Thank you, Chair.
When this committee studied Bill C-81—the Accessible Canada Act—in 2018, we heard repeated and urgent testimony from disability advocates and organizations that the act lacked clear timelines and deadlines. While it was perhaps well intentioned, it was widely recognized that it did not have the teeth and enforcement mechanisms to ensure the removal or prevention of barriers. Five years after the passage of this bill, it is clear these concerns were well founded.
Mr. David Lepofsky told the committee this:
The act does not, at present, require any disability barrier to ever be removed or to be prevented in any organization that the federal government can regulate. Not one single accessibility standard that is enforceable in law has been enacted in the five years since this law was passed. As a result, progress towards accessibility has been glacial and agonizingly slow.
Given that we are a quarter of the way to 2040, why have you failed to enact a single legally enforceable accessibility standard?