Presentation to the Standing Committee on Social Policy: Re Bill 152

ALLIANCE FOR EQUALITY OF BLIND CANADIANS

The Chair (Mr. Shafiq Qaadri): I would now invite our next presenter, Mr. Rae, first vice-president of the Alliance for Equality of Blind Canadians. If you could please be seated. Welcome, Mr. Rae, and your time begins now.

Mr. John Rae: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. The Alliance for Equality of Blind Canadians greatly appreciates the opportunity to appear before you this afternoon to talk about Bill 152.

The AEBC is an organization of rights holders who are blind, deaf-blind and partially sighted. Our work focuses primarily on public awareness in an effort to change the climate of attitudes towards people who are blind, deaf-blind and partially sighted and offering comment on issues of public policy that are important to our community. Clearly the fight against poverty is one such issue.

I want to begin by commending the government for introducing Bill 152 and for enshrining a fight against poverty in legislation. This is new in this province, and the government deserves to be commended for going this far. But we must go much, much further. Since the very beginning this afternoon, you have heard presentation after presentation by deputants who have called for a variety of amendments to Bill 152. There has been an amazing unanimity on the part of these various deputants, and we want to support those recommendations as well.

In particular, you have heard how disappointed the disabled community was over the government's poverty reduction strategy because of its focus on children. For our community, many persons with disabilities do not have children. Many people become disabled later in life. Those individuals may have had children or may not have. Many of those children have left the nest. Unless I miss my guess, unless things have dramatically changed today since I left home, most children live as part of families. So we seek a more holistic approach.

We also support the notion of changing the thrust of poverty reduction to poverty eradication or developing a poverty-free province. If we don't do this, the bill sets us up to fail. In a province like this, if poverty reduction is the best we can hope for, if that's as much as you're going to put in legislation, haven't you failed before we start? That's not what Ontario is like, I don't think.

We also call upon a clear, understandable and transparent process of review. Part of that must involve tabling all reports before the Legislature. That will give the citizens of this province an opportunity to judge what progress has been and is being made. It will also remind all members of the Legislature what progress has been and is being made so you, who are members of the House, will not forget that poverty must be a part of your everyday thought process and everyday work. It must not be confined to the work of this committee; it must not be confined to this bill. It must be part of everything the government of Ontario does.

I'm getting older, like most of you, and as such, I'm becoming a bit impatient to see change. I have a long memory. I've been involved in this work for 35 years. I have lived in this province under governments led by all three of your distinguished parties. During my 23 years as a civil servant, I worked under administrations led by all three of your parties. I have heard many statements from all three of you. I have seen many reports produced by the federal, provincial and municipal governments. And what do I find? I'm not happy about this; I'm sad about this. We in the disabled community remain chronically unemployed and are expected to subsist on the margins in chronic poverty, and it's time that stopped. It is long overdue.

One of the reasons this is the case, I submit, is that we have not been nearly involved enough in the development, and particularly in the implementation, of programs, policies and legislation. These are developed about us, but they're done without us. So, if I were giving out report cards, I have to admit that I've got enough Fs to give all of you. You've all failed the disabled community-all three of you.

Think about today. How many members of this Legislature from all three of your parties have a disability? How many? How many people with disabilities work for your parties? How many persons with disabilities are deputy ministers? How many persons with disabilities work as senior policy analysts? Those are the areas of power where policies get developed and delivered, so it's perhaps understandable why we continue to live in the chronic level of deprivation that is our lived experience, and that's got to change.

It's not so hard. Even long before the notion of thinking outside the box was talked about, the federal government, way, way back in 1981, developed the first of a number of landmark reports in this country. It was called Obstacles. It was part of the work done during the International Year of Disabled Persons, which incidentally had the theme: Full Participation and Equality. Twenty-eight years later, how far have we come? We've come part of the way but not nearly very far. We sure haven't got to full participation and equality; that's for damn sure.

But they did something differently. The politicians who travelled the country to consult people added to their midst a number of well-respected, well-known people with disabilities. They travelled with the politicians across the country. They were part of the drafting process of that report. It's a report that I think is internationally recognized as a leader. The Andy Scott task force proceeded similarly and produced a great report.

Great reports are not enough, of course. That's not to say that we don't have non-disabled champions, because we do have some-some among all of your parties. I particularly want to refer to Dr. Bountrogianni, the former Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, who was instrumental in and led the process that resulted in the AODA, a piece of legislation that was different, a piece of legislation that was supposed to change our lives, a piece of legislation that isn't getting nearly where we hoped it might, because ministers change, champions leave and pieces of legislation get moved to other places to get administered.

The accessibility directorate is now housed somewhere in the huge Ministry of Community and Social Services, where it doesn't have nearly the prominence it had when it was in its former smaller ministry. What do we see? We've seen the first standard, customer service, woefully inadequate. We've seen a transportation standard, currently out for debate, that the disabled community basically says doesn't even meet the requirements of the Human Rights Code. I say shame. Shame on this process. It would have happened better had more people with disabilities been involved from step one throughout all aspects of any process that has anything to do with us. I submit that our situation might be better.

That's why the AEBC has called upon all governments to develop a coordinated, comprehensive economic strategy. You notice I don't call it an employment strategy; I don't call it an income strategy. I call it a comprehensive economic strategy, which will deal with three pillars: One is social assistance; the second is labour market involvement, which is chronically needed; and the third is infrastructure funding that the federal government included in its last budget.

Some of that money must be used to make our colleges and universities more accessible, some of that money must be used to add to the availability of affordable and accessible transportation, and so on and so forth. We need a disability lens so that every piece of legislation, every ministry, every policy that is being developed takes into account the needs of Ontarians with disabilities. After all, we're not an insignificant part of your community and of this province. We're about one in seven members of this province, and yet it seems like our society continues to expect us to remain on the margins, in abject poverty, and that is just not good enough.

So I submit that, yes, this bill is a good start; yes, this bill needs to be amended and expanded. But my greater concern is, what happens after this bill is passed, as passed I'm sure it will be and should be?

I'm more concerned about what you folks can do to make sure rights-holders-you notice I make the distinction that we who live the life, we who have a disability-our organizations; groups like the Colour of Poverty, made up of people who are racialized members of our community; the Chiefs of Ontario-are rights-holders. We're not merely stakeholders. Sure, we have a stake in what happens; that's true. But there must be a distinction between stakeholders-those groups that, yes, have an interest-and rights-holders, those of us who are consumers, who are individuals who live every day the experience of having a disability, of being a person of colour, of living either on a reservation or as a native person in an urban setting: rights-holders. Those organizations must not just be consulted, but must be seconded, must be hired on contract, to be a part of the process.

Groups like AEBC, the ODSP Action Coalition and, I'm sure, the Colour of Poverty and similar groups would be very pleased to recommend individuals who could play the kind of role I'm speaking about: people who are knowledgeable about poverty; people who have experience in developing policy change; individuals who are leaders in their communities and have an understanding of the broad issues that confront us.

Working on one issue has been a common problem with government: You focus on one thing. Well, that's not good enough. There's an interrelationship of issues. It's one thing to have found a job, but if you don't have a place to live, if there isn't transportation in the community where you live to get to and from that job, then finding a job can be a fairly elusive proposition; similarly, if a particular employer is not prepared to discharge its legal duty to accommodate our needs, if we can't get timely access to textbooks that we need and so forth. There is an interrelationship of issues.

So fighting poverty is not just about passing a bill. This bill is symbolically, and I hope substantively, important. It needs amendment. But what is more important, members of the committee, is what happens after the bill is passed and what you do to bring groups like mine, who have historically been relegated to the margins, into the mainstream. I hope, before my life ends, that that promise back in 1981 of full participation and equality that sounded like such a wonderful phrase way back in 1981- will become the lived experience of the bulk of Ontarians who today have a disability and those who will come after us. Thank you.

The Chair (Mr. Shafiq Qaadri): Thank you, Mr. Rae, for your presence, your

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