HUMA Committee Related Document

DETAILED RESPONSES TO THE RECOMMENDATIONS

RECOMMENDATION 9

The Committee recommends:

• that the Speaker of the House of Commons take immediate steps to develop a communications strategy to promote a greater awareness of and sensitivity toward the abilities of persons with disabilities and the services available to accommodate people with disabilities within the Parliamentary Precinct; and
• that the strategy provide separate emphasis for managers, health and safety personnel, and employees with disabilities.

The House of Commons Administration adheres to modern management practices. These specify that a comprehensive communications strategy is prepared for all new programs and services to ensure their success. Communications regarding new building changes or upgrades, guidelines for a scent-free workplace, awareness campaigns for building occupants when work involves scented products, emergency evacuation procedures, are but a few recent examples of the application of this strategy in this context.

More specifically, as part of the on-going work through our Employment Equity program and the planned development of a workplace accommodation policy, the communications strategy is an integral component which includes the target audiences mentioned above as well as all employees of the Administration.

This subject matter is also covered under the initiative highlighted in the response to recommendation 11.

RECOMMENDATION 10

The Committee recommends:

• that the Speaker of the House of Commons, in collaboration with the Senate, undertake a thorough accessibility audit of all facilities in the Parliamentary Precinct to ensure that barrier free design principles included in the CSA Standard CAN/CSA B651 04 are respected, except where this standard will significantly reduce the heritage quality of the facility;
• that, based on the results of this audit, a Parliamentary Precinct accessibility plan be developed highlighting what needs to be done to eliminate remaining barriers;
• that an accountability framework be developed, approved and implemented to assign responsibility for ensuring that the Parliamentary Precinct is fully accessible to people with disabilities (including sensory or mobility disabilities); and
• that the framework set out performance indicators and reporting mechanisms; and that its ongoing implementation be reported yearly in the performance report of the House of Commons.

In July 2005, Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC), as custodian of the parliamentary buildings, conducted a survey of the corrective measures undertaken as a response to the January 1995 accessibility audit of the Centre, East and West Blocks, the Confederation Building and the grounds surrounding Parliament. Most corrective measures have been completed. It is important to note that some work was exempted for heritage considerations or deferred until major renovations take place.

In 2004, the Canadian Standards Association published a third edition of its B651 standard, Accessible design for the built environment. It supersedes the previous editions published in 1995 and 1990 under the title Barrier-Free Design. The B651 standard is referenced in the Treasury Board Real Property Accessibility Policy, which contains special requirements for heritage buildings. This policy encourages departments to provide appropriate access and use of federal facilities to employees with disabilities where it does not satisfy a special need of a particular employee, does not deal satisfactorily with access in particular properties, or adversely affects certain employees.

As a first step, a comparison of the 2004 and 1995 standards will be carried out to identify their differences. An accessibility audit of the parliamentary buildings in the Precinct will be conducted, focusing on the new or revised requirements of the 2004 version of the B651 standard. An action plan for the implementation of the new requirements will then be developed. PWGSC is responsible for base building improvements and will, as it did in its 1998 and 2005 audits, ensure that the CSA B651-04 standard is implemented to the largest extent possible in consideration of the outstanding heritage designation of the buildings in the Parliamentary Precinct. On the other hand, building occupants and employers have the responsibility to ensure that employees with disabilities have all the necessary work tools to successfully carry out their day-to-day activities.

RECOMMENDATION 11

The Committee recommends:

• that the House Administration, under the responsibility of the Speaker of the House of Commons, collect information and conduct an analysis of its workforce in order to determine the degree of under representation of persons with disabilities in that workforce, as defined in the Employment Equity Act and regulations;
• that based on this analysis, the House Administration, under the responsibility of the Speaker of the House of Commons, be encouraged to continue to develop, approve, implement and monitor employment equity initiatives with clear and measurable outcomes in the areas of recruitment, retention, accommodation, and career progression of persons with disabilities; and
• that the progress made in the implementation of employment equity initiatives be reported yearly in the performance report of the House of Commons.

The Administration of the House of Commons has made encouraging progress in recent years with respect to employment equity. In November 2004, the Administration conducted a voluntary employee self-identification exercise, followed by a workforce analysis and an employment system review.

An employment equity plan is now being developed. This plan includes the review of the House of Commons’ employment equity policy, heightened manager and employee awareness of persons with a disability, greater emphasis on hiring persons with a disability, and the creation of a tool to measure progress in the hiring, retention and training of persons with a disability. An annual report will also be produced, outlining progress on employment equity.

RECOMMENDATION 12

The Committee recommends:

• that the Board of Internal Economy create an accessibility fund to pay for modifications or retrofits needed to make constituency and House of Commons offices of Members of Parliament fully accessible to persons with disabilities;
• that the Board of Internal Economy determine the amount of this fund and establish the rules and limitations regarding its use;
• that the Board of Internal Economy provide guidance to MPs when selecting office space;
• that, on approval of this recommendation, the Board of Internal Economy amend the Members’ Offices By-Law (By Law 301) to include the newly created accessibility fund and approved expenditures; and amend the Manual of Allowances and Services for the Members of the House of Commons to reflect such changes. Listing these expenditures separately will increase awareness of the importance of access, and make it easier to assess the commitment of the House Administration to improving accessibility for persons with disabilities.

The subject matter of this recommendation will be brought to the attention of the Board of Internal Economy.

Currently, all House of Commons offices for Members of Parliament on the Precinct are fully accessible to persons with disabilities.

The House of Commons does currently suggest to new Members that when selecting office space in the constituency, they should consider accessibility issues for persons with disabilities. This message will be re-enforced in documentation provided to Members after the next general election.

RECOMMENDATION 13

The Committee recommends:

• that the Speaker of the House of Commons take immediate steps to ensure that the protocol for the emergency evacuation of persons with disabilities is up to date and widely disseminated; and
• that emergency fire drills and information sessions on emergency preparedness be held at least once a year.

The House of Commons has a protocol in place for the emergency evacuation of persons with disabilities. This protocol has been tested and has been determined to be fully functional.

Each case is reviewed on an individual basis. The process involves an assessment of the special needs of the individual, a determination of the most appropriate evacuation procedure, the delivery of the required training and an update of evacuation procedures, which are kept at the House of Commons’ 24-hour Security Services posts.

The Administration of the House of Commons fully supports the concept of fire drills and emergency preparedness. Indeed, fire drills are helpful in identifying any fire hazards and making all building occupants aware of the building safety features. Fire drills will be held once a year as per standards. Fire drills will be planned with our stakeholders on the Hill in order to minimize disruptions to the operations and activities of Parliament.

Information on emergency preparedness is given to employees on a regular basis as part of the Business Continuity Management program.

RECOMMENDATION 14

The Committee recommends:

• that the Speaker of the House of Commons take the necessary measures to develop and adopt a policy requiring the application of an “access and inclusion lens” to the design, retrofit and procurement of all information services and information technology infrastructure, including, but not limited to, network services, Web sites, printing services, electronic publications and Chamber technology infrastructure; and particularly,
• that all parliamentary Web sites fully comply with the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Priority 1 and Priority 2 requirements within a year; and
• that closed captioning and sign language of House of Commons proceedings and committees’ broadcast be provided in both official languages, and that this issue be referred to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Official Languages.

The Administration of the House of Commons shares the commitment shown by Members of the Subcommittee on the Status of Persons with Disabilities to enabling wide access to the work of Parliamentarians to all Canadians.

Accessibility can mean many different things to many different people. For a hearing-impaired person it can mean viewing real-time captioning, to a traveling Member, it may mean viewing the proceedings from a wireless device and to an educator it may be reading information in either official language. Today, the House of Commons is moving toward capturing information in a digital format which is, by its very nature, inclusive simply because it can be accessed for use in different formats using different equipment and types of connection to the Internet.

The House of Commons Administration has in place information technology and management strategies and architecture that support the delivery of robust, secure and flexible technology services. These services support easy communication of information among all service areas and with clients, partners, suppliers and the public. In 2003, the campus technology infrastructure was expanded into the House of Commons Chamber where Members of Parliament, including those with special needs, can be provided with the tools they need to support them in their work.

The accessibility program in place for the House of Commons supports the same World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) guidelines as are in place for the Government of Canada web sites. The accessibility program includes the formal assessment of the web sites against those guidelines. The assessment of existing content is underway from which it will then be possible to determine whether and where content on the sites is consistent with the W3C guidelines. More importantly, to ensure that new content meets the guidelines, web publishing policy and standards exist for the parliamentary web sites. Those standards include the W3C guidelines along with a wide range of other publishing standards and practices that support easy access to web content.

Today, the Debates of the Chamber are televised in both official languages and broadcast live across Canada in partnership with the Cable Public Affairs Channel (CPAC). Select televised Committee proceedings are also televised and broadcast by CPAC on a delayed basis. In addition, all live televised proceedings as well as the audio from all public committee meetings are made available from (www.parl.gc.ca) in French, English and spoken language formats. The written transcripts for the Chamber Debates are made available overnight and in both languages on the web site along with the written transcripts for the Committees as they become available.

We know from our partners at CPAC that the most highly viewed portion of the daily debates in the Chamber is Question Period and today, we broadcast that portion of the Debates with live close captioning in English accompanied by French language sign interpretation.

The House of Commons issued a request for services and established that real-time captioning services are not available. Nevertheless, the House is today working in partnership with other organizations to assess specific technologies and opportunities to expand real-time captioning of events. These include a project underway with the Centre de recherche informatique à Montréal (CRIM) and Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC) with the purpose of identifying ways in which we can introduce an effective and sustainable approach to captioning services using voice recognition technologies.

RECOMMENDATION 16

The Committee recommends:

• that, on approval of the recommendations, an implementation team, led by the Clerk of the House of Commons, be established to begin work on recommendations 9 to 15 of the report;
• that the names of people assigned to this implementation team be forwarded to the Subcommittee for its review within the next 120 sitting days; and
• that the implementation team report back to the Subcommittee on its progress within a year.

The management group of the Clerk of the House of Commons is accountable to the Board of Internal Economy for all the responsibilities and/or special projects related to the matters expressed in this report. Most of these are well underway and will continue to be monitored within the current governance structure.