate, we can have a good discussion about them, and some of the concerns that may be out there could be satisfied by the minister’s answers.

It’s important, also, that Disability Alliance B.C. and others who have raised concerns know that they’ve been heard, because when you send an email to the general inbox, sometimes you don’t get a response to them. It’s important that by putting them on the record here today, those advocates know that they’ve been heard in this process.

[5:00 p.m.]

The six or so specific questions that have been raised by Disability Alliance B.C. are around the narrow definition of impairment, which excludes learning and communication; the lack of timelines to hold the government accountable in efficiently working to eliminate barriers; limited application, wherein prescribed organizations are not clearly stipulated; failure to include interactive communication within the list of standards; failure to refer to human rights and B.C.’s human rights code; and a weakened enforcement mechanism due to its lack of an individual complaints process. All were things that were raised to all of the members of this chamber.

Those are going to be areas that I think…. I actually believe that the minister is going to have some well-thought-out responses to those criticisms, and I’m certain that this is not the first time that he’s heard those. I think that this will give an opportunity to both acknowledge that we’ve heard the concerns that have been raised and that we’re attending to them as well.

As the member for Surrey South noted, the B.C. deaf accessibility caucus has raised two key recommendations and would like to see some changes. One, that the deaf community status is a cultural and linguistic minority and, as well, that there be guaranteed deaf representation on the provincial accessibility committee. These are all things that…. We’ve been contacted, and they’ve said: “Can you please advocate on our behalf, on these key points?” So I’m raising them here today, just so that we can have them on the record and then we could move forward in those discussions.

As I mentioned earlier — as I’m beginning to wrap up here — I think that it’s important that we ensure that this legislation be complementary to the laws that are in place and that regulations be complementary to the federal legislation and, as well, in alignment with other provincial legislations.

It’s important that we are pushing forward and leading in the province. While we are the largest province in the country to not have such legislation, this gives us an opportunity to not only align with our neighbours and our friends across the country, but as well, since we are going to be the latest province to do this work, we also have the opportunity to push the edges and to go further. That’s what I hope gets done in this legislative process as well as the regulatory process that is still to come.

I just want to raise my hands in gratitude for the minister, for the parliamentary secretary, to the former minister, to all of the staff in the ministry and, as well, all of my colleagues in the chamber for this constructive discussion about this important piece of legislation.

Unfortunately, it’s coming forward at a time when there’s so many other news stories that this hasn’t been, I think, brought out with the type of fanfare or the amount of fanfare that I think it deserves. I think that this is an important initiative — a critical initiative — of this provincial government and one that I think, when we look back in the decades to come, we’ll look back on and be proud of the work that we’re doing here today and over the next week or so.

With that, I’m going to take my place in this debate. I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak here today to Bill 6 at second reading. With that, I’ll take my seat.

HÍSW̱ḴE SIÁM. Thank you.

K. Paddon: I’m not even going to try to hide how excited I am to be rising virtually to speak about Accessible British Columbia Act.

This is a moment where I’m looking back, and I’m recognizing the place that I’m coming from, which is a place of privilege, a place with no lived experience of disability but where I’ve been fortunate enough to have a life filled with people who have taught me the perspectives and their experiences and shared with me their journeys, and where I’ve also been able to walk alongside them or help them with achieving goals or navigating barriers.

I’m very grateful for the privilege to even speak here. That privilege is only afforded to me thanks to the people of Chilliwack-Kent and those who trust me to carry their voices. I did have the opportunity over the weekend to speak with a lot of people, and one of the commitments that I made when I was elected was that I would carry voices. I hope I can do that today as I speak to this bill in a way that doesn’t speak over anybody, but I’m going to try to share some thoughts that were shared with me as well.

I do want to recognize — and I know that other members have — the fact of how far this bill comes from where we’ve been in the not-so-distant past, the fact that this bill is constructed in such a way as to fully acknowledge the social construct that is disability.

[5:05 p.m.]

We’re not far away from a past where disability was framed solely within a medical model, with a medical lens, where disability was located in the body, in the person, where at times the humanity and deservingness and ability to fully participate were fully questioned because of a supposed disorder with the individual. This bill takes us so far out of that.

I do believe words have power. Maybe it’s not totally apparent on the surface, immediately. But to have language that acknowledges what a barrier is, that a disability is not something inherent in a human being, that it’s an interaction between a barrier, which is constructed, and an impairment, which is a difference….

I do understand that there are conversations ongoing about the definition of “impairment.” I want to recognize that. I don’t think those conversations should ever end. But the way this is framed….

To frame a barrier as caused by the environment and attitudes and practices and policies…. Nowhere in there does it say that a barrier is a result of a person or an inadequacy. That is very far from where it was framed not so long ago. I am excited by that. I think that that takes us a long way. It puts, hopefully, a period on conversations that came before so that we can move forward into reality.

I think that one of the most important things, when I read this bill, in my opinion, is the definition around attitudinal barriers. Other members have spoken, with all the different kinds of barriers, with all the different things that contribute to barriers….

One of the things that I’ve been privileged to witness is that when attitudes change, the other barriers become more manageable to change. It’s attitudes that block acceptance. Of course we can change how something is built. Of course we can change how something is structured. Of course this system doesn’t work for everyone. So it’s not an acceptable system. It’s the attitude, which I’ve seen time and time again. When that evolves and when that changes, we do better, and we do better for each other.

The conversation around attitudes is one that I had with a few people this weekend. I’d like to share some of their thoughts. One person said to me: “I don’t need you to fix me. I need you to widen the door.” It was very simple, but it speaks to how the barrier isn’t with the person. The disability isn’t intrinsic to the person. It’s the structure. It’s literally the widening of a door — the fact that how wide a door was, was chosen at some point in time when averages were looked at.

I know that people who are interested in older building styles…. Sometimes ceilings were lower. Doors were more narrow. Hallways were more narrow. We wouldn’t see that in buildings now because people are not…. They can be taller, and maybe we’re wider as well. We like more space. So we’ve changed those. Our attitudes have changed, and what we expect has changed.

One of the things that I find so inspiring about this is…. Our attitudes can change. We’ve made an identity statement here, a statement that says: “This is how we see this, and this is what’s acceptable.” Now how we build can change, how we speak can change.

That leads into another conversation around language. I’ve had the privilege to speak about disability or diversability in the House before, and I’m grateful for that. The language that’s used, the words that are used to describe…. That is so attached to attitudes.

[5:10 p.m.]

Having a bill, this act, that acknowledges that a disability is a social construct means that it can be deconstructed.

I had someone, as well, say to me this weekend: “My disability is not the worst thing that’s happened to me.” They actually said: “It’s not even the worst thing that’s happened to me this week.” I laughed, and they laughed. It was said with humour.

They did explain to me that, for example, they work in a place where there are posters about work safety, which is critical. But the way that the work safety campaigns frame…. “This could happen to you. You could have a disability, and that would just be the end.” They said to me: “It’s not. It’s not the worst thing that’s happened in my day today, but attitudes are and created barriers are.”

That’s how this individual saw it. These are barriers created, sometimes with disregard and sometimes with neglect and sometimes because people don’t know better. I thought that…. That really brought home for me that attitudes changing is going to be a big key here.

Someone else said to me that words matter. They said: “So listen to my words, and don’t try to make me fit yours.” I think that that was really critical and part of why I said earlier that I’m glad that the conversation will be ongoing. I’m glad that the consultations will be ongoing. I’m glad that this is enabling legislation for regulations to follow that will be based on consultation and will be based on the words that are heard, not trying, in one fell swoop, to fix anything. We know, in this sector, in this area and this topic, fixing is not an appropriate approach. Listening and understanding and including and making sure everyone has access — that’s the approach that this act is taking.

I had somebody else say to me…. I thought this was very important. They said: “This is not altruism. Why would you think that you’re not on a path to where I am right now?” When I explored that further with this person, they explained: “You know, you’re getting older. Our goal, as we age, of course, is to be healthy and active as much as possible. But in reality, as we age, as life happens, as events in our lives happen, different abilities will change — physical abilities, cognitive abilities.”

This person was describing that we’re creating a system that will ultimately exclude us as we age. I hadn’t seen it that way before, so my attitude changed there as well. Not to discount in any way the lived experiences of people, but this individual has struggled with both physical and cognitive barriers and impairments. They were very clear that that’s not going to be unique as I age, as people around me age. The supports and the structures and the built environments that are necessary for continued access, in many people’s cases, or access right now, in many people’s cases — this is not unique. I really did appreciate that they framed it that way — that this is not some altruistic move. It’s something that should have been done the whole time.

Somebody else said, as we were talking, that nobody would care. I’ve heard other members talk about how this is not likely to get the news pickup that it deserves. It made me think: how can we explain why people should care? It went back to the previous statement about how this is not altruistic. This impacts everyone. Access impacts everyone. It reminded me of the different ways that barriers can be presented to people that are or are not defined as a disability.

[5:15 p.m.]

Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, in 2002, said that women in a sexist society are “physically handicapped. By nature of something that’s physically occurring, they do not have access, and they are not included.” This could be extended to things like ageism and racism. But this act defines the impairment, the disability and the barrier and identifies the causes in the environment, and attitudes, practices and policies, in a way that can’t be denied and can’t be argued. Through those lenses, we’re able to look at what has been constructed and make changes accordingly.

I am thrilled to be talking about attitudes instead of the disability of a person. I am thrilled that this act and the regulations to follow and the consultations to follow mean that, hopefully, we never have to correct that again.

I am very hopeful that the people involved in these conversations are the people who know, who are impacted and who understand where the barriers lie that other people may just be able to guess. I am very encouraged that the conversation will continue and the questions will be asked. I am looking forward to the committee stage. I am looking forward to the conversations that I know will come as the regulations are developed.

I also understand that this is not overnight. The one piece, for me and for some of the people I spoke to this weekend, that is overnight is that this clearly identifies that attitudes are barriers and that disability is not in a person.

So many of my colleagues have already spoken to the numbers. They’ve spoken to the statistics. They’ve commented with their own personal lived experiences or experiences of constituents that they’ve spoken with. I do just want to celebrate that, in this moment, as we wait for regulations and the consultation that will be needed, we can celebrate that we are putting, as British Columbians, a period on any conversation about where disability is located, other than in our society.

Deputy Speaker: Recognizing, on my list, the member for Skeena. I don’t see him right now. So I’m going to move on to the member for Nelson-Creston. He can have that opportunity later if he wishes to speak to it.

B. Anderson: First of all, I am very excited to be speaking in support of this incredibly important bill.

I think disability is something that any of us…. Each one of us, at any moment in our lives, could become part of that minority group. It takes an illness. It takes an accident. It takes aging. Our very lives as we know them today could be drastically changed.

I think that when we look at this legislation, what it’s doing is it’s not just supporting people with a disability but it’s ensuring that it impacts everyone in society. When we build to make sure that it’s inclusive, we are creating a more open society.

I’d like to tell a little story of the first experience I had sort of understanding disability. When I was in grade 2, we had some neighbours. They were in the process of building a house. I remember my mom specifically telling me that they were building this house — they were entering their retirement years — so that it would be wheelchair accessible. As an eight-year-old, I was curious because neither Bob nor Reik were in a wheelchair. I didn’t understand why they’d be building a house that was wheelchair accessible when they didn’t need a wheelchair.

[5:20 p.m.]

Before their house ended up being finished, Bob was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease. If you don’t know what Lou Gehrig’s disease does, it impacts your body. Your mind is as sharp as it ever was, but slowly — well, it can be actually quite quick — your body starts to change, and you start to lose the strength and the ability to control your body that you had previously. We went from seeing Bob as a healthy man to, within a few months, Bob in a wheelchair.

The fact that they had thought ahead and designed their home so that it would be wheelchair-accessible meant that, with the disability caused by the illness that Bob was experiencing, he was able to stay in his home and able to live in his home. The hallways were wide enough. The washrooms and the doorways were all accessible for Bob to be able to live out his days in that home. Bob was able to stay in his home. Just by thinking ahead and designing for accessibility, he was able to enjoy his home.

When I think about this legislation on a provincial scale, it means that we are going to, hopefully, get to a point one day where every street, every sidewalk, every building is accessible for every single person in our province. I think that that is a really important and beautiful thing. Accessibility is good for everyone, not just for people that are facing barriers. By making and designing a space that is more accessible — and not just spaces but also programs — it means it’s more inclusive for everyone.

When I was attending a conference in Kimberley, British Columbia, there was a brand-new building that was absolutely beautiful. You’d walk into the convention, and then you’d go down this ramp. It was neat because you could see down below where the reception area is, and everyone walked down the same ramp. At first, I was like: “Oh wow, this is really a beautifully designed space. It works well for everyone. No one is separated because of mobility issues. Everyone is able to walk down into that space together.” So if you’re beside someone that has mobility issues, you’re able to walk with them. There’s no separation. They don’t have to take an elevator while you take the stairs. They don’t have to take a separate ramp while you take the stairs. Instead, everyone experiences the space in the same way. I was commenting to someone about it, and they said: “Yeah, that’s because, actually, it wasn’t just a unique design feature; it was totally intentional.”

The Kimberley conference centre is also the Paralympic training centre, so it was designed in mind to be accessible for all people. There’s Braille on all of the signage. It is really designed to be an inclusive space. When I think about that space and think about those design features, I’m so glad to see that in this legislation, hopefully, we’re going to be thinking about all of our spaces and all of our services to make them as inclusive as possible. It ends up that it’s a design for all, which is better for everyone.

Like I said before, disability is the minority group. It takes a single moment…. Pat Henman, who is a local performer and author, wrote a book recently — she has also done a theatrical performance; you could purchase tickets and livestream it through the Capitol Theatre — on her experience after a car crash. What Pat experienced was that immediately, in an instant, her life was altered forever. Her healing process took a long time. She was in a wheelchair for a while. Recognizing that it wasn’t…. Her daughter was driving. It was not their fault. They were hit, in the day, by a drunk driver. Immediately, they were hurt, and their experience of the world drastically changed.

[5:25 p.m.]

I think that by creating these inclusive spaces and services for everyone, it means we’re all able to participate. I see — and I hope this is an appropriate comment to say — our ASL interpreter today, and he is speaking to the members of our deaf community. Now Nigel has become an icon. People are wanting to watch what is happening because of Nigel and because of these interpreters. It hasn’t just benefited the ASL community. I think it has really benefited everyone, and it has helped to bring inclusion into the Legislature, so I’m absolutely thrilled to see that we have ASL interpretation today.

We’re not just looking at the built environment but at those services. How can we make sure that the services we provide are accessible to everyone across the province? I’m so thrilled to see so much support for this bill. I think this really shows that we’re moving forward to be an inclusive province.

Something as simple as a sidewalk can be a barrier to someone with mobility issues. I was really happy when we were working on…. When I was in my former role as a councillor for the city of Nelson, we were talking about active transportation. One of the first things when you think of active transportation is often bikes, but also, it means designing a space so it’s good for people with mobility issues — you know, sidewalks, those bump downs.

We had someone that was speaking with our group and expressing how, as he moves — he has a mobility scooter to move around our community — he has to navigate the area. All of a sudden, he can be going from bump down to bump down. It’s an easy transition, but then that few inches when he hits that, he realizes that he’s not able to move forward and simply cross a road like the rest of us would. He has to then turn around and find an alternate route. Doing simple things, just like bump downs on our sidewalks, makes his lived experience much easier. But it also means someone with a stroller…. It’s easier for them, as well.

I think that when we’re looking at this legislation, we can really envision a society in British Columbia where everyone is included and we see that inclusion across the board.

I just want to thank the minister and the ministry for all of their very, very great work on this, and I want to thank the Speaker for giving me the opportunity to speak in strong favour of this bill today.

S. Chant: Thank you for the opportunity to speak absolutely and fulsomely in support of this bill. It is part of a huge amount of work that’s been done for so many years around making our society and our place so much more inclusive and accessible.

I have been fortunate that I have spent many, many years working with people who have disabilities, either through nature of birth, through, as the previous speaker remarked, an accident, through the aging process or through chronic illness. The impact of disability, whether it’s an immediate and acute event or a long-term piece of life, has an overwhelming lifelong piece for not only the individual themselves but for their families. So many of our families have been engaged as not necessarily care providers…. Not everybody needs a care provider, but they need an advocate sometimes.

[N. Letnick in the chair.]

[5:30 p.m.]

Sometimes they need someone who can go and scout somewhere out to see if it’s even available to them. You know, everybody’s going to the pub. Better go take a look at the pub and see if we can get in, see if the washrooms are accessible, make sure it works for this person. Is the seeing-eye dog going to be accepted?

A seeing-eye dog is always supposed to be accepted in any place that they go. However, as one of our previous speakers alluded to, the attitude toward somebody coming in with an animal, even when you see it’s a working dog…. It’s in a harness. It’s there to provide support. People get upset because it’s a dog. “It’s not supposed to be here.” No, it’s not. It is a part of that person. It is an accessory that is there to ensure that they can navigate safely and successfully.

I have a rather close experience within my household. My husband fixes, repairs, maintains, upgrades and does all sorts of wonderful things with equipment for people with disabilities. So one of the rooms in my house — actually, it’s getting to be two of the rooms in my house — has Braille printers, speaking machines, all sorts of things that are specialized and accommodated to the people that use them. These are communication tools that are vital.

Now, my husband is the only person on the western seaboard that actually fixes these things. In the event that he is unavailable, people go without their devices for a very long time sometimes, which is quite distressing to him and really distressing to the folks who use them. He has the opportunity, on many occasions, to go into environments that have been accommodated for a variety of reasons and to see, sometimes, the efforts that have been done with the right idea but with the wrong people at the table.

The fact that the minister and the parliamentary secretary have gone with the “Nothing about us without us” is huge. I have seen so many times where a whole bunch of able-bodied people are sitting around, saying, “Okay, how do we make this work?” without the people involved that it is needing to work for. Now what we’re saying is: “Okay. Stop that. Let’s do this a different way and start organizing ourselves so that we can include people right from the start, right from the get-go. Let’s make that happen.”

I have also had the opportunity to volunteer and work and play with a variety of folks that are working with disabilities. Recreation for our folks with disabilities can be a real challenge. I think that this bill is going to help there. Certainly, when the member of the opposition was speaking about access to our parks and our provincial assets — absolutely huge.

We have friends that came and visited from Great Britain, and they travel with their 21-year-old son, who has been in a wheelchair, well, since he should have been walking. They have a blast. They have so much fun. They travel the world. They go to all sorts of places. Here we were, and I’m showing them our wondrous parks. We’re up around Rice Lake. We’re up in Cypress Park, because the trails there are made so that we can move a wheelchair on them. There are many trails that you can’t do that on. However, a real big effort has been made to make things much more accessible so that the whole family can be included and our friends can be included, and we can do things in social groups with everybody involved.

The piece that our parliamentary secretary said about 25 percent of British Columbians apparently have some type of disability…. How come it’s taken this long to create something that says: “We’re all in this together”? Here we are now, finally, doing something that now says we must include everybody. We’re bringing forward legislation, which I’m so very pleased to be able to support, that says we will make sure everybody is included, and we will make sure that disability is a common part of our vernacular and ability — how to make it so that people are able to be involved.

[5:35 p.m.]

I’ve had the opportunity to talk to a lot of people in my constituency, and many of them have approached me around inclusiveness. One of the big areas of inclusiveness that has been really left out and that has become especially noticeable during COVID is that of vocation.

Now, I’ve worked with CLBC, which is Community Living British Columbia, as part of my health roles. CLBC does a spectacular job of….

Deputy Speaker: Excuse me.

S. Chant: My apologies, Mr. Speaker.

Deputy Speaker: No, no. Not your apologies. My apologies to you to interrupt you.

Members participating remotely, if you are going to speak on your phones, please turn off your cameras, according to Standing Order 17A(3). Please turn off your cameras. Thank you.

Again, my apologies. Proceed.

S. Chant: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate your attention to this detail.

Anyway, we’ve had the opportunity to…. Oh, CLBC, right. They’ve done a great job of including people in recreational stuff. They get folks out and swimming and off to social clubs and doing all sorts of social stuff. Vocational stuff has been very, very difficult.

They work hard. They try really hard to get people accommodated. They try to find workspaces. Where is the challenge? The challenge is in finding champions and finding workspaces that are willing to say: “Let’s make this work. How do we get folks into our workspace? What can they offer to us?” They can offer so many wondrous things if we make it work, if we work with them to create something that is functional for all of us. That is where we have noticed it really big-time this past year, because CLBC has not been able to provide the recreational outings and everything else that they have been providing up until now.

What we’re finding is that a lot of our folks that work with CLBC are now just sitting at home. That’s it. They’re not getting out for their recreation, and they didn’t have any vocational stuff to get out to. Now this will help us to start opening up that world even further, creating the spaces, the support, the infrastructure that is needed to ensure that a significant piece of our population is able to be integrated into the workplace.

One of my husband’s colleagues has been blind since he was…. I hope he doesn’t mind me using his story. I’m sure he won’t. He was a firefighter. He was a fire jumper. He had a bad jump, and he is blind, completely and fully. He works with folks on using computer equipment to translate, to work with, to be able to write and do all the things that they want to do. He is the technical support for many of these people.

When you hear Ryan talking on the phone and you hear his computer talking to him and him interpreting what his computer is…. It’s magic. It is absolute magic. And you know that I couldn’t do that. You know that most of us could not do that. However, he’s in a world where he now is a master, and not only is he a master, but he’s a mentor, and he is a support. He works with so many people. We’re not talking just in B.C. or in Canada. He talks with people throughout the world and supports them in the work that they do, in working with blindness and working with incorporating that into their world.

This bill speaks to that type of stuff. It speaks to fostering accessibility and inclusiveness, as opposed to making it a special project and making it something that we have to do on the side of our desk. It’s part of our work. It’s part of all of our work, and it’s certainly part of the government’s work.

[5:40 p.m.]

The other piece. I have a friend. His name is Peter. I worked with Peter awhile ago, and he’s part of my friends. Peter was kayaking in one of our wild and woolly rivers, and his kayak flipped. He had his helmet on. He had all his safety gear. He tried to reflip, but before he could reflip, his head hit rocks, and he broke his neck.

Peter still kayaks. Peter still bicycles. Peter still skis. Peter works at all of those things. Again, he’s one of these folks that has made it so he can do it, and now he’s trying to make it so others can do it. That is also a very special part of this — that we need to make it so that now things are the norm, which is a terrible word to use.

Why is it a terrible word? If I see a skier who is sitting on a seat and skiing, I look at it and go: “Holy crow, how does he do that?” But I only see one, maybe two. I don’t see it and go: “Oh, there’s Joe skiing down the slope.” I go: “Oh wow, look at that individual doing that special thing.” My attitude needs to change. I need to be able to look at that person and go: “Wow, look at that great skier.” There’s a difference there. We need to foster that difference and make it our reality, make it our world’s reality.

We did a terrific job in 2010. I got to be a volunteer at the Olympics. It was so much fun. But in 2010, when we sponsored the Paralympics, we did stuff that no other Olympic villages and no other Olympics had ever done before. That was a great thing. That was a great start. However, what happened was we lost that momentum. We did it for the Olympics, and we made it all inclusive for these great athletes coming from all over the world. However, our own folks who needed that support too still needed that support. We know that we can do it. Now what we have to do is make it part of the norm.

I love the description that Brittny used of the convention centre in Nelson that anybody can go into and get anywhere. It doesn’t matter if you’re walking. It doesn’t matter if you’re on a…. Have you seen those scooter things that you can use now if you break your leg? Way better than crutches. They are still a challenge. Have you ever tried to go anywhere upstairs and downstairs on crutches? Yeah, it’s hard. It hurts. Hurts even more when you fall. These things all happen if nobody has thought about accessibility.

In our schools, some of our schools have two storeys to them. Are we able to get up to the second storey if we don’t walk? At some of our schools, some of the new ones, yep. At some of the older ones, no. Kids have had to change schools because they couldn’t access the second floor, and they couldn’t get to everything they needed to get to.

People in a power chair…. Power chairs are a marvelous thing if they cooperate. If you’re stuck in a power chair, you need help. How do we get that help? Well, it is a major undertaking. A power chair is a lot of weight. It’s a lot of weight all by itself. Then you have the weight of the person in it.

If it just stops in your community, it’s very difficult to get it going again. If it stops because it’s trying to get up a ramp that is too steep, or it’s trying to get over a curb that it can’t make happen, then that person can’t go anywhere without help. How do we, how does everybody, feel about having to ask for help, especially when maybe there’s a whole bunch of us that couldn’t have helped in that circumstance?

People need to be able to do things independently. It makes me crazy. My door of my new office doesn’t open automatically. I looked at it and said: “Well, you know, we need to get this fixed.” Somebody said to me: “That’s okay. We can open the door for them.” No. People need to be able do stuff on their own. They need to not have somebody accompanying them all the time, to wheel them, to open their doors, to push the elevator button — whatever. Independence is critical to all of us.

[5:45 p.m.]

This bill — Accessible B.C., Bill 6 — speaks to that. Yes, at the moment, it’s the beginning. Absolutely. There are so many places that this could apply in time, but you’ve got to start somewhere. At the moment, where do we have the capacity to start? The places that are within our jurisdiction. So let’s start with the government places. We can work there. Let’s get them sorted out. Let’s get all of our ministries talking together on how we implement Accessible B.C. right across that stuff. Then we can start moving out, and, if we’re really lucky, we can do this in parallel.

We know our municipalities are trying hard. We know there are many, many non-profit organizations out there that are working very hard on behalf of our people with disabilities so that they can make things accessible, so that they can make things inclusive. We know all that work is happening. What we’ve got to do is pull it together and knit it into something that says: “This is a fabric of our society that is important to us and that we believe in and we can make work.” Because we will, and we can.

Resources are needed. Absolutely. People are needed. Absolutely. Thinking is needed. Again: “Nothing about us without us.” Why wouldn’t we? That is an international standard. British Columbia is going and meeting an international standard.

We will have, of course, committees. Those committees will be involving folks that need to be involved, who have to have their voice at the table. We can’t be building something for people without including them in the discussion.

How many times, as a nurse, have I seen us fitting people to things instead of fitting things to people? There’s a real, significant difference there. If we say to somebody: “Gee, we’ve measured you up, we’ve fitted you out, we’ve figured out what we want, we’ve got all the clinicians sorted out. We’ve got them with what you need.” Let’s say a prosthetic device. “We’ve got it all sorted out. This is what you need, this is how it works, etc.” The person is involved, it works, it fits, etc. We’re going to order it. And somebody comes back and says: “Sorry, that one’s not available. We’ll give you this one instead. Make it work.”

No. Not good enough. That’s the kind of thing we need to get beyond. We need to be working with people and working forward with people to incorporate everybody.

When will we get this done? It’ll get done. Okay? Things have to have the opportunity to be worked through. If we try and jam something through, invariably something gets missed, or we do something that has a ripple effect down the line that nobody had counted on or thought about. We want to be mindful, and we want to be thoughtful about how we do business.

There’s a lot of information out there. A lot of information has already been collated in the creating of this bill. As we go through it, more information will come up, because that’s what debate is about. That’s what discussion is about. We look at things, and we go: “Well, what about this, or what about that?” Excellent, but we have to move forward. We don’t stop because of that stuff. We flex. We work together.

I’m really very, very grateful to hear the members of the opposition also being ultimately in support of this bill. It is fabulous that we’ve got this great opportunity to collaborate together on creating something for all of British Columbia that is applicable right across the board — all our ridings, all our constituencies.

One of the other things that hasn’t, I don’t think, been spoken about, although it might be, is our engagement with our Indigenous groups. Again, the representation of Indigenous groups has to be at the table. Many times I’ve seen us trying to create something without the appropriate spokespeople at the table. The cultural way of supporting and helping people has to be included and understood and worked with.

[5:50 p.m.]

We have got our Indigenous partners involved in the putting together of this bill and in how it’s going to be implemented going forward. Our Indigenous leadership and organizations have been involved in the development of the legislation and will be absolutely involved in the implementing and the review and the tweaking.

Everything, as it rolls out…. We need to look at it and say: “Oh, okay. This didn’t quite go the way we were supposed to. Hang on a sec. Let’s bring it back. Let’s look at it. Okay, let’s try this instead.”

These are the things we need to do with everything. This is how we work together. This is how we implement stuff. This is how we bring everybody to the table. This is how we are inclusive. Inclusivity is a key part of this. We need to help people be involved.

I had spoken — yeah, probably two months ago, maybe even longer — to a mother who has two, count them, two autistic sons. They’re, I think, 23 and 27. Since COVID started, they’ve been sitting at home. They don’t have a job to go to. They can’t do their recreational stuff. They can’t transport themselves. Therefore, they’re bus people. But they can’t manage masks, so when they try to get on the bus and they don’t have a mask on, they’re not allowed.

If they are going to do anything, mom or dad has to do it with them to explain what’s going on, or maybe, if they’re fortunate…. They do have a care provider that works some time with them. If that provider is able to do whatever the activity is, they can go too. These kids are really, really bright. You get them in the arena that they are strong in, and they are amazing. However, they can’t cope with the ongoing stimulation from the world that comes in when they’re in the public environment.

There are places that these kids would be able to work really, really well. However, those places still need to be found and that support needs to be in place to integrate them into it, and that has not been available to those kids.

There are so many like them — not just autism. We’re talking people with a whole variety of things that don’t get the support at this time to be part of and inclusive in our society in the way that the rest of us measure ourselves, whether it’s by the paycheque, whether it’s by the fulfillment of doing a job that makes sense to us and is meaningful to us, whether it’s the fulfilment of getting out of the house and doing something else and coming home at the end of the day, or whether it’s being able to say: “I do this. This is how I identify myself.”

For many, many people, that is not accessible to them. This Legislature will help us to get more of those folks into a place where they feel much more part and are much more a part of our communities and our society.

This bill is very important to all of us. All the speakers that have been speaking this afternoon are all, obviously, in support. I think that it has a very broad scope, and it holds a lot of work. There is going to be a lot of work involved with this and getting it in place and making sure that it is understood and it is followed, which means all of us have to be guardians of it.

We all have to be champions of it. Take it forward to our communities. Help our communities swallow it and work with it and progress with it. Take it onboard and use it effectively to allow all of the people of British Columbia to be a part of British Columbia, whether it’s vocationally, whether it’s recreationally, whether it’s through communication and transportation or health or being able to get to the pub. It doesn’t matter. It needs to be accessible. It needs to be inclusive.

When we see something that is a barrier, we need to speak to it. When somebody says something to us about something that’s a barrier, we need to hear it and we need to take it forward — not dismiss it.

[5:55 p.m.]

This is a group of people. They are as entitled as anybody else to be part of our society. It has been clear for many years. The stories are horrific. There are some terrible, terrible stories of people who have been dealing with disabilities either throughout their life or as an adult. It’s really challenging, sometimes, when a person becomes disabled as an adult, because they know the before, and they know the after. They are so angry sometimes — so very angry — because they see, and they know, it can be different. However, sometimes it isn’t.

The other thing that I don’t think has been spoken to is that often it is a lot easier if you have money, if you have funds to get that ramp built, to alter that kitchen so that you can reach everything and get to everything, so that you can build that house that works for you, so that you can buy that van that you can steer in a different fashion and work with in a different fashion, so that you can hire that person to do something for you. Money is a critical piece of this, and often it’s not there, either.

We really see that, particularly, with our seniors. Some of our seniors become disabled through aging, either cognitively disabled or physically disabled. They have a terrible time, perhaps on a fixed income, accommodating or mitigating what’s happened to them. It’s amazing, the difference that having money or not having money makes. A lot of our population is in a place where they don’t have as much money. Again, our accessibility…. Our Minister of Poverty Reduction has brought forward something that says: “Let’s make this better. Let’s make this better for all of us.”

I appreciate the opportunity to speak to this group. I hope that it has added something to our conversation this afternoon. Again, I will stress that accessible B.C., Bill 6, is something that I support and something that all of my colleagues support.

Deputy Speaker: Just a reminder that stemming from Standing Order 36, we don’t use people’s names in the House, just their ridings.

Interjection.

Deputy Speaker: That would be great. Thank you.

Seeing no further members wishing to participate in the debate, I recognize the Minister of Social Development and Poverty Reduction to close the debate.

Hon. N. Simons: I’d just like to start by thanking all my colleagues from all sides of the House, who have spoken very eloquently about the importance of this legislation. They mentioned situations in their lives where they’ve observed the need for this type of legislation. They’ve mentioned some concerns about some aspects of the legislation as well, which I’m proud to say is, I think, the best legislation that we could come up with.

I am very appreciative of the previous minister, who got the ball rolling on this — actually, who kept the ball rolling. I’d like to also, again, acknowledge the advocates and supporters and allies and communities where barriers have been noted and efforts have been made to remove them. We’re going to continue to do that. We’re going to put all our efforts into ensuring that the legislation meets the objectives that the province has set.

It’s going to be a lot of work. This is one part of it. This necessary step to pass legislation, to put the structure in place, I think, will guide the discussions well as we continue.

The number of comments from my colleagues has been reassuring. The tone of the comments has been very welcome. I expect questions to be good and forceful. I expect the answers to be even better, surprisingly enough. I look forward to the committee.

I just want to say that we talk about the people who might have given us an understanding of barriers in society. We’ve thought about people in our lives who may have experienced bigger challenges than maybe we’ve faced ourselves. It’s in consideration of those whose lives have been restrained by barriers that have been in place, whether they’re attitudinal or physical.

[6:00 p.m.]

I think of those individuals mentioned by my colleagues. When I think about people in our communities, I think about advocates like Geraldine Braak, in Powell River, and the model community project, where efforts were made and successfully achieved in reducing physical barriers. I think of the late Ellen Frank, who wrote a book called Sticks and Wheels, a guide to accessibility on the Sunshine Coast. Every time somebody raised an issue, it brought greater understanding of the challenges that people in our society face and a greater emphasis on the importance of reducing them.

I also think about the Special Olympics participants who I meet with on a fairly regular basis and the role that they play in bringing the issues to communities. I think they’re wonderful spokespeople for individuals with diverse abilities in the community living sector. I think their example gives us all even more reason to make every effort to address attitudinal barriers in our society and to ensure that the opportunity is available for all people to participate as fully in our lives, in the life of society, as possible.

I think of Bonnie Klein, a constituent of mine. She’s a film-maker and an activist who has produced a number of films, including ones on disability.

I just want to acknowledge those voices in this ongoing effort to make things better.

Just to end, my mother was a teacher of the deaf. Her mother was a teacher of the deaf, going back to the previous century.

Having been exposed to some awareness of the barriers in life I think helps to carry us and helps to inform all of us, as we pursue this important work. I think of all the advocates, including the allies and the friends.

I want to close by reading a little excerpt from the Globe and Mail. My cousin wrote about my niece, who was born with Moyamoya, a rare disease causing the narrowing of major arteries to the brain.

“This led to several strokes before she was two months old, which left her completely dependent for all her daily needs.

“If quality of life, however, is defined by the joy one gets from living, Charlotte’s was incomparably high. Aided by the unwavering determination of her parents, brother and sister, Charlotte experienced as much in her 24 years as many people do in a much longer lifetime. She travelled, went to summer camp, swam, cycled, tobogganed and participated in adapted downhill and water-skiing.

“During her final stay in hospital, one of the many dedicated nurses who cared for her over the years looked at a photo montage pasted on the wall and remarked: ‘My Lord, she’s done more than I have.’”

When I speak of my niece, I think of parents, advocates, siblings, family members and friends. I recognize that this legislation we’re talking about is an important but measured step towards making life better for everyone. I think of the fact that it has the potential to actually improve the lives of all of us as British Columbians.

With that, I move second reading.

Motion approved.

[6:05 p.m.]

Hon. N. Simons: I move that the bill be committed to a Committee of the Whole House to be considered at the next sitting of the House after today.

Bill 6, Accessible British Columbia Act, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. D. Eby: I call second reading, Bill 2, the Public Interest Disclosure Amendment Act, 2021.

BILL 2 — PUBLIC INTEREST DISCLOSURE
AMENDMENT ACT, 2021

Hon. D. Eby: I move that the bill be now read a second time.

This bill makes several amendments to the Public Interest Disclosure Act, or PIDA, which is British Columbia’s public sector whistle-blower protection legislation. PIDA is designed to encourage employees to report serious wrongdoing by protecting them from reprisals associated with reporting, seeking advice or participating in an investigation.

PIDA was brought into force on December 1, 2019, and currently applies to government ministries and independent offices of the Legislature. Government is publicly committed to expand PIDA’s scope of coverage to apply to other organizations in the broader public sector by 2024, such as schools, universities, Crown corporations and health authorities. Built on lessons learned over the first year and a half of PIDA’s implementation, the amendments in this bill are designed to support that expansion effort.

First, the bill makes clarifications to existing provisions to ensure clear and consistent interpretations. This will be important as the act is rolled out to a wide variety of public sector organizations, which will each need to read and interpret the act to implement it.

Second, the bill makes changes to streamline the notice and reporting provisions in the act. For example, amendments ensure that notices and reports from the Ombudsperson are sent to the individual within each organization who has ultimate responsibility for implementing recommendations.

Third, the bill creates better alignment between PIDA and certain provisions of the Ombudsperson Act that apply to the Ombudsperson’s functions under PIDA.

Next, the bill expands certain legal protections under PIDA. For example, extending the limitation period for prosecuting the offence of reprisal from six months to two years enhances the ability to prosecute such offences and makes the protection from reprisals more meaningful for employees.

Finally, the bill contains a number of housekeeping amendments, such as amending cross-references and other minor changes that do not affect policy. I look forward to further discussion on these important amendments.

M. de Jong: Thanks, with respect to Bill 2 and to the Attorney for his comments. I’m obliged to his officials and his staff for facilitating a briefing a week or two ago.

My comments won’t be lengthy. As we’ve just heard, the act, it’s probably fair to say, it’s still in its infancy, having been brought into force about a year and a half ago, or almost exactly a year and a half ago. The Attorney may be interested to know, therefore, and probably suspects, from the conversation he had with his staff, that the areas we’ll be looking to explore when the bill moves to committee stage relate to some of what may have been learned in that intervening period.

The principle upon which the act is based, the Public Interest Disclosure Act, is one that received broad support, I think, at the time of its introduction. I’m not aware of circumstances having occurred that would lead one to reconsider that general support for the principle.

This may be an opportunity — or it is, I would suggest, an opportunity — for the Attorney to, at committee stage, enlighten the House on what has been learned with respect to the interaction between an individual and an employee and a designated officer, a discloser and some of the processes around disclosure, all of which is touched upon by this act with definition amendments.

It will be interesting for us to hear from the Attorney in what cases those are adjustments, changes in definition, that relate to further analysis and in what cases they stem from experiences around use of the act by employees in these early days.

[6:10 p.m.]

To the extent that the Attorney is able to provide additional advice to the House about the general use of the act — and we may do that, with his cooperation, early in the committee stage — he may be in a position to offer the House advice about the use that has been made by employees of this legislation, and how many, if any, of the matters that have been raised pursuant to this act have led to an investigation by the Ombudsperson. Those are general matters that — since the legislation, in its early days, is now before the House for fine-tuning — I hope the Attorney will be in a position to provide some advice to members around, at the committee stage.

Similarly, on the decision to alter the period for launching of an investigation, I posed questions to the staff and received some answers, but it’s probably worthwhile for the Attorney to provide those answers on the record, in his capacity as a member of the executive council, as to whether or not those are changes that have been made upon further reflection, or whether they are indeed the product of difficulties that have arisen in the first year and a half of the operation of the act.

That will probably form a theme, with respect to the questions I pose to the Attorney, at committee stage: to what extent the changes that we see here are the product of experiences, or relate to the intentions the Attorney General has expressed for further expansion of application of the act, and at what pace we might see that expansion take place in the months and year ahead.

Those are my brief comments at second reading. As always, I look forward to the further consideration of the bill at the committee stage. Hopefully, my comments have been helpful to the Attorney to prepare for that debate.

S. Furstenau: Thank you, hon. Speaker, for the opportunity to speak to Bill 2 today, the Public Interest Disclosure Amendment Act. The original legislation is important to the well-being, transparency and accountability of our institutions, and I’m happy to see it maintained.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

This original legislation came from the case of wrongful dismissal of seven health care researchers and the tragic death of one of the employees involved. From this event came the Misfire report in 2017. This report set out numerous recommendations, including the need for public interest disclosure legislation, which was passed in the House the following year.

The amendments in this bill to that legislation include the addition of necessary definitions that will provide further clarity to the act overall. The time frame for beginning the prosecution of an offence will be extended from six months to two years. This is an important acknowledgment of the time it takes to undergo investigations. However, while the original legislation and the amendments being tabled in this bill are important, gaps remain that must still be addressed. That’s what I’ll be speaking to.

This legislation applies only to current and former employees of British Columbia’s government ministries and independent officers, but this must be expanded. I’ll note that the minister mentioned that there are intentions to expand this by 2024. However, I wonder — and we’ll ask this at committee stage — why it would take so long. The lessons from the Misfire report should not be forgotten, and the landscape of our health care system has changed remarkably since then.

The COVID-19 pandemic has continued to identify the reality that health care workers in B.C. are not able to speak freely. Reporters have highlighted how many doctors and nurses fear repercussions for speaking openly about the reality of the pandemic and hospital conditions. I would suggest that we owe it to our front-line health care workers to protect them against reprisal for doing what is right and speaking up.

[6:15 p.m.]

While the pandemic has highlighted the need for transparency, it’s not the only issue that has. In November of last year, we received the In Plain Sight report examining Indigenous-specific racism and discrimination in health care. The review, completed by Dr. Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, not only found evidence of persistent systemic racism against Indigenous patients and staff but also concluded that employees not being willing to speak up is among the main reasons racism persists in our health care system.

I recognize wholeheartedly the need for privacy, especially when it comes to matters as personal as health care, but the reality is that when there are systemic issues like we’ve seen with racism and COVID-19, we need health care workers to know that they can speak up without fear of reprisal. These are the individuals who see what needs addressing from the inside of our health care system, and we need to be able to hear what they have to say.

Recommendation 11 of the In Plain Sight report stated that the government must continue efforts to strengthen speak-up culture throughout the entire health care system by applying the Public Interest Disclosure Act to employees throughout the health care sector without further delay.

As explained in the report, a speak-up culture should apply to all aspects of the health care system, especially when we consider that most of the incidents that occur in this field are happening on the health authorities’ front lines. It is in the public interest to encourage those who witness the most abuses to speak up. But to do so, we have to ensure that they are protected. Government should be leading the way in demonstrating that this kind of culture is fostered in all levels of our health care system.

In June of last year, the Minister of Health commented that he thinks there will certainly be protection for whistleblowers following the investigations into the allegations of racism in health care. But the patchwork system of protection remains for those in areas still not covered, and patchwork solutions are not sustainable.

Taking all of this into consideration, I wonder why we are not taking this opportunity to extend coverage to health care workers, especially considering that we have already been reminded multiple times how much this is needed since the legislation was first brought into force.

What are the barriers that are preventing us in British Columbia from making these changes? Not only was it made clear in the In Plain Sight report that extending coverage to health care workers must happen urgently, but Dr. Turpel-Lafond has stated that this extension can be done quite quickly.

When the Public Interest Disclosure Act was first created, it was modelled after Manitoba’s whistleblower protection legislation, but in Manitoba, the reach is much further. Hundreds of public bodies fall under this type of protection, including hospitals, residential care facilities and other medical facilities.

What prevents us from following the same model here? We are seeing over and over again how much this matters, particularly in the events of the last few days, where we’ve had somebody release data to the public that wasn’t being shared, related to COVID-19.

We need to strive for a greater level of transparency and accountability for all, but right now, we can see that this is particularly true in health care. People feel unsafe speaking up when it is needed the most, which makes it clear to me that we have work to do to address this, and I’m concerned that this is not being taken into account right now.

This bill amends the Public Interest Disclosure Act to ensure consistency in the interpretation of key definitions and clarify statutory roles. The government has stated these amendments support the future expansion of the act, but I believe that time is of the essence. I’m supportive of this bill, its initial intentions and the changes that the original act has brought to our institutions so far. I look forward to continuing to discuss this in committee and hope that this can be an opportunity to examine, in this moment, the need for extended coverage and protection to those who have been and continue to be left behind by this legislation.

Mr. Speaker: Seeing no further speakers to participate in the debate, I recognize the Attorney General to close the debate.

Hon. D. Eby: Thank you very much, hon. Speaker. I’m glad to hear words of support, certainly with caveats, from both the Third Party and from the opposition. I look forward to answering questions as best I can and look forward to expanding the application of this act to many different sectors. This is important work that needs to be done before it’s expanded.

With that, I move second reading of the bill.

Motion approved.

[6:20 p.m.]

Hon. D. Eby: I move that the bill be committed to a Committee of the Whole House to be considered at the next sitting of the House after today.

Bill 2, Public Interest Disclosure Amendment Act, 2021, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. D. Eby: I call continued second reading of Bill 5, the InBC Investment Corp. Act.

BILL 5 — InBC INVESTMENT CORP. ACT

(continued)

M. Dykeman: Thank you for the opportunity to rise in the House today to speak to Bill 5, the InBC Investment Corp. Act. InBC is an exciting new $500 million strategic investment fund, and I would like to express my thanks to the Minister of Jobs, Economic Recovery and Innovation for his work on this and congratulate him on bringing forward this very exciting initiative.

Recalling the end of debate the week prior, when we were here, and thinking a little bit about some of the member opposite’s comments, listening to it…. It was quite fascinating, as I reflect on that debate. As a business owner myself, even having written a few paycheques, I’m thrilled to support this bill, this forward-looking bill.

One of the things that was quite perplexing about the last debate was…. I’m not really sure if anyone here has actually seen the Hunger Games, but either way, I do understand the job of the opposition and recognize their important role. Actually, to quote the Hunger Games myself: “Your job is to be a distraction, so people forget what the real problems are.” Not really any different than many of the years of government, which has made for a smooth transition to opposition.

This is one of the tools that our government is using to build a strong foundation, a strong economic recovery and a bright future for British Columbia, through this fund. It’s important to recognize that this fund will allow for critical capital to be provided to British Columbia–based companies so that they can grow and stay in this province.

The fund will also invest in B.C.-based businesses that create family-supporting jobs in all regions of the prov­ince. InBC will support start-ups and help promising B.C. businesses scale up and attract world-class talent to our province. It also will stimulate innovation, create family-supporting jobs and build a resilient economy that works for everyone.

Investments made by InBC will have a triple-bottom-line mandate and will focus on producing a financial return while also making British Columbia a better place for people, communities and businesses to thrive. In other words, InBC investments consider people, the planet and the province.

InBC will combine both public and private enterprise and pursue economic development through meaningful partnerships with entrepreneurs, businesses and communities, allowing our province to align, recognizing significant changes in the world like environmental changes, social changes, technological changes and, most importantly, reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples.

I was quite shocked to see the members opposite saying that we, as a government, were not supporting businesses now and that we were busy planning post-pandemic. This train of thought goes against any logical governance principle. It’s completely nonsensical. It makes me think of this 18th century expression: “To blather like a bubbly-jock,” meaning to talk rubbish. Some farm trivia for you, hon. Speaker. A bubbly-jock is actually an old nickname for a male turkey.

To hear the opposition talk about wages being too low is also mind boggling. Historically, this is not something that has been on the opposition’s radar at all. So to hear comments about winners and losers is nearly laughable. It’s not only laughable because it’s not a funny situation. This pandemic has highlighted inequality, and the recognition our government has for the need to address this is something that makes me so proud to stand here and support something like this bill. These are real people. Businesses and families are relying on a government that governs for all.

[6:25 p.m.]

The contradictions are glaring. Often, in one sentence, you’ll hear, “Do not spend money,” and: “Wait, you’re not spending enough money. You need to spend more money.”

Noting the hour, hon. Speaker, I would like to reserve my opportunity to continue my speech on this bill and move adjournment of debate.

M. Dykeman moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Committee of Supply (Section A), having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.

Hon. M. Rankin moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

Mr. Speaker: This House stands adjourned until 10 a.m. tomorrow.

The House adjourned at 6:26 p.m.