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TRANSCRIPT“IMPROVING COMMUNITY ACCESSIBILITY”

TUESDAY, SEPT. 23, 2014

PARTICIPANTS:

Hon. Todd Stone – Minister of Transportation, Deputy House Leader and Member, Priorities and Planning Committee and Cabinet Committee on Strong Economy

Manuel Achadinha – President and CEO of BC Transit

Hon. Michelle Stilwell – Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health for Healthy Living and Seniors, MLA for Parksville Qualicum

Jeff Vasey – ADM for Housing and Construction Standards, Ministry of Natural Gas Development and Ministry responsible for Housing

Jay Schlosar, ADM, Local Government Division, Ministry of Community, Sport and Cultural Development

Larry Evans, Councillor, Fort St. John

Nichola Wade, Councillor, Saanich

Rick Hansen, CEO, Rick Hansen Foundation

Hon. Don McRae, Minister of Social Development and Social Innovation

Hon. Stephanie Cadieux, Minister of Children and Family Development

Hon. Linda Larson – Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Social Development and Social Innovation for Accessibility

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Hon. Linda Reid – Speaker of the Legislature

Her Worship Mary Sjostrom - Mayor of Quesnel, Member of the Minister’s Council

Min. McRae: …There is some opportunity for dialogue and change in our society – more so than ever before. And… you probably know these numbers but just in case you don’t – there are 330,000 people in British Columbia of working age with a disability. There are as well, depending on who you ask – and the stats sometimes can differ – but somewhere between 500,000 and 700,000 British Columbians who self-identify – every community in British Columbia (BC) obviously – of having a disability. And these numbers will only grow as we age.

Now that being said, one of the most enlightening things I’ve had an opportunity to do in five years of provincial government is in – last year we began Accessibility 2024 consultation. We went around the province – in person, online, by mail – and had conversations with communities large and small about how BC can become the most progressive jurisdiction in Canada for persons with disabilities. We’ve come a long way, we’ve done a lot, we’re leading in a lot of different areas, we can still do more.

Now Accessibility 2024 is organized into 12 building blocks based on themes that emerged during the consultation. These are built on areas that include inclusive government, accessible housing, accessible built environment, transportation and employment – these are all issues that are important to every community large and small in the province of BC. Now, that being said, we need to continue to work with multi levels of government – the federal

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government has a role to play, the provincial government definitely has a role to play, and you as municipal leaders can also be huge leaders and stakeholders in your communities.

As well – and this is coming from Rick Hanson (he may say the same thing in his speech) – individuals with disabilities themselves and their support groups need to step up, but also so do businesses. Everybody in BC can do a little bit more.

Now, if you didn’t know this, September 2014 is Disability Employment Month in the province of BC. We’re challenging employers to both brag a little bit if they consider themselves good employers for persons with disabilities. We also want them to be leaders and role models for other organizations, other businesses in their community.

Hiring persons with disabilities has a huge upside for everybody. Obviously we want to be an inclusive and fair society. But as well, we want to make sure that employers are getting a great asset – and persons with disabilities are just that. The skills set they can bring, the energy, the vibrancy, and the ability to enhance an employer’s organization is unbelievable, and so if you know someone in your community who is doing leadership in the area of persons with disability and employment, please ask them to step up and tell their story.

If you know someone who could do a bit more, don’t hesitate – just think about how they can expand their horizons as well. So that being said, I’m really pleased as I look down this forum here and see the range of skills and experiences and expertise that we have at this table, because not one ministry will ever solve the accessibility component in our society. It needs to be a multi-

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faceted branch – and so when I see everybody here from areas like Housing and Transportation, Health – these are how we make things happen. As well, we need you folks in local government to help us do a little bit more as well. And if we’re not doing enough to assist you, we want the feedback.

Whether you’re a small community in the north, or a large community down south, or anywhere in between, BC – it has to be a combined endeavor to make sure that BC does become the most progressive jurisdiction for persons with disabilities. And if I can beat 2024, I wouldn’t be upset at all.

So, Mayor Sjostrom thank you. Parliamentary Secretary Linda Larson, I guess at this stage I throw it over to you…

PS Linda Larson (PSLL) : …Thank you very much Minister. Our discussion will focus on opportunities and challenges of improving community accessibility and our panel will let you know in each of their areas of expertise what they are doing. So I’m going to start off by asking Minister Stone to tell us what is happening under the Minister of Transportation when it comes to supporting accessible transportation in BC.

Min. Stone: You bet – thank you very much Linda, and I notice that Linda Reid, the Speaker of the Legislature just walked in as well, and Linda should be complimented for some very important improvements that have dramatically improved accessibility in the legislature so Linda I want to acknowledge your contributions as well.

So thank you very much and it is really a pleasure to be here. As everyone in this room knows transportation is absolutely critical to – both from an economic perspective but also a social perspective

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– in every corner of the province – it’s…..whether you’re talking roads, or buses or ferries, and other modes of transportation - we need it, we need good transportation networks throughout the entire province.

We are very much committed in the Ministry of Transportation and through us also – with our partners: BC Transit, and BC Ferries and other organizations – to ensure that we plan and design transportation infrastructure that all British Columbians can access without impediment and – working towards our vision, our government’s vision of being the most progressive place for people with disabilities in Canada.

So I’d like to just highlight a couple of pieces if I may – just add a little bit of detail to this from the perspective of transportation. First, with respect to transit – and Manuel will go into a lot more detail with respect to BC Transit – hope not to steal too much of your thunder here, Manny, but BC Transit is actually a very good positive story.

Transit generally, actually, in British Columbia. Our province spends more per capita on transit than any other jurisdiction in Canada. We actually have more - as a result of that – we have more transit coverage than anywhere else, than any other Canadian jurisdiction. Fully ninety per cent of all BC residents have access to some form of public transit – so that’s job number one.

Translink’s operations – as with BC Transit’s – are 100 per cent accessible so in the case of Translink: SkyTrain, Seabus, West Coast Express and so forth – their bus fleet includes kneeling buses, next stop announcements on conventional buses and so

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forth. Similarly, with respect to BC Transit’s bus fleet, it’s fully accessible for people with – who use mobility aids, including kneeling buses with ramps, modified seating for better access and safer transportation.

I know that BC Transit is currently implementing a policy that will see all drivers call out bus stops for passengers who are visually-impaired. Manny can perhaps touch a little bit more on that. BC Transit also has a HandyDart custom transit. There’s a pilot project that actually involves two communities – Vernon and the Comox Valley, and Manny can fill you in on a bit more detail about that because it’s very very important – it’s helping connect passengers with disabilities to the transit services that best meets their needs in communities across the province.

With respect to BC Ferries – certainly new ferries and terminals as they are upgraded are constructed to guidelines that maximize accessibility standards, including lavatories, ramps, automatic door openers, Braille signs and so forth. BC Ferries is also currently exploring the technical feasibility to pilot induction loop technology in one of the lounges during the Spirit class midlife upgrade – so there’s a lot of work underway within BC Transit today and in the months and years ahead, as the corporation continues to embark upon a very significant upgrade and replacement of vessels and terminals.

There’s three new vessels that are on order now that BC Ferries has ensured that accessibility is a core requirement of those vessels. The two Spirit class vessels will be going through an upgrade and retrofit in the coming years and accessibility again is a critical component there. There have been lots of terminal upgrades in the last five years – there’s even more coming, and

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we try very very hard to ensure that accessibility is front and center in those upgrades that we make.

Let’s not forget roads – often people don’t necessarily think of roads from an accessibility perspective, but getting it right on our roads and trails is equally important from a mobility perspective. And it’s certainly central to all of the planning that we do in the ministry. Some good recent examples include – on Vancouver Island the McTavish interchange project on the Pat Bay Highway includes a separate pedestrian-cyclist overpass which has had a dramatic impact for those who…for persons with mobility challenges who can now move from one side of the highway to the other in a safe manner.

There’s a…work underway to widen the sidewalks and install safety fences along the West and East side of the Ironworkers’ Memorial Bridge – again this is about providing more space for people, persons with mobility challenges and ensuring that they’re able to cross as do other pedestrians and certainly vehicles.

We have a minor capital program in the Ministry of Transportation which actually funds quite a number of smaller road and highway projects across the province, and again we ensure that accessibility, mobility is a critical piece of criteria that drives those projects. An example of those types of projects would be upgrades on roads to bus stops to improve access for buses and so forth.

With respect to pathways we have an excellent program that’s always oversubscribed called “Bike BC” and I’m hoping that this piece, again, primarily from a mobility perspective - I’m hoping to provide a larger profile for it in our ten-year transportation plan

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moving forward. This is a program where we cost-share with local governments to provide multi-use paths and cycling pedestrian overpasses. There are projects in every corner of the province that you can point to now where access has been dramatically improved, so we want to continue with that legacy.

So that’s just a quick, a quick overview. I will say, perhaps my final comment at this point – I mentioned the ten-year transportation plan a moment ago. It’s probably one of the most exciting opportunities in front of us from a transportation perspective is to develop a new vision, a new blueprint for our transportation investments in the coming decade.

The last time this was done was in 2003 – it was called “Opening Up BC” - and virtually everything in the plan has been implemented so the Premier announced in the throne speech last February that it was my job to pull together a new ten-year transportation plan. We will absolutely ensure that accessibility is a critical component of our ten-year transportation plan – insofar as every mode of transportation goes that we’ll profile in that plan. There will be an opportunity over the next couple months – I believe in the next couple of weeks we’ll be announcing an engagement opportunity for British Columbians everywhere - except Vancouver Island because we’re just finishing up on Vancouver Island, although you’ll still be able to throw in Vancouver Island if you weren’t able to participate in the ten-year transportation plan input sessions.

There certainly will be other opportunities and we’ll welcome your input, but we’ll be rolling out an engagement process for – pretty much take us through the next couple for months – and I certainly encourage everyone to – everyone here, and please let all your

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colleagues know to let us know what’s really important from an accessibility perspective so that we can ensure that that’s properly profiled and included in the priorities that we detail in our ten-year transportation plan which we will be….our goal is to roll it out his side of Christmas so there’s a fair bit of work to do as we get there, but I would encourage and welcome all your feedback. Thank you.

PSLL: Thanks, Todd. Mary as a leader in Quesnel has also spent a lot of time on accessibility, and I’d like her to let you know what she’s done in the city of Quesnel.

Mayor Sjostrom: Thank you sir. Well, just ever so briefly. It’s always…you always think it’s a great time to be able brag about your community and about the region and – with us, we have about 85 per cent connectivity for our trail network and so we only have one little section, so we’ll be keeping an eye on what might be coming out and we’re really pleased with that as well as the Caribou Regional District and people would think that possibly Regional District wouldn’t think about trails but we have quite a few trails and we’re continuing to do that as I sit on the Caribou Regional District and the electoral directors are really active in that so I congratulate them on that and I think I’d just like to encourage communities to – in your budgets, we always are doing money-crunching and there’s never enough money, but I really encourage you to have a line-item in there for accessibility and whether that is curb cuts or possibly fixing up a sidewalk or small things that to us might seem small but those folks that have challenges with accessibility – they’re huge.

And it really does make a difference. And you know, we’ve been doing that and it’s really made a difference and you don’t have to

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sort of fight for those dollars. There’s never enough dollars, as I say, but sometimes small things really make a difference, and with us, we have a partnership as well through our transportation with BC Transit with the Caribou Regional District but I think that I was just absolutely thrilled when we were a community that was – we had a pilot project, as many of you probably did when we were testing a low-level bus.

I know I’m not really supposed to refer to it as “the vicinity” but that’s what we called it – and it is a low level bus that we ended up having now two in our community and I hope that in years to come we’ll have even more. It’s really made a difference to our community and I think that Manuel will speak more to that and how it leads into us being accessible in our communities.

We’re also having some conversation and we’re not at the end of the road there, but we’re trying to get an accessible taxi as well in Quesnel, because there is certainly challenges when the bus isn’t running and folks really would like to go out to an event and they have the accessibility issue.

I think other than that – we have a very large senior population in our community and so accessibility for those folks are really important too, so…the transportation has really made a difference, so… I think that’s about all I have to add, thank you.

PSLL: Thanks, Mary. So I’ll turn it over to Mr. Achadinha to bring us up to what’s happening with BC Transit in the way of improving accessibility.

M. Achadinha: Thank you. Accessibility has always been a cornerstone of our organization. We were the first organization in North America to introduce low-floored kneeling bus and today

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100% of our conventional – those are the big buses – are all low-floor accessible buses.

Mary mentioned one of the new projects we’re working on right now is a – what we call a midibus. One of the challenges we have had in some of our smaller communities is to find a smaller bus that’s accessible, low floor. In the last 24 months through BC Transit we’ve been piloting with a number of communities across the province a midibus that – basically it looks like a big bus, but it’s only 27 and a half feet long. It looks and feels like a bus but it’s low-floor and it kneels.

The results have been overwhelming, as Mary said. Probably the biggest challenge we have is – we only bought 15 of these buses and we have a lot of communities that would like to get access to them, including Quesnel who wants more than two.

There’s another or a couple of big initiatives we’ve been working on and the Minister touched on it – one is custom transit, HandyDart. It is an incredible service, but the biggest challenge we have is we need to ensure that we preserve that service for those individuals who have no other option. One of the things that we’ve been piloting and the Minister mentioned it – in the communities of Comox and Vernon: we have high demand for HandyDart services. We are now working with….ahhh…. When you register to become a Handy Dart customer, we interview you. You come in, and really what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to match people to the appropriate transit service – to meet their needs and their abilities. And the reason we’re doing that is we’re trying to make sure that….HandyDart in some ways can be very restrictive – and what I mean by that, there’s not that much service available all the time, where on a conventional, there’s a

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number of fixed routes that goes all over the city. And what we’ve noticed is if we can get you on to conventional transit - what are we doing – we’re really doing two things: we’re giving you options, we’re giving you independence. And that’s what a lot of the accessibility is about.

What we’re really – the second part of what we’re trying to do as I mentioned earlier is we’re trying to preserve the HandyDart service for those folks who have no options. So it’s really important, and historically we – the HandyDart system has been a very open process. Generally everyone who applied got accepted. Very few people didn’t get…was accepted as a registrant. But the challenge that that creates is during peak service, it’s very difficult – if you try to phone the day of, you can’t get service.

In Vernon it became such a challenge that if you didn’t book five to six days in advance you couldn’t get…..you couldn’t get a ride. This whole new service, or this new pilot project in Vernon and Comox – the response has been overwhelmingly positive. We started this last February, it’s a year’s pilot. We have a number of communities that are also eagerly looking to get on to this new program. So really what it’s doing is it’s making sure that we’re focusing our custom transit dollars to the folks that really absolutely need it.

But we’re also trying to take the…and it’s interesting: I look at my father who’s 81 years old. Probably the biggest challenge is getting him out of his car. And when he can’t drive anymore, it’s getting him comfortable with transit. It’s the fear of transit. So a lot of the folks when you come in and you go through this application process, they’re actually introducing you to transit, and they’re

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taking the fear of transit away. And that’s probably been the one positive response – particularly with seniors – we’ve heard is: “Wow, this has been great. I’m not afraid of transit. I can go on to the website. I can do my trip planner.”

And I’ll give you a story in the Kootenays. We had a woman who lived in Nelson – once a week would go, would get her dialysis done, and she needed that bus every Thursday. One of the biggest challenges we had in the Kootenays we had nine different systems. And we were able to get those nine communities to work together and actually create one seamless system.

I remember this woman phoned me and she was very fearful and she said: “I don’t know how I’m gonna get to the hospital in Trail if I can’t get on HandyDart.” And I said: “You know what I’m gonna be out there in July, I’m gonna come with you.” The first day we started the service she came on the bus. What it told her – and she phoned me back about three weeks later and she said, “This is great, I’m no longer restricted to only going Thursdays. That bus goes five times a day – it goes every day. I’m not limited to just one type of service.”

So that was an incredible – from a customer, what she got was the independence, the flexibility, and she had options. She wasn’t restricted to Thursday only. So it’s absolutely amazing what you can do when you take the fear of the unknown away from people, and you actually provide them with choice. And that’s really what accessibility is a big part of.

The third project.. we’re a couple of months – I’m kind of letting you into a secret here - but we’re…in a couple of months we’re gonna launch our new website, and a big focus of our website has

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been our customers, and accessibility has been a real cornerstone of that as well. I mean you’ll see that – when you get a chance to see it, we’ve designed it to the accessibility guidelines. The other thing we did is we invited a number of accessible groups – SPARK, CNIB, you know, Disability Alliance BC, we had all of these folks come in when we were doing the function requirements for our website in terms of what works, what doesn’t work.

So things like, you know we don’t have, we have high contrast. We’re not gonna have small clickable areas, navigation icons. We’ve really worked hard with them to make it very easy from both visual, from a use – everything in terms of the new website. So we’re really excited and in a couple of months we’re gonna be launching it – we’re actually, we’ve got a couple of those committees working with us and they’re testing out the new website.

So very exciting – there’s a lot of – it’s interesting, really, transit is about accessibility. And everything we do - from designing a bus exchange, as we did at UVIC – we opened a couple of weeks ago, to our website, to designing buses, and we’re very…. It’s funny every time we go out and buy a bus, every bus manufacturer has told me that we are by far the pickiest organization – and that from an interior, the way our layout is, the way our buttons, the colors are, because it has to be accessible for all of our customers.

And do that because if our conventional system isn’t as flexible as it is, it puts tremendous pressure on our custom transit system. We have 1.3 million rides on our transit system. We have over

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60,000 registers for that custom transit. We need to meet their needs. It’s really important to us.

But as the minister said, it’s a big investment from the Province’s point of view. It’s over 16 million dollars that goes into just that one element of transit. It’s a very expensive, it’s a great service because it is door to door. But again we need to make sure that we preserve it for those folks who have no other options. Thank you.

PSLL: Thank you very much, and just.....we’ll move on for one more discussion about transportation, and I’d like to direct that to Councillor Wade from Saanich to tell us a little bit about the accessible transportation in Saanich and Greater Victoria.

Councillor Wade: Thanks very much. You know Saanich has done a number of things around transportation. It really derives first from our principle, our first principle under our official community plan and transportation that says we are seeking a balanced, convenient, accessible, efficient, mobility network that integrates land use and mobility planning for all travel modes. So it’s quite interesting – we’re thinking quite broadly.

So in addition to some of the things for instance that Manuel has outlined with respect to transit, Saanich for instance undertook an access to transit study. So what we did, we had this access to transit work which focused on a person’s ability to move from a multiple family housing to and from their routes, what kind of stops that would look like how long it would be, et cetera et cetera.

And then it looked also with respect to uhmmm – okay, and what are those barriers in between. So things that were really small,

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like the recalibration of the pedestrian lights, that would be recalibrated to run a little longer. Because what we know is, even for seniors – it all takes us a little longer to get across the street nowadays, and so it was needing to make sure that we can accommodate those kinds of things.

Having said that, I have been overtaken by a number of scooters at pedestrian crosswalks, so I’m not sure that that’s the fix.

We also have upgraded our engineering standards in Saanich to support people with accessibility challenges – such as sidewalk width, and the style of ramps that we have to best accommodate scooters, chairs, other mobility devices. And an interesting thing that we’ve also done is we’ve started requiring electrical outlets in our underground parking areas.

And part of that, people think, is about the electric car, but an awful lot about that is acknowledging that scooter usage is increasing and will continue to increase and we need to make sure that we are wired in to accommodate that.

So there’s lot and lots of things that Saanich has done, but really proud of some of the neat, little and big things that we’ve been able to undertake so far.

PSLL: Thank you very much. We’re going to switch gears now and move on to a different area. It`s widely recognized that health is integral to a person`s ability to fully participate in their communities, so Parliamentary Secretary Stilwell, or my friend Michelle, will comment on what the health minister is doing at the moment to support inclusive communities for seniors and people with disabilities.

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PSMS: Thank you so much, Linda, and obviously with the announcement that I`m a Paralympic athlete, you obviously know I have a disability, so for twenty years I`ve been dealing with all the issues that come along with having a disability, from the transportation, to the housing, to the health issues, so….

It`s something that I`m very passionate about, and something that I advocate very…uhmmm….a lot, and I`m pleased to be here today to speak about what our government is doing in respect to improving health and accessibility for everyone in our province, because accessibility is such an essential component of having a healthy and open community, because we all know that it`s that sense of community, and that sense of feeling connected and included, so I`m pleased to acknowledge that our Health ministry has - our health authorities across the province have dedicated staff that can work with the local governments to help build inclusive communities and building accessible communities.

Because obviously as has been mentioned, you know, we are all aging, our demographic is aging across the province; everyone in this room is going to be a senior one day and we`re all gonna have those needs, so not only are we building a future for our parents who are living it today, but it`s for the future of all of us in this room and around the province, so make sure we`re getting out there and connecting to the people outside this room who didn’t come here to share and hear some of our ideas.

Personally, I like to demonstrate every day the importance of healthy living and I know my members down there can acknowledge how many times I try and get them out healthy and active, moving – and sometimes they`re not very happy about it. But the Ministry of Health is in a partnership with BC Healthy

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Communities Society, with through their PlanH Program to support local governments to create environments that encourage people of all abilities to make healthier choices. So we – actually on Thursday, we will be cohosting a sponsor event here at the UBCM to announce the Community Excellence Awards for Accessibility and Inclusion, so if you’re available Thursday morning, come one out and see who will be winning those awards. I’ll be there Thursday morning.

Another part of the PlanH is to develop the Action Guide for local governments on social connectedness – a socially connected community is a place where all the planning and strategic initiatives take a sense of belonging into account. It’s a place where people accept each other’s differences, and everyone feels a part of that community and it’s so critical as we move forward.

I can say we’re also implementing an age-friendly BC initiative, and the goal of the age-friendly BC is to create communities that foster seniors’ independence, health, and inclusion and accessibility services. Programs that are designed to help with accessibility within the community but there are grant programs and a recognition program as well, resources and supports available to local communities.

Since 2007, a hundred and twenty-eight different communities have received the age-friendly planning and project grants, with direct support, or both of them. So, we’re also partnering with the University of Victoria with the Can-Assist program to develop assistive technologies that increase the independence of those people living with a disability and to increase the quality of life for people with disabilities.

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For example Can-Assist actually has a wandering-deterrent system that discourages people with dementia to…and other cognitive challenges as well from wandering out at night well before they leave their residence, so there’s a lot of interesting technology steps that are being taken in the background to help create safer places. And lastly, definitely not least, the Ministry is also collaborating with key stakeholder groups such as Worksafe BC and the Canadian Mental Health Association to enhance psychological help and safety in the BC workforce, workplaces. A project solely focused on improving employee well-being, engagement, and productivity.

We are also addressing concerns such as bullying and harassment. Workplace cultures are psychologically safe and healthy, that are safe and healthy, are respectful and non-stigmatizing and inclusive, and these are all hallmarks of workplaces that are successful…successful in including supports for people with disabilities as well or any kind of challenge that they may have.

So there’s a lot of interesting work going on and I encourage all of you to make sure that you’re working with your local health authorities to help build and design better, healthy communities. Thank you.

PSLL: Thanks Michelle. And she does – every Monday and Wednesday, drags us out at 6:30 in the morning when we’re in Victoria and makes us walk or jog or run five kilometers.

PSMS: Keeping you out of the hospital!

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PSLL: I know. (Laughter). And it’s very good for us. I’d like to ask Mr. Schlosar from the Ministry of Community Sport and Cultural Development to tell us a little bit about what his ministry is doing in fostering inclusive communities.

ADM Schlosar: Right, thanks. I will keep this piece short, because Councillor Wade, actually, talked a lot about the things that we would talk about….

Councillor Wade: Sorry.

ADM Schlosar: No, not at all, Councillor. From our perspective, we believe that this does start with planning, that at the end of the day how a community approaches the development of its official community plan and the way it thinks about bringing accessibility into those frameworks is fundamental to underpin a lot of things we’ve been talking about today. Our ministry has certainly been supportive of that work in terms of developing guidance and (unclear) some of the best practices to help convey for all of you ways that you can approach that problem and tailor to meet your needs. We’ve worked on with the Ministry of Health with that about three or four years ago, we know that’s it’s time to refresh that work and so part of our commitment to this accessibility strategy is to see that work refreshed in the new year, bringing some of the more cutting edge best practices and also some of the best examples from the work that you have done, and I’m very pleased as I canvassed to learn some of the examples of the great work that’s been happening on the ground, so I’m very much looking forward to hearing from you around some of the things you’re doing.

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I will though go off script briefly and sort of on a personal note say this: my wife is one of those 500,000 that Minister McRae talked about – she’s in a wheelchair, and has been since she was 17 years old. And every choice we’ve made as a family has ultimately been about the inclusivity and the accessibility of our community. From where we live, from where my son goes to school, right? What I do for a living. All of those decisions have ultimately been influenced by how appropriate is the community for my family. And if you think about that as one family against one person, think of how many families that is against 5 or 600,000 people across the province, and how important the accessibility issues and inclusivity issues are to seeing families being successful. So those of you that have been doing this, congratulations. Thank you, because you’ve given us something to look forward to and something to grow our family upon. And those of you that have yet to turn that corner, we want to know what we can do to help you, because this is in my mind one of the most fundamental things that has driven our decisions as a family and I think it’s something that everybody can be proud of, in this room, so - very much excited to be here, thank you for the chance to share the stage with people here today, and I think this will be a very good conversation.

PSLL: Thank you very much. I know that Fort St. John has done a few interesting innovative things, and I’d like to ask Councillor Evans to tell us a bit about his Mayor’s Disability Advisory Committee in Fort St. John.

Councillor Evans: Thank you very much. Thank you everybody for being here today – the Mayor’s Disability Advisory Committee was struck in 2006 by then Mayor Jim Eglinski. He asked me if I

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would sit on it. Prior to that accessibility and disability was something that Fort St. John sort of put on the back burner, because of what was going on, and even today we’re experiencing – and I’ve lived there all my life – I’ve never seen the growth there and what we’re trying to do is keep up to make sure that everything is accessible.

We’ve changed our name, actually – from the Mayor’s Disability Advisory Committee to the Mayor’s Accessibility Advisory Committee, just to include everybody – including the seniors, of course the people with disabilities - but also because we are the youngest community in BC – at the average age I believe of 29.6 – our fastest growing demographic is seniors. So we make sure that when we present something to council that it includes everybody.

And when I say everybody I mean – I’m talking about the young ladies up there with the babies, because there’s a lot of them, and they got these strollers now that look like bicycles, three-wheeled bicycles, but – and if you have two children, you gotta take one out in the stroller, leave them out and come back and get the other one. And I’ll talk about doors in a minute but what I’d like to do is just talk briefly about the transportation and the things that we’ve done up there.

We have the HandyDart of course, which is well used – we have four. We pound at the Ministry of Transportation quite often about increasing the hours and getting more HandyDarts. One of the things that we have done to try and relieve the pressure on the HandyDarts is we have a day – usually in June, every year – where it’s free to ride the buses, because every bus in Fort St. John is handicapped accessible, and a lot of people don’t know

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that. A lot of seniors – maybe not out on wheelchairs but they may have walkers or something, would rather take the HandyDart because they’re afraid of the buses. So over the last couple of years we have gotten that across to the seniors, and it has helped a little bit, that you can actually ride the buses. I’ve watched the wheelchairs come in, be strapped in, and they’re gone. There’s no extra time or anything and they work really well. One of the things that the committee does is we recommend to council different…uhh….where the handicapped parking spots should be, but also where the curb cuts should be.

We had spaces in town – handicapped spaces in town where if you got out the back in a wheelchair, you had a curb. You had to go down to use your end of the block and get up. Well now what we’ve done is - the committee will pick three places that are…and we go out to the community – people that need accessibility and find out where these should be. And that’s what we recommend. So right behind the parking spot now is a curb cut, so they can pull up and come out and go right up onto the curb.

One of the things that we neglected the first time around was to mark the curb cuts. So people were parking in the curb cuts, behind the parking, but we’ve fixed that. Another thing is of course the buses up there – we’re growing at such a rate that - a lot of times you’ll get a curb, and then it’ll take a very agile person to get from the bus stop on to the bus. So we’re looking at a couple of bus stops where we’re going to make it so that they can just – the bus comes down and in they go. But that’s something that we really have to look at.

The other thing of course, and it was mentioned, was accessible taxi cabs. We do not have an accessible taxi cab in Fort St. John.

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We are the center of the northeast of BC. We have the major airport there, they come and go. One of the things we did do, and Air Canada was very good about it – we told them that they should have a different ramp – because the old one was just dangerous – I guess for lack of a better word. So they did, they put a ramp in. So we have that now.

But if somebody comes into the city, is coming into the city of Fort St John and needs an accessible cab they don’t have it but – the good thing is, we’ve since had a new owner purchase our taxi company, and he’s willing to try and get a cab on the road and I’ve talked to Mr. Achadinha – I bent his ear and I got his card so he’s not going away and there are different programs and that that will aid the taxi company in being able to provide one. Because it’s only – it’s a relatively small fee, and the rest is picked up either by the municipality or BC Transit – hopefully BC Transit but I won’t go there.

So that’s what we’re doing. We’re working on that with the taxi company and it’s looking promising, because – to be perfectly honest it’s embarrassing, when somebody asks about an accessible cab. What else are we doing? When we go to council with different things it goes through me. One of the things that we’ve decided to do because there’s so much building going on there – there’s apartments going up, I mean if you stand still long enough to build a building around you. What I’ve proposed to council on a motion and we discussed it and everything, we brought it forward, was that a certain portion of all apartments built in Fort St. John should be accessible – be that five, or ten, or whatever. We have a six-story apartment building going up and I’ve been visiting it and they keep telling me the floor is – the

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bottom floor is accessible so – I’ll believe that when I see it and I have no reason not to believe them, but one of the things, and I’m gonna sort of go into the Building Code right now – I believe firmly, that we should have three-foot doors. There should be no doors smaller than three foot. If we got – I mean a three-foot door – you know as well as I do, you can get most anything through it – i.e. me, trying to get a fridge through a two six door, and you have to take the door off, and sometimes the fridge or the door to get it in. Moving companies just love these three-foot doors, and a lot of the builders up there now are looking at that. The three-foot doors.

I mean, to have an accessible house, of course, or an apartment you need a level entry. In a house you’ll only need one level entry, but it’s gotta be a three-foot door. And to build a little deeper and to take up a little more time, you should not have door knobs. They should all be wing handles. The people that we’ve talked to – and we consult with the people with disabilities and the seniors. We don’t plan for them – we plan with them. And they all said that. And to drill a little deeper into – if you’re building a house, make sure that all the faucets on the cold and hot are wings rather than this, and it doesn’t take much to put a two by twelve around the bathroom so you have some grab bars you can be able to anchor them, cause if you anchor grab bars in (unclear) everybody knows it doesn’t work very well.

That’s just some of the things that we’re looking at when we got out and, you know, talk to the different contractors. We’re having trouble getting all the contractors together because it’s so darn busy up there but that’s one of the things we are doing – is making sure that they know what accessibility is. Not just – you

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know, lip service to us. So we’ve been really pushing that. And I think that’s all – I gotta be quiet now…

I could talk all day about this, actually – that’s about it. The transportation was the big thing. One of the things we have up there and a lot of people north of Prince George does, including Prince George, is snow, and we have to make sure that the walks are clean. Our public works people are very aware of the fact – especially downtown and around the parking spots for the disabled people and that. So that’s something else that we work on, and we have a really good relationship with our director of infrastructure – I forgot – we get such long names for them up there – but he’s always willing to listen to us and there’s always money set aside in the budget so the things like the curb cuts and the bus stops and that will get done. We’re not gonna do it all overnight, everybody knows that, but we’re starting, and we’re getting two or three done a year. And we’re trying to keep up, and that’s nigh impossible folks, I’ll tell you what, but we’re doing it. But thank you very much!

PSLL: Thank you – a man after my own heart. One of the things that came up to me right at the very beginning when I started this portfolio was I have a friend who is in a wheelchair and their home is of course 100 per cent accessible, but they can’t visit anybody else in the neighborhood. So when you think about that, we isolate people because of that as well. So I had a couple of spots on the…on my paper here for Mr. Vasey, but I think I’ll just put them together, and let you speak on both of the issues. One of them of course is the Building Code, which Councillor Evans has raised, and the other one is how your ministry is working with communities to increase the accessible housing for people with

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disabilities, so I’ll let you talk about both of those issues and then we’ll ask some of the panel members for their insights as well, so thank you.

ADM Vasey: Thank you. So I guess I’m gonna start at the end of my last (unclear) here which is that where I work in government at the office of Housing and Construction Standards we’re actually (collaborating) with many of the ministries that have spoken today on – to create accessible community guidelines. Because the reality is – a lot of what you’re hearing, they’re all pieces of the puzzle, they have to all work in concert, they have to work together – so whether it’s transportation or health issues, we’re about to talk in the interest of housing – it’s all built environments. Everything we build is a built environment. But the strategy, quite cleverly, under the direction of Minister McRae, highlights certain aspects of the built environment where we need to bring more attention. So we need to bring more attention to transportation, we need to bring more attention to community access. At the end of the day, though, it’s all part of the built environment.

And I say that – the Building Code is one piece of that, one slice of the built environment. So the Building Code really is responsible for - in the first instance, I’ll talk about public buildings, like this. And it’s.. it’s actually has the sort of the rules and requirements (unclear) to make sure that buildings are accessible. Now we’ve had requirements in the Code for about thirty years, and that’s great, because it means for the past thirty years we’ve been building better, making buildings accessible, but as you’ve heard from people on the panel, the challenge is – anything that’s older than that, and even some of the things we do today, they unintentionally exclude people because they can’t

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actually have access. And that’s something that we look at quite quite seriously.

The Building Code in terms of public buildings, in terms of how we dovetail with what you’re hearing – it’s from the property line to everything inside the property line. So that means that we actually rely on local governments to make sure that we have accessible curb cuts, and we actually have accessible public space outside of buildings so people can actually get to buildings to enjoy what’s accessible within the building, so it’s all part of the puzzle.

The thing about building codes that’s interesting as well - living document, it changes as our ideas change and as assistive technology changes, as just technology in general changes. When I started doing this work, a long time ago, we didn’t have these. We didn’t actually have access to technology that we all have now, that actually – is GPS. It actually helps to way find through buildings that used to be part of what we struggled in the Code and now the reality is there are technologies that we all have that have to interface with how we use buildings, and how we use the built environment, and the Building Code on a go forward, has to actually start incorporating some of these ideas.

The Building Code is a living document but it takes a while to actually create it. It takes about five – it’s a five-year cycle…we work, we build in the national Building Code, and we actually adopt or adapt it provincially. And even though I talk about incorporating these things by the time you go through the building policy and the building science aspects and even – I appreciate the comment, like three-foot doors. The reality is we have to balance that against construction cost, housing affordability cost –

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we have to balance all of these issues to come to what we think is a reasonable solution in the public realm of what we can afford to build.

And so it is challenging, but I am encouraged, that on a go forward, we are looking at more apps to actually assist people – personal devices, light switch centers, GPS navigation through buildings, this is all the sort of the exciting place in terms of where accessibility is going in building codes. And as I said we’re working with our partners in other ministries to help folks make sense of how to sew together all these aspects of the built environment.

I’ll just flip to housing then. In terms of what we’re doing with housing – we actually worked on rereleasing or reissuing something called “Housing Matters BC” just this past January. And we actually – that’s the road map document in terms of public policy and what the Province’s direction is on how we actually – where we’re gonna put our efforts in terms of housing. And there’s a whole range of issues in there – since 2006, the first Housing Matters BC, we’ve had 2.5 billion dollars has gone into housing programs and infrastructure and a lot of that is delivered through BC Housing.

So in terms of the BC Building Code, we actually are the only jurisdiction in Canada in terms of showing leadership in having adaptable housing requirements. And so as Councillor Evans was talking about, that’s things like putting in extra backing when you build your bathrooms, in new construction, so in a future date it’s very very easy to actually attach grab bars. There’s a whole other series of things that we have in the Code, and if local government chooses to actually - in their housing policy – say they want to

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build adaptable housing, they can reference the Code and the Code will tell them how to do it. Again we’re the only jurisdiction in the country that has that.

In terms of what BC Housing does, so BC Housing provides accessible housing for people with disabilities. We have more than 18,000 subsidized units dedicated to people with disabilities and frail seniors – and of those, there’s 1,750 are actually wheelchair accessible. And that’s good, in some ways, but also challenging in other ways, because the reality is, you’re trying to then – you have a purpose-built residence, and you may or may not find the right clients to fit the bill.

So in terms of me talking about the Building Code’s being a living document – ideas of how we actually look at access have changed over the years. So we do a lot less purpose-built, and much more adaptable now. We just want to have the most flexibility as possible so we can actually, hopefully meet the broadest range of needs possible. Having said that, we do actually have 1,750 wheelchair accessible units.

The last thing I’ll say, in terms of actually helping the population we have something called the HAFI program – Housing and Adaptations for Independence – where it’s a financial assistance program – up to $20,000 to help low-income seniors and people with disabilities finance home modifications and it’s available to eligible homeowners and landlords and a bunch of situations as well – and we have so far, we have actually - through the program, which is only a couple of years old – we have – 300 households have completed renovations to actually improve accessibility in their house.

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So I guess what I’ll say, under Accessibility 2024, we have a commitment to work with other ministries on guidelines for accessible communities. We also have the commitment to actually develop – if you will, a checklist for housing. So people can actually do a self-assessment of their own house, to see how accessible it is and understand the types of things they may want to do, to take on, to make it more accessible. Again, trying to improve the understanding of what access is at this point in time, as it evolves, so thank you.

PSLL: Thank you Mr. Vasey. I’d like to give Councillor Evans and Councillor Wade a chance to have a last word on this - the housing and building codes, et cetera, as they relate to your communities, and whether you have advice that you’d like to….

Councillor Wade: (Mr.) Evans and I talked and he said that I could speak for him.

PSLL: That you could speak for him? Oh now that’s pretty good. (Laughter). All right then.

Councillor Evans: Then again I might not give it up.

PSLL: Thank you.

Councillor Wade: I’ll start backwards from housing…. piece…uhhh….In Saanich of course we have mandated our staff to take into account accessibility as part of their review of housing proposals. We’ve also though taken that a little further and we mandate our advisory design panel to also consider physical accessibility as part of their review.

Our parks staff are also…ummm…have to address accessibility in their design work and I’ll talk a little bit about that in a minute. We

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have the required and voluntary adaptable housing guidelines, and you can find – everything I’ve spoken about today, by the way, is available on the Saanich website. The interesting thing that I wanted to sort of raise for you folks is that our adaptable guidelines were used as a model for the provincial guidelines, and …so the neat thing about that is – so when the provincial guidelines came out and they wanted us to, they wanted us to sort of basically look at the by-law for consultation – they used ours, and so it’s okay – sometimes we can lead, and government will follow, so it’s a…it’s the onus is on us to be as creative as we can.

I do wanna talk a little bit, though, about some of the built environment pieces. I do chair the Saanich Park Trails and Recreation Committee. And in our official community plan, it acknowledges our recreation needs to be centered around – and I’m quoting this part: “Accessible, affordable and inclusive recreation programming.” And that language is very specifically chosen. It prioritizes accessible first. And by doing that, it clearly outlines our priorities for us. And when we talk about accessible by the way we’re also talking about financially accessible. We have programs such as the Life Program – which is: leisure is for everyone, so if you have financial challenges, you can also get a recreation pass in Saanich, from Saanich, to enable you to access it.

I wanna talk a little but about the built environment. We recently renovated a park in Saanich – a beautiful park; if you’ve ever been to Saanich it’s called Gyro Park – with financial assistance from the Province. We undertook a whole renew and renovation of the beach and the playground area. And we went through a

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whole consultation process, and then once the construction started, sadly, we faced some pushback from the community.

And the pushback was about the width of the trails in the park. And we had people saying things like: “We don’t have a problem with, you know, making the park accessible, or for people in wheelchairs, but we don’t want the trail to be that wide.” And I think part of that comes from people whose mindset is around the fact that people in wheelchairs are always gonna be pushed by someone else, and that perhaps that also perhaps a lack of acknowledgement that folks in chairs might wanna a. have somebody beside them or someone else in a chair beside them, or, the two chairs might need to meet on a path and intersect.

And so it was really interesting. When we started having that piece of dialogue with the community, then it really surfaced – some of the issues for us. I am thrilled to say that except for a little bit of landscaping, that work is now complete; it has been a huge success. Even the playground pieces themselves are not just about physical disabilities. There are touch and play screen pieces for youth with, youngsters with visual disabilities or hearing, there’s some noisemakers – it’s a really creative place, so have a chance to be in Saanich please do make your way down to Gyro Park and see what we’ve done there. Right down to the…right down to the water, so you can take your chair right down to the water which is pretty cool.

PSLL: Thank you very much. That’s really interesting. The other thing that the minister touched on which is absolutely crucial is employment. And so Minister I’ll ask you for your comments on employment for people with disabilities.

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Min. McRae: Well definitely one of the things we heard across BC when we did the consultation is persons with disabilities or – if you’re in my community there’s a group that wants that to be Diversabilities – that they want to work, and they want to be part of the community. And government has some great resources internally – the staff in the Ministry of Social Development and Social Innovation and across the civil services is unbelievable. That being said, we often want input from outside of government as well. So I think I mentioned earlier Mayor Sjostrom is on the Minister’s Council for Employment and Accessibility and it’s made up of business, non-government, government representatives as well as families, individuals and…with disabilities who advise me on strategies about how we can increase employment and accessibility for persons across BC.

One of the things they recommended was to create a President’s Group which is now in place – and we brought together business leaders that represent for example areas in agriculture and recreation, hospitality, post-secondary, manufacturing. We’ve even got the CEO from YVR on the President’s Group, to recommend opportunities about where barriers are from an employment, from a government perspective to employers – but also from employers to government, and see if there’s opportunities we can do to increase employment opportunities as well.

As well, I just wanted to highlight a couple of other areas – through the Employment Program of BC – you all have probably a WorkBC office or subcontractor in your community or if it’s not in your community there’s one close. WorkBC services work with people with disabilities. We have up to one million dollars annually

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in research and innovation funding aimed at enhancing services and improved outcomes for individuals with disabilities.

We also have 1.5 million dollars to implement a pilot program for innovative training and initiatives at public post-secondary institutions to increase success of people with disabilities in trades and technical programs. As well, lastly we have 3 million dollars in annual funding for assistive technologies that support employment for people with disabilities and sometimes the expense can be quite substantial, sometimes it can be several hundred dollars but it gives people an opportunity to enter the workforce and not at the expense of the employer.

And lastly, I know as local government we are always looking for funding sources. Through the Ministry of Social Development and Social Innovation we have a program called the Community Employment Partnership program and I really encourage you – if you’re not aware of CEP, or Community Employment Partnership. It’s not as easy to apply for it in the sense of….as a gaming grant; there’s an employment piece that’s attached to it, but I encourage all local governments, if not yourselves, to look into the program to find some funding providing meaningful employment or training for individuals, and if the (unclear) is gonna work for your municipality, your local government, your regional district, perhaps think about: is there a non-profit in your communities that could work from it.

So funding is available, and if you want an easy way to access you can either grab a card from myself before you leave, or I’ll grab some WorkBC brochures here, and through your WorkBC site as well. So there’s an opportunity there for local governments to really play an impactful role in their communities.

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PSLL: Thank you Minister, and Mary as you’re a member of that Minister’s Council would you like to comment on the work that’s being done?

Mayor Sjostrom: Thank you. Well, I think we’re all really really excited and I just want to say from my perspective that I just firmly believe that accessibility and inclusion in our communities doesn’t start with a program. I think that we’ve really – it has grown significantly in BC and I think it’s up to each and every one of us to make sure that our community is accessible, and I wanna say to my colleague in Fort St. John – when we put our accessibility committee together, we added the word inclusion and I think that that is really important, and when I think about inclusion I think about the steps that we’ve been able to take as a municipality with hiring folks, and they’re all part-time, but we have – currently we have seven that work within the municipality and I would really encourage you, if you’re thinking of doing this, make sure that you have your staff consult with your local union because we work very very well with them – and cause we don’t, you know, they always feel that maybe that’s a job that is being taken away from the union aspect of it. But you know with ours – they’re at the fire hall, they’re at City Hall, they’re at the recreation centre, they’re at the fire hall as well, and the RCMP, and you know – just the fact that they’re able to come some – we have one gal at City Hall that comes twice a week, and it just makes such a difference to their quality of life and their being part of the community.

And if any of you were at the launch, where we launched the 2024 program, I talked about an employee of 40 years and that’s Dennis and he has been with us for forty years. He retired, he’s come back as a seasonal worker, and he just – we really notice a

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difference in the downtown core, when Dennis isn’t working. I mean the cleanliness, and what he’s willing to do and – I just would like to tell you that as far as brooms, I forget how many brooms we figured - city manager - that he had worn out but I know – I think it was over a hundred brooms and he – we figured that he had swept from Vancouver to Halifax and was already back to Calgary, and that was when he retired.

And you know, it might not, you might think well, how important is that? But we all know that we like to keep our downtown core clean and attractive. Dennis is absolutely – he was our torch-bearer, for the Olympics and everybody loves Dennis, and he’ll stop and talk but he never very often stops very long – and you know it’s really made a difference to his quality of life and here he retired and he missed us and we certainly missed him and he came back, and we have various agencies and businesses and I think as local government leaders too we need to…..

Sometimes, businesses are a little bit apprehensive, but you can’t get any more dedicated folks than some of these individuals and working through Community Living and Community Living BC. There’s folks that I had the pleasure of working at Tim Horton’s for an hour when we were selling cookies and some of the folks there – they’re just thrilled to be there, and they have a smile on their face every day, and it really makes for an inclusive rounded community, so I just encourage each and every one of you, you know, if you aren’t taking advantage of – we’re all worrying about the workforce and who’s gonna do that – the little job that maybe the average person doesn’t want to do…uhmm – you know it’s amazing, the folks out there that would do it, so I think we’re doing some great things, and we’ve got a long ways to go but I just

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encourage you every day to think about this and add it to your budgets and figure out how you’re gonna make your community just step by step marks. That’s all. Thank you.

PSLL: Thanks, Mary. I’m just going to thank the panel personally for being here and for speaking. We are going to do some questions, so certainly from those of you that are here you’re welcome to ask questions of the panel in a minute but first of all we’re going to have a quick look at a video from Rick Hanson. Mary did do a bit of an introduction so I’m just gonna read one paragraph from that.

Despite a lifetime of accomplishments Rick believes his best work is in front of him, as he expands the work of his foundation internationally and continues to pursue those dreams that first inspired the Man in Motion world tour, to find a cure for SCI and to build on the great example Canada has become in making the world fully accessible and inclusive for everyone.

So we have a clip from Rick.

RICK HANSEN UBCM MESSAGE:

Hi, I’m Rick Hansen, and I wanted to have the opportunity to speak at this conference in front of municipal and provincial leaders, as well as members of our provincial community.

You know when British Columbia launched their ten-year plan to make BC the most progressive place in Canada for people with disabilities, the government made a promise to make inclusivity and accessibility a top priority. And I’m really proud to say that this commitment is being ignited through a partnership with the Rick Hansen Foundation to

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expand and evaluate information about accessible venues and public spaces through our online tool called Planat.

You know the program is gonna provide opportunities for people with disabilities to gain valuable work experience while being empowered, influenced accessibility in their own community.

We created Planat to highlight and to celebrate all the great work that’s been done throughout British Columbia, across Canada, and around the world – celebrating the progress of venues and spaces that are now accessible to all.

It’s an online platform that allows users to submit their own reviews of spaces from mobility, vision, and hearing perspectives. This benefits not only the consumer or the person with the disability who has this need for accessibility but also for businesses as well.

It’s an effective way for towns, cities, and local businesses to promote the accessibility and inclusiveness of their locations and to gain new customers in the process. To celebrated new insights about where they can improve for the future.

When I wheeled around the world during my Man in Motion World Tour, I had a dream of creating a world without barriers. And we came a long way in the last number of years since the Man in Motion Tour, one community at a time.

Champions from throughout the entire province have identified problems and work in partnership with municipalities, with government, and of course with the private sector. They’ve been able to continue to make progress that’s worthy of celebrating.

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It’s time for us now to connect, to be able to share this information in a standardized and accessible way, so the people with disabilities have a chance to know where they can go to be able to gain fuller access and inclusivity.

It’s also going to be a powerful tool as aging baby boomers continue to occupy many disabling conditions.

By 2030, one in five Canadians will have one form of disability, so we need to prepare for this emerging force, this consumer force, this group of constituents that really demand access for all.

But as you know there’s still lots of work that has to be done. Without universal access for all, valuable members of our society are going to be left isolated.

So I challenge each and every one of you to join me and the government of British Columbia in creating real change in communities, and ensuring that no person is left behind. To encourage each and every one of you to make accessibility a priority in your communities by embracing Planat as a universal tool, and a small act to be able to communicate accessibility, or to make progress along the way will add up to have massive impact over time.

Let’s not give up on the original Man in Motion dream, and let’s strive towards the day when our province is completely accessible and inclusive for all. Thanks a lot, you guys.PSLL: And Minister, would you like to follow up on that please?

MDM: I’m just quickly gonna throw out my speech and just throw four challenges to local government: four things that you can do to make your community more accessible, more inclusive.

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For example, many of our communities large and small have accessibility committees or inclusive communities. If you haven’t taken a scooter ride with someone who is permanently in a scooter I suggest you do. It’s shocking – the number of things you’ll learn.

Yes, you’ll see your community with your cut-outs that exist, you’ll see the buttons to push, and then you realize if you’re good in a scooter and you go for that ride, that oftentimes, even when you are fully mobile like myself, it’s sometimes very difficult to stay in a scooter and reach the button to cross the street.

It’s also shocking to go into a brand new building, and find out that the bathroom door has to be pushed by the scooter into…into the washroom. It’s not because we’re not aware of these things, but sometimes we make mistakes.

And so when you actually have that scooter ride, you actually can see, from the perception of someone who’s in there all the time, some of the challenges that they face day to day. And then you ask yourself, if I’m a community leader for a municipality or a regional government, how do those individuals tell us in a meaningful way where to make those changes? Sometimes it’s not as easy as you think. Everybody’s assuming someone else is gonna be doing the telling. And so you want to make it as easy as possible. That’s challenge one.

Second one – gaming grants. Gaming grants are an opportunity across the province to make impact. What about the idea of having either a recreational association or non-profit to step up, make an application for gaming grants that would require mobility devices that could be signed out almost like a library.

Whether it would be for example, a wheelchair that could go on sand; a tandem bicycle, a kayak for someone who is a paraplegic or a

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quadriplegic, one of those mountain-climbing chairs. These are items that individuals probably can’t own on their own, and chances are they don’t need to use them every single day. But if you’re a mother with young children who like to ride bikes, and you don’t…you want to buy a $7,000 wheelchair bicycle, it’s not realistic. What about the ability for your community to have basically a library of accessibility devices to give people a quality of life to share with their family and their friends?

Thirdly, civic workforce. Yes, when you walk into your city hall, your town hall, your village hall or your hamlet hall, do you consider yourself employment champions? If you are, step up and brag. If you think you can do better, do so. Mayor Sjostrom’s right – sometimes it can be perception of challenges. Chances are the challenges are more in the heads than they are in reality. Work with whatever it is – your local union, work with your city managers – there’s opportunities there, and by all means, we’re Canadian, but don’t be afraid to brag when we do well. We want to be leaders to encourage others to aspire to betterness.

And lastly, Rick Hansen is an example of using a CEP dollar. The CEP or the CEP program – Community Employment Partnership – to grow his organization, his opportunity. But you don’t have to be a big organization like the Rick Hansen Foundation. For example you could be the Tabor Mountain Recreation Association or Society in Prince George. They use CEP funding to create a wheelchair-accessible interpretive trail. (Unclear) a community in British Columbia that couldn’t use a bit more trail access in their town – and that’s something communities large and small could use.

So not that those are by all means the definitive ways to make your community more accessible, more inclusive, but those are four, I think, very realistic steps that you could use yourself or encourage others around you to help make our society more inclusive.

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And lastly, if you could do me one more favor, when you leave this place, and you leave this convention, please don’t let inclusiveness and accessibility stay here. You need to inspire others around you.

You’re community leaders – chances are you’re here because you’re one of the more progressive community leaders in your community. I need you to be champions for all of us, because government can’t do it alone, government at any level can’t do it alone, we need all of us in society, so I’m supposed to say other things at this stage but I thought I’d just throw in some challenges and lastly, in the back you’ll see Sue Mader, who is.. shy. She’s the head of the Accessibility Secretariat in government. To my left is Molly Harrington, who’s one of the ADMs in Social Development and Social Innovation. Those are the people who know everything – and so at the end of this hearing “I want some more information about something that the Minister has mentioned, or something that he should have mentioned” – they know the answers too, and so by all means – and there’s others as well in this room - but again, thank you ladies for coming, and thank you Linda Reid for coming as well ‘cause you’re showing leadership in the…probably the oldest and most cantankerous buildings of all British Columbia, so… It takes leadership on your part too.

PSLL: Thank you Minister, so we do have a little bit of time for questions. If you have one please stand at the microphone, and identify yourself and direct your question to whoever on the panel you choose.

Speaker: My name is (unclear) I’m the Area B director for the (unclear) Regional District, and I represent a small – well, around 4,000 people that are predominantly rural folks, and there’s - I’d say two distinctive communities. In partnership with the city of Quesnel we have the HandyDart which has been great. Unfortunately, a lot of the trips are unmet, so I would say the demand is bigger, than the current service.

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So we’re certainly looking at that and bringing it to referendum this year in order to try and increase the contribution from the…through the local taxbase.

But what we’re finding – there’s a lot of people – I guess residents that are looking at the HandyDart, zipping up to 15 to 20 kilometers from downtown Quesnel with one person in it, and people are starting to say: What are we doing, this service isn’t sustainable, we’re running a 25-passenger bus around, it’s got one person in it. And so one of my concerns is when it comes to referendum in November it’s not gonna go, for simply that reason.

And I think we all understand that there’s a need for this service to..umhhh….pick door to door delivery – not delivery but pick up and drop off, but I’m just wondering if there’s perhaps the option for a different type of formula which would allow other residents to get on it – people that don’t have mobility issues, ummm….simply to go into town, if they wanna go shopping. So I guess that question’s directed to Manuel. Thank you.

Mr.Achadinha: There is a program in a number of our communities - we call it Paratransit. Paratransit is a combination of HandyDart service and conventional transit, where you can combine both folks who…if you wanna combine the service. It really is – we work with our local government partner to determine that. I mean one of the challenges you have with the custom transit service – it is not predictable. I mean really that is one of the challenges. It is very busy during the peak hours – people in the morning, if they wanna go to work, or come home – that’s when they want it. There’s lots of excess capacity you know at 10:30 in the morning or 1:30 in the afternoon or 9 o’clock at night. That’s your challenge.

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So you know….we have the exact same problem with our big busses. You know, when school and work starts we need those 40-foot buses but you know you go around at 10:30 in the morning and there may only be 8, 10 people on the big bus. And that’s one of the challenges.

So you can’t…I get people coming up going: “Why don’t you have two different fleets – why don’t you have a fleet for the peak and a peak for the off?” and I go that’s great but you know a big bus cost a half a million dollars and those small buses cost about 250,000, so if I had to buy two of them to split up I’d be spending 750,000. And I already know that the almighty dollar is very challenging for both our provincial and our local government partners. We have to be smart.

There’s a couple of the things we’re doing as well – we’re looking at different types of HandyDart vehicles, we’re actually testing out a new product, the Sprinter, which is smaller, and it’s – we think it’s gonna work better in some of our smaller communities for a HandyDart service and be more affordable as well.

PSLL: Thank you. Gentleman over here.

Carl Jensen: My name’s Carl Jensen, Central Saanich Councillor, but also I’m the chairperson of the Peninsula Recreation Commission. I’m here today not with a question but more of a story for my colleagues and my fellow leaders that we… expanded our pool, back in Panorama a few years ago. And one of the options that came forth from staff was: what about putting an elevator in for the water slide. They said it’s something that’s never been done in…anywhere in North America.

Now we had some on the commission at the time that said, well, what’s gonna be the cost benefit. Luckily, in this case we didn’t look at the cost benefit. We looked at what was gonna make sense and what was gonna

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create an opportunity for people with disabilities in our community and we went ahead and built it.

And we built the water slide, even higher than Saanich Commonwealth Place (I’m sorry, Nichola), but it’s…the best part is that it’s got a water slide and there’s stories of people coming from Seattle, from Vancouver.

And I don’t care how many people use the water slide. I care that people – please do! I was gonna end and say next time any of you are on the Peninsula, please come by, if you just wanna see it. Have a look.

I just checked with the staff – one of the things they’ve started doing as well is they opened it up in the morning for seniors. Seniors wanna ride the water slide, but I don’t wanna walk 25 feet up. So what I would say is, to my fellow leaders, I know times are tough, and I know we’re fighting for every dollar we have, but sometimes we need to look for what makes sense, and what’s right, for those in the community, and realize that it’s not always gonna be about dollars and cents. Sometimes it’s gonna be about what’s right. So I encourage you to try and look for those opportunities because whether it’s this, whether it’s an accessible playground – to see people enjoying it, it’s a fantastic thing.

(Applause).

PSLL: Yes, kudos to you, that’s wonderful. Sir.

Mayor Stetski: Thank you, Mayor Wayne Stestki from Cranbrook. First of all I wanna thank the panel really – sorry I had to duck out for a meeting with Minister Wat – because this is an amazing group gathered here and it’s so exciting to see everybody focused on accessibility and Minister McRae I just wanna reflect for my colleagues – about four

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months into being mayor, I had several people in a wheelchair approach me and ask me to come and roll around downtown Cranbrook in a wheelchair. And you’re absolutely right I got beat up by doors, you couldn’t reach the “Walk” light cause we’ve done pretty rock work around the base of some of the traffic lights. They deliberately put me on a sidewalk, sent me down. You could get on one end of the sidewalk, you couldn’t get off the other end of the sidewalk.

And it’s that knowledge – and I would encourage all of you to get into – I know you said scooter, I’d pick a wheelchair even. And try rolling around your community and you will understand the challenges, and for me – we’ve spent the last two and a half years improving Cranbrook. Our RCMP station, you couldn’t – you had to meet outside if you were in a wheelchair. We now have an accessible ramp, you can actually go in and meet with an RCMP officer inside and we’ve changed a lot of our doors.

But it starts with that knowledge, and I’m so thankful to these people that said “Come with me for a ride in a chair around the community, and you’ll understand the challenges.” And what we do for people in wheelchairs, we’re also doing for senior citizens and for mothers pushing strollers, so you know – it’s more than just accessibility for one group, it’s accessibility for all of your citizens, so… Thank you for your work.

PSLL: Thank you. Yes.

Linda Nixon: Hi. I’m Linda Nixon from Revelstoke, City Councillor. I’ve been a registered nurse in gerontology for twenty-five years, and kudos to all the work you’re doing.

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I worked in Enderby, lived in Revelstoke, and drove to work because it was the best job I ever had. It was like maternity nursing and gerontology where we help people stay in their own homes longer, and to see the lift in the people that they could turn around and take ownership of their lives again.

And a lot of us, in our communities, we sort of have accessibility. We sort of make arrangements like, if you phone from the front door, we’ll come and let you in, so we really need to have those checklists and really look at it. You know - as the previous mayor was just saying – to walk in other people’s shoes. And a really good book that talks about what you’re doing is “Deepening Community” by Paul Born, and that’s caring affects, and everybody in this room has caring affects, and that shows, so kudos to all of you.

PSLL: Thank you very much. Yes.

Alice Durksen: Alice Durksen, Councillor from the Village of Ashcroft. I have to tell you this is a dangerous place to be. I came in this room being very happy about retiring in two months and I’m feeling like I did at the meeting…at my first meetings when I….I’ve been on Council for two terms now and I feel like I did that first health meeting back when I first began and looked around the room to see who else was there, because the fellow who was giving the breakout groups says it only takes one person to change a community, you know one person to get the idea and work on it, and I looked around that day to see who else was there from Ashcroft and no one else was in the room and I thought “Oh no, I’m it!”

And so I’m hoping that this idea of accessibility is something that a person who is no longer on Council can champion and work, so I don’t

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feel…maybe it’s not quite so dangerous because I thought “I’ve got to go sign up again!!!”

Though what I really wanted to do was thank Manuel – and I won’t try the last name because I don’t wanna mess it up – your corporation, and I think you were personally involved with our transit decision in Ashcroft.

We..uh…the situation was we had two adjacent, very close villages that worked together on a transit program and then one of them dropped out and you helped us, the other two, to have a successful transit, and we really… that wasn’t one of my portfolio but our community – the community of Ashcroft, the community of Clinton, really want to thank you publicly for your good work that you gave, thank you.

PSLL: Thank you, yes.

Cynthia Day: I just want to thank you - I’m Cynthia Day from the City of Colwood and I’ve been working with the Inter-municipal Advisory Committee on Disability Issues which is a mouthful - we’re gonna work on a new name, IACTD, for short.

The chair of our committee has a…..was a recipient of the Rick Hansen’s Difference Maker medal for her work. She has been in a wheelchair since she was a child, and has worked tirelessly to bring forward the type of initiatives – and I’m quite amazed because I’m used to being, and have been here, back in 2006, the only one in the room advocating that you get out in a wheelchair and check it out, so it’s pretty amazing that all of you obviously have done that.

So there is quite a quantum shift that is happening, and I just want to encourage the documentation of this process because as I’ve worked in this area, I have found that….I’ve felt that sometimes we’re reinventing

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the wheel. I notice that we’re all having to do some fairly heavy work to determine what needs to be done and there’s a parallel process going on and there’s not enough sharing of that good information taking place.

So one of the things that we developed was a user-friendly trail guide which was in a collaboration between the age-friendly grants and the Legacies Now grants that brought about some changes in each community, so what’s wonderful about that is it documents it so that you can take it in and use the same tools – it’s already all there. And if we could share those sorts of documents then more people in our communities who may not be connected with us, who might not hang out with those other people that we’ve met, could find out about it and be more included in our community.

PSLL: Thank you very much. So that concludes – I don’t see any more questions, we’ve run a few minutes over. Oh, sorry Michelle.

MLA Stilwell: That’s okay. I don’t really have a question, I just have a statement. Listening to everyone today, you know I’m really excited that so many of you are here in this room. And one of the easiest things that we can do, moving forward, that doesn’t cost any of you even a dollar out of your local budget to help create more accessible communities is changing the language.

Changing the language and the perception that you have for people who have disabilities. One of the critical things is taking out some of the words that we use like “handicapped,” or “person in a wheelchair.”

I’m not in a wheelchair, I use a wheelchair. It’s a mode of transportation. I’m not “confined” to it, so when you’re out and about you’re going to “try out” a wheelchair, you’re not going to be “in” it.

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Nobody that you are relating with, with a disability is in it. When we’re thinking about universal design and people with disabilities, we’re putting universal design in place so that people with disabilities can reach their full potential and focus on their abilities not their disability, not what’s limiting them. So start focusing on what they can do, not what they can’t, by creating opportunities so that they can do the things they are able to do.

(Applause).

PSLL: Thank you Michelle, you always put us on the right track. I’m going to turn it over to Mary for her last words, but I hope none of you feel overburdened by what you’ve heard. You should feel uplifted and excited and go back to your communities with great ideas and thoughts and energy because I think it’s a very happy, uplifting thing to do.

Mayor Sjostrom: Thank you Linda. Larry can you do it in one minute?

Larry Evans: I can do it in thirty seconds. We have met one of the challenges that I believe Minister McRae put out and that was to use a wheelchair and I mean that’s nothing within itself but we have Councillor Christensen here, one of my colleagues. He was in a wheelchair too – not mine, his, but what we were given was a grocery list. I’ll let you guys think about that for a minute. I’ll tell you what - we almost got hurt trying to get things off the top shelf just staying in the chair.

So just something to remember, but it was…it was a….we left City Hall and the first store we hit – we had a grocery list and it really brought to light just, you know, how difficult it can be. So thank you.

Mayor Sjostrom: Okay, and thank you and I just wanna say what a great audience you’ve been, and thank you very very much. Linda thank

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you very much for keeping us on track, and to our ministers who’ve taken a busy time out of your schedules and to all our MLAs and elected officials I just wanna say thank you and to the panel: great job and thank you very much for giving of your time.I think that this is an issue as I say that we need to work more on, so on behalf of UBCM, I’d like to mention to you that in our appreciation, we have a thank you gift in the line of a donated – we have donated in your name to the Junior Explorer Club through the Blind Beginnings and participants of this local program meet once a month to develop friendships with other children experiencing similar life circumstances to combat the feeling of isolation and loneliness. So on behalf of UBCM thank you again and this will be given in your name, and thanks a million.