Thank you very much for inviting me to speak to you today on the progress Canada is making toward being barrier-free.
I am Michelle Hewitt, and I'm the chair of the board of Disability Without Poverty. I'm a disabled woman and a full-time wheelchair user. I live in Kelowna with my husband, who is also a full-time wheelchair user.
Talking about accessibility to any level of government is always complicated, because responsibility is siloed. However, our lives as disabled people do not work in this way, and I believe the tone set by the federal government trickles down to other areas of influence. Therefore, I believe it's your job to set the bar high and expect that everybody else at least meets that standard.
I need to clarify something about my comments. Once I saw I was on this panel with David, I decided to concentrate on getting some basic examples on the record, as David is far more knowledgeable than I am about the labyrinthine details of the Accessible Canada Act.
My husband and I have just moved closer to downtown Kelowna so that we can go out more independently. We thought we'd go to a relatively new place that offers dinner and a movie, but no. The movie part is upstairs, and there's no elevator. It's been open less than two years.
We have to check every place we go to to see whether it's accessible for us. That's not something non-disabled people have to do.
Recently, I went for a blood test in a relatively new office. Again, it's downtown and it's the main location. The cubicles the blood tests happen in are too small to fit my wheelchair, so I have to have my blood taken in a hallway, in full view of everyone, with no privacy. Being disabled often equates to having your dignity removed.
The last time I flew was to Ottawa in April. Ironically, it was to appear before the transportation committee. Before boarding the plane, while it clearly says “full assistance” on my file, I was asked to leave my power wheelchair behind at the check-in desk and walk onto the plane. It's just one example of the many things that happen when we're flying while disabled. We are second-class citizens.
The national director at DWP, Rabia Khedr, is blind. She cannot vote without another person reading out the candidates' names and her telling them her choice out loud. Rabia regularly receives letters in the mail from all levels of government with personal information. She has to get someone else to read them to her, whereas if they come by email, she has the technology to read them privately. She's denied these basic rights of a full citizen.
My friend Glenda, an award-winning master's student at Queen's University, is non-verbal. I asked her for a recent example of a lack of accessibility she has faced. She told me she currently has an issue with her business account at the CRA, and the only way they say they can fix it is if she calls them, but she can't speak. This type of thing happens day in, day out.
Through our work at DWP, we can tell you that barriers are hard-wired into the federal government programs that disabled people living in poverty try to access. In 2022, the Auditor General said the government doesn't have a clear picture of the hard-to-reach people not accessing benefits meant to support them. It's like the government can't connect the dots between the programs it has and the people who need them.
We can see this happening in new programs, and it's simply unacceptable. Both the Canadian dental care plan and the new Canada disability benefit, which David mentioned—the first payment will hopefully be in July 2025—require the disability tax credit as the entry point. It's a program that is woefully inadequate.
There are 1.5 million severely and very severely disabled Canadians living in poverty who should be receiving the Canada disability benefit next year. However, the government's own figures say that roughly only half a million Canadians will receive it, so a million Canadians living in poverty will not receive a benefit they're entitled to. These people can't wait any longer, and certainly not until 2040.
In 1966, Paul Hunt, a prominent English disabled man, said, “We are society, as much as anybody, and cannot be considered in isolation from it.” The examples I've given today show that disabled people are still considered in isolation from the rest of society.
Anyone who knows their sports history knows that 1966 was the only time England won the World Cup. While I might sound English, I was born in Canada during the 1966-1967 hockey season, which was the last time the Maple Leafs won the Stanley Cup. Therefore, I ask you this: What's most likely to happen first? Is it England winning the World Cup, the Leafs winning the Stanley Cup or disabled people in Canada being treated as full members of society? Which of these things, if any, will happen by 2040?
Thank you so much for your time. I welcome your questions.