Annual Public Meeting 2024

[Slide 1 – Title page]

Andrée Deslauriers: Good afternoon, everyone and welcome to Accessibility Standards Canada’s fourth Annual Public Meeting. My name is Andrée Deslauriers, and I am the Director of Governance, Policy and Engagement. I'm a white woman in my early forties. I have long, brown hair and today I'm wearing a dark jacket. Thank you for being with us today.  It's a pleasure for me to host this event.  The theme of our APM this year is ‘Leading Change to make Canada Accessible and Include All People.’   Leading change, what does it mean?  For Accessibility Standards Canada, it means taking action, and driving change for accessibility in Canada. It's thanks to you that we are here today, and with the community together and you, we are working to achieve nothing less than an accessible and inclusive country for all people.  We would like to take the opportunity today to show you why we believe we are getting closer every day.  Before we start, remember that a few acronyms will be used.  We are going to use Accessibility Standards Canada, ASC. Acronyms may be used as followed. ASC, for Accessible Standards Canada.  APM for Annual Public Meeting.

[Slide 2 – To Access Sign Language Interpretation] (2:05)

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[Slide 3 – To See Captions] (2:25)

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[Slide 4 – Technical Issues?] (2:44)

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[Slide 5 – Slow Connection?] (3:13)

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[Slide 6 – Land Acknowledgement] (3:38)

So before continuing, I would like to acknowledge that we are taking part in this meeting from the traditional territories of many indigenous people.  I'm in the National capital region.  We pay respect to the Algonquin people, who are the traditional guardians of this land.  We acknowledge their long-standing relationship with his territory, which remains unceded.  We pay respect to all Indigenous people in this region, from all nations across Canada, who call this region home.  We acknowledge the traditional knowledge keepers, both young and old.  And we also honour their courageous leaders, past, present, and future.  I encourage you to also become familiar with the local Indigenous peoples and lands from where you are joining us today. This afternoon, you will hear about the many ways we are taking action to bring about meaningful change for accessibility in Canada.  We will show you how to access accessibility related information through our Centre of Expertise.  You will also find out how you can join us and contribute to the journey toward a barrier-free Canada by 2040.  This year, we've added a question-and-answer period to our agenda.  Our Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Philip Rizcallah, and Board Directors will answer some of the questions you sent us when you registered to this event. Two panelists will talk about how ASC is developing standards differently from other standards development organizations.  You will learn about the work their technical committees are doing and what they hope to achieve through the standards.  To conclude, the vice chairperson of the Board of Directors will give a few closing remarks.  Now, I do have the honour to introduce Mr. Philip Rizcallah, our CEO, Mr. Korey Earle, one of the Board of Directors, and Ms. Mary Reid, vice chairperson of the Board.

[Group discussion: Leading change: Our work and how to get involved (Mary Reid, Vice-Chairperson, Mr. Kory Earle, Director and Philip Rizcallah, CEO)] (5:56)

Mary Reid: Thank you, Andrée. Good afternoon, everyone.  My name is Mary Reid, and I am the Vice Chairperson of Accessibility Standards Canada’s Board of Directors.  I will describe myself as wearing glasses, I have grey hair, shorter hair.  I'm wearing a white top and blackish blazer.  I use pronouns of she/her.  I have white skin colour.  I'm so pleased to be here today and have you join us.
I will start by sharing some news from the Board of Directors.  We recently welcomed a new Chairperson and two new Directors.  The Board's new chairperson is Mr. Paul Walsh.  He joins us from Newfoundland and Labrador.  From the west coast, we welcome Mr. Christopher Sutton.  Moving now to the capital -- National capital region, we welcome Mr. Wissam Constantin on the Board.  These three new appointments bring unique strengths of lived experience with disability.  Together, they bring decades of experience of removing barriers. We look forward to working with you. Last, but not least, the board has seen the renewal of three of its directors, Ms. Maureen Hahn, Mr. Bill Adair, and Dr. Joe McLachlan for an additional two years.  It's good to have you back.  Let me take this opportunity to recognize Directors who completed their terms in the past year.  Mrs. Penny Hartin and Mr. Paul-Claude Berubé, the first Chairperson.  Thank you for your leadership in establishing Accessibility Standards Canada for your commitment and significant contributions. You can learn more about each Board Director by going online to our website.
I want to tell you about how we approach our work and the impact our way of doing things has on the standards that we create.  Because the how is as important as the work itself.  We develop standards differently to other standards development organizations.  Our approach is unique.  The Board and staff work together to make Accessibility Standards Canada even better at supporting diversity.  We've got this framework in place that makes sure we are thinking about all kinds of people and their different needs every step of the way, as we make our standards.  We make deliberate efforts to have as many different perspectives and experiences around the table as we can.  We want the standards that we develop to eliminate barriers for everyone, regardless of backgrounds or identities.  Here's a concrete example. Equity-seeking groups make up 58 percent of membership on technical committees.  This includes a broad variety of people living with disabilities, women, and indigenous representatives.  We are using an intersectional approach focused on inclusivity and diversity to build better, more equitable standards that all people will benefit from,  including people with disabilities. The Board of Directors is about to begin a critical part of our job, giving the green light to standards that have been created and that were reviewed by the public.  I cannot think of a more appropriate theme for this year's Annual Public Meeting.  Leading change to make Canada accessible and include all people -- the year that we publish our first standards.  At this point, I will turn the floor over to Mr. Rizcallah, who will speak more to the details of our work.

[Slide 7 – Our Work – Key Achievements] (10:42)

Philip Rizcallah: Thank you, Ms. Reid.  My name is a Philip Rizcallah, and I have the privilege to be the first Chief Executive Officer for Accessibility Standards Canada. I will describe myself.  I'm a middle-aged, white male of Arab descent. I have -- I like to say I have dark hair, but it is graying hair.  I'm wearing a blue suit with a grey shirt.  So, Accessibility Standards Canada, we have a critical mandate here to achieve a barrier-free Canada by 2040.  In order to do this, we do two primary functions.  One of them is develop equity-based accessibility standards, and I will speak more about what I mean by equity-based accessibility standards.  Secondly, we advance accessibility research.  So, what have we done over the last year?  I like to say we have done a lot over the last few years.  As Ms. Reid said, we worked hard to set the stage for the publication of our first standards in 2024.  We are really starting to see the fruits of our labour.  We have funded 32 research projects that are focused on identifying and removing barriers to accessibility.  That means that to date, we have funded 85 projects through our Grants and Contributions program, which started in 2019.  As the research concludes, we make these reports available to everyone for free on our website, and anyone can use them, and I would encourage everyone to check out our Centre of Expertise. There's a lot of information there on the research as well as standards under development or that have been developed.  We also held public review for three draft standards in the last year.  This means we asked Canadians to provide their comments on the draft standards before they were finalized by the technical committees.  This process helps us ensure the standards meet the needs of as many people as possible.  Every single comment we receive is carefully reviewed by technical committees before the final standard is issued. I'm going to switch to French.  Currently, our project -- are draft standard on Plain Language is open for public review until July 8th.  I encourage you to visit our website to provide your comments.  Before I go on, I want to take a moment to give you an example of how we are leading change in developing accessibility standards to include all people.  You've heard Mrs. Reid say that we are developing standards differently to other standards development organizations.  And this is crucial.  We are designing for those people -- the standards for those people who sometimes feel they are being left behind.  We are moving away from the common practice of accommodating those in the mainstream. When a standard is ready to go for public review, we have measures in place to make the process accessible and inclusive. We give the public more time to comment because we recognize that some members of the community need more time to respond and provide feedback.  In fact, the deadline for our draft standards on employment was extended twice.  We provide the material and alternate formats.  We can also offer more specialized alternate formats of the standards.  We always share a summary of the draft standards in Plain Language to ensure that concepts are accessible to a wider audience.  We want to make sure everyone who wishes to comment can -- we want to walk the walk.

[Slide 8 – Our Work – Key Plans] (14:42)

Let me move on to talk about other activities that we have been busy with over the last year.  We created Technical Committees to start the work on seven new standards.  We have now signed six agreements with the provinces.  These agreements, or memoranda of understanding as they are called in government jargon, are a way for us to promote our harmonization across Canada so that all Canadians, no matter where they live, can benefit from our standards.  We expect to keep signing more agreements.  Earlier this year, so we are looking at the next year - we are going to continue to advance the 18 standards we are working on now for the next 12 to 18 months, we expect to make five draft standards available for public review.  And as Ms. Reid mentioned a few moments ago, we are very proud to announce that in the very near future, we will publish our first standalone standard, Accessibility Requirements for ICT Products and Services. We are proud because the standard represents the culmination of dedication and hard work.  It will be an important milestone for Accessibility Standards Canada and for the people who have either worked to make it happen, or who have waited for it to happen for a long time, including people with disabilities from diverse communities in Canada.  We can't wait to tell you more about this soon.  We've always worked according to the principle of ‘Nothing Without Us.’  It drives everything that we do.  As such, are standards developing process is made of, includes, and continues to involve the community every step of the way. We work with persons with disabilities, accessibility experts, industry representatives, and other  stakeholders impacted by the standards.  We engage with people with lived experience.  They are the experts on the needs of the group, whether to establish the technical committee or gather input on draft standards, they are involved in every step of the process.  This approach is how we have been able to make and will continue to make sound decisions that will ensure the work we do truly considers as many perspectives as possible and helps to meet the needs of as many people as possible.  You are not only going to hear me talk about this.  Later on, during a panel discussion you will hear from three Technical Committee chairs – but I believe we may only have two Technical Committee chairs today – They will share their experiences of how we are including people who have often been left out of the conversation.  In the end, we believe that our approach leads to a better equity-based standards that addresses systemic barriers and accommodates closer to 100 percent of the people, including those living with disabilities.  Now I have shared a lot of information with you in a very short period of time, so I will stop talking at this point, but please visit our website, go to the Centre of Expertise, reach out to us if you have any questions.  We are more than happy to get back to you.  Now I have the honour of handing this off to Mr. Kory Earle, one of our board directors, who will tell you how to get involved in our process. Thank you.

Kory Earle: Wow, that certainly has been a lot of work that has been done.  Thank you, Mr. Rizcallah.  My name is Kory Earle, and I had the honour of being on the Board of Directors since it started -- we started our work in 2019.  I'm in my late thirties now.  I have a white dark shirt on, short hair, and certainly a lot of grey.  I'm about 5’11”.  First and foremost, I would like to let everyone know that we have a new research funding opportunity launching quite soon.  Are you and your organization engaged in accessibility-related research?  If so, we encourage you to stay tuned because this could be your opportunity to receive funding and we welcome you all.  This funding opportunity is for projects that will start in 2025 to 2026.  We will consider all projects that fall within the priorities of our program.  All of the necessary information will be available on our website, the day of the launch, including the details of how to apply.  We will launch this year's funding opportunity in early June, so follow us on social media accounts for the big announcement.  We do not only fund research, we also make it available to the public.

[Slide 9 – Centre of Expertise] (19:51)

I'm going to talk to you about the Centre of Expertise.  You may know that there is a section on our website called Centre of Expertise.  This is where you can find information on our standards and the research we have funded.  You can also request copies of complete research reports for free.  Funding the most recent and innovative accessibility research in the country can only make our standards better, more inclusive, and sustainable.  By extension, sharing our standards make best practices available free of charge can only encourage organizations to implant or adopt them.  All standards and research found in our Centre of Expertise support the Accessible Canada Act seven priority areas.  The areas were identified through consultation with people with disabilities.  Click on the QR code pictured in the slide and see for yourself.  Now there's other ways in which you can get involved in our activities.  Let me explain how.

[Slide 10 – How to Get Involved] (21:12)

You can become a member of a technical committee to develop a standard.  We create a new committee for each new standard that we develop.  We post these opportunities on our website, so we certainly encourage you to apply.  Whether or not you are part of a technical committee, you can still provide input on our draft standards when we publish them for public review and comment.  As you have heard, the draft standard for Plain Language is currently open for comments until July 8th.  Head over to our website after this meeting and send us your feedback.  And stay tuned, because we will be launching public reviews for more draft standards this year.  Please check our website regularly and if you are not signed up, register to get our newsletter.  This way, you won't miss an opportunity to comment, and you will stay informed about our programs and initiatives.  Another way in which you can be involved is by participating in our public consultations and events to inform priorities and our work.  Please also note that at any time, you can send us your comments about the accessibility of our services and the information on any of our platforms.  Just send us a message through our accessibility feedback form on our website.  Be part of the growing number of people following us on X, Facebook, and LinkedIn.  You can find us by searching Accessibility Standards Canada.  So, apply for research funding, become a member of a technical committee, participate in public reviews, and bookmark the Centre of Expertise in your phones.  Subscribe to our newsletter, follow us on social media and consult our website regularly.  There are many ways in which you can get involved and I certainly encourage you all to get involved in what we do.  You may just have the expertise for the solutions that we are looking for.  I hope that you all truly enjoy the rest of your afternoon and truly get involved in the work that we are doing.  Thank you so much.  Back to you, Andrée.

[Slide 11 – Question 1] (24 :30)

Andrée Deslauriers: Thank you, Mr. Earle. Question number ones on slide 11. Mr. Sutton, what is being done to ensure Canadians experience the same accessibility wherever they live, work and play? Mr. Sutton, over to you.

Christopher Sutton: Good afternoon, everyone and thank you for the lovely question. I'm Christopher Sutton and it's a pleasure to be here.  I'm a middle-aged male in my forties. My hair is technically turning grey over the last several months.  I have a beard.  I'm wearing a navy-blue sweater, and navy-blue tie, and a white shirt. I identify with the pronouns he/him. As you learned today, Accessibility Standards Canada is leading the change to make Canada accessible and include all people. We want to see standards harmonized across the country to ensure Canadians experience the same accessibility wherever you live, work and play. How we can influence change, and when we know that accessibility is a shared responsibility? I want to let you know that some of the work we have been doing in advance to harmonize the standards. We are sharing our knowledge and best practices with all levels of government as we develop our standards. Not only that, but our technical committees are also considering existing provincial standards and best practices to inform their work in creating federal standards. We also meet with provinces and territories regularly. We discuss ways to collaborate and coordinator our efforts.  We also encourage them to adopt our standards.  When working with the provinces and territories to sign agreements, these agreements make it easier for us to share best practices and align our accessibility standards.  They also help take the steps to not duplicate our efforts.  As you have learned previously, we have six agreements in place with all four provinces.  More agreements are in the works, as you heard from the Chief Executive Officer speak to in more detail earlier.  We’ve also recently hosted our third pan-Canadian forum on accessibility standards. Deputy Head representatives of every province and territory were invited to participate.  It was an opportunity for us to share information and to discuss priorities.  To summarize, although we create standards for federally regulated entities,  our standards can be adopted voluntarily by any organization or jurisdiction that wants to help make Canada more accessible. As part of our mandate, we can also recommend the Minister of Diversity, Inclusion, and Persons with Disabilities that a published standard be adopted into regulation in whole or as a part.  The Minister has the authority to regulate standards.  The bottom line is we work closely with several federal, provincial and territorial partners and federal entities under the Accessible Canada Act to coordinate our efforts in hopes of influencing change now.  More broadly, we also continue to develop relationships with various organizations, including industry leaders and are working with people with disabilities, diverse disability communities, and other stakeholders.  Standards development is not only not possible without their contributions, but is welcomed.  This is how we proactively engage various key players to promote a consistent experience of accessibility across Canada to benefit all people.

[Slide 12 – Question 2] (28:12)

Andrée Deslauriers: Thank you, Mr. Sutton. Now we will turn to Mr. Rizcallah.  The question seen on slide 12 asks, how will ASC standards fit in the hierarchy of the National Building Code and CSA group standards?

Philip Rizcallah: Thank you Andrée, for the great question.  So, this is a question we get asked very often. I mentioned early on in my opening remarks that we develop standards a little differently than most organizations.  We develop based on a principle of equity.  If you look at the National Building Code developed through the National Research Council, I’ll start with that first, they develop their codes based on the principal of minimum acceptable.  Essentially, they develop -- they have building code requirements and a separate section that is considered to be an add-on for requirements for accessibility and they work on the principle of minimum.  What that means is they will – the committees decide on what percentage of the population they are going to design the requirements for, and they base their requirements on that percentage of the population.  It could be 75 or 80 percent but that is what they base their decisions on as a minimum standard.  The CSA group also has a standard, which deals with accessibility.  We are teaming up with Canadian Standards Association in the development of the standard for accessibility.  We have collaborated with them and codeveloped a standard called “Accessible Design for the Built Environment.” This standard goes a little further than the building code, and it includes a much larger population of the community of persons with disabilities.  So, this brings us to the work that Accessibility Standards Canada is doing and why we are little different. We are also developing a standard on the built environment.  Our standard as indicated before is based on equity.  So, in other words, we take a much larger population base, we try to capture I would say upwards of 95 percent plus of the population when we are designing and coming up with solutions in our standards, which means we are going to meet the needs of a much larger base of Canadians.  Our standards will be available to all organizations for use for free.  Our draft standard version is on our website, on the Centre for Expertise, and we will have a new version in 2025, the next edition of the built environment standard.  Our hope in working with the National Research Council and CSA is that our standards will be embedded within those documents and within the building code in time.  So, you're looking at harmonized approaches across the country.  The building code is adopted throughout most of the country.  They are in a provincial format or as a federal document.  It is a National Building Code and our hope is once the standards are done, it will encourage the committees and groups to adopt the standards within the building codes.  I will move it back over to you, Andrée.

[Slide 13 – Question 3] (31:32)

Andrée Deslauriers: Thank you, Mr. Rizcallah.  I'm going to ask you to keep your mic open and answer our next question. It’s on slide 13. Is Accessibility Standards Canada doing anything to help advance accessibility of housing in the National Building Code?

Philip Rizcallah: Another great question.  So, housing is front and centre in the media as of late.  There's a lot of talk about accessible housing, lots of talk about available housing. When we look and talk about accessible housing, we want housing to be available to people, and we want housing to be available to everyone.  So here is a lot of work going on within the department when it comes to housing.  So, the first start -- let's start with a National Building Code itself does deal with housing to a degree.  Accessibility and housing to a degree.  Primarily under the National Building Code, they deal with larger buildings and entrances to the larger buildings and corridors or hallways for the larger buildings.  The actual units themselves, whether it's a condo or freestanding home, there's very little when it comes to accessibility in those homes and in those units.  CSA has a standard that includes best practices for accessible housing. The question then becomes the units themselves.  What are we doing to address the units themselves? We are working very diligently at Accessibility Standards Canada to develop standards that will deal with accessibility needs within the units.  We have done a number of things.  The first thing is we have done at costing study.  We developed requirements for accessibility in the homes and one question we get very often is, if we have to put these measures in, it will be unaffordable and make the cost of the house not available to the mass population.  We have done at costing study and we determined through the study, an independent study, that the actual Delta or difference in cost, in creating a home that is accessible, is nominal.  Yes, there are some additional costs in some areas, but a lot of changes can be incorporated through design.  We also commissioned a second study looking at adaptable housing.  What adaptable housing is, is a home that's designed upfront, at the original stages, that would be ready in case somebody wants to move into that home and need specific accessibility features.  You will be able to modify that home and at a very minimal cost, because features are already incorporated to allow that modification in the future.  So, we have commissioned the study, a costing study on creating homes as adaptable.  We have also created a guide to help us how to design a home that is adaptable.  So, these are some of the activities we have going on.  We also have 35 research projects that we funded through the last year and 85 over the last four or five years.  And a number of those standards will touch on built environment, including homes.  I will move it back over to you, Andrée.  Thank you.  

[Slide 14 – Question 4] (34:14)

Andrée Deslauriers: Thank you, Mr. Rizcallah. As we received a number of questions about the employment standard, we decided to group them together.  Mr. Constantin will touch on various aspects of the standard, and the questions are as follows. Slide 14.  Will best practices for handling the recruitment process be covered in the employment standard, and more specifically, how to handle virtual interviews? Also, how will the standards address reasonable accommodations?  Is ASC moving towards an employee lead or empowered model?  And finally, what is your advice for organizations looking to change their culture and best practices?  Mr. Constantin, over to you.

Wissam Constantin: Voice of Interpreter: Thank you very much, Andrée.  Good morning and good afternoon to everyone attending today.  My name is Wissam Constantin.  I'm a Director here Accessible Standards Canada.  I identify as a man in my thirties.  I'm wearing a blue shirt and a black blazer.  My background is my office.  I'm really happy to answer this question, thank you very much.  Similar to the built environment, Accessibility Standards Canada's work in the area of employment is well underway.  To set the context, our employment standard was posted for public review July 19th to November 14th of 2023.  You can find the draft standard on our website and our Centre of Expertise.  The technical committee received over 800 comments and is currently working on reviewing them.  The final standard is expected in the fall of 2025.  The employment standard is grounded in the pillars of the employment lifecycle.  It covers all phases of the cycle, namely recruitment, hiring, onboarding, retention, promotion and career development, as well as separation.  So, I will start with a question about recruitment and virtual interviews. The standard includes requirements for the recruitment process, job postings, the job application process, interview and assessment process, which includes interview questions and panels.  This standard takes an approach whereby it does not include requirements specific for virtual interviews.  Rather, the standard defines workplace environments as inclusive of the physical and virtual settings and requirements should be met in both cases.  I will now turn to the question about accommodations.  The employment standard incorporates two frameworks intended to work together.  Those two frameworks are the systemic approach and the person-centred approach. The systemic approach focuses on environmental solutions and policies to facilitate accessibility and inclusion in the workplace.  Meanwhile, the person-centred approach is an individualized approach to accessibility and accommodation throughout the entire employment lifecycle.  The standard includes a thoughtful and detailed section on accommodations.  It speaks to both approaches to actively remove barriers, while also actively taking a work centred approach to consider lived experience with disability and other intersecting factors.  The draft standard requires employers to promote equity.  It does that by providing workers in all positions access to reasonable accommodations.  The main tool to do so is through an individualized accommodation plan.  These plans can make a significant impact.  Employers are asked to take a "yes by default" approach to provide workplace accommodations as part of the broader, worker centred approach.  To us, this means the worker should be empowered to bring their request to their employer in a space that allows the worker to lead the conversation in identifying the types of barriers and accommodations they have.  And the last part of your question speaks to culture change, which is critical.  Our advice is -- as it relates to employment, is to read the draft standard, as it includes a section on culture, engagement, and education.  Now if we were to pick one message out of the standard that we often communicate here at Accessibility Standards Canada, it would be that progress requires leadership.  It requires everyone thinking and believing the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion.  From the top down and the bottom up, everyone has a role and responsibility to play.  Thank you very much, back to Andrée again.

[Slide 15 – Question 5] (41:10)

Andrée Deslauriers: Thank you, Mr. Constantin.  This was really good information. Now the final question is for Mr. Sutton on slide 15.  How will visible disabilities be incorporated in ASC's work?  This includes cognitive disabilities as well as chronic and episodic health disabilities.  Over to you.

Christopher Sutton: Thank you for the question.  It's important to remember that some disabilities aren't immediately obvious, and those on the call today are very familiar with the barriers and challenges and how real they are.  Since day one we've been committed to including all types of disabilities in our work.  We are not just about creating standards; we are about influencing change today to make life more accessible for all Canadians.  We do not prioritize one type of disability over another.  Everyone faces barriers, whether physical, digital or attitudinal.  In our work, we consult with a wide range of people, and including experts [audio difficulties] like intellectual, hearing and visual impairments, chronic pain and more.  Our organization values diversity when we are hiring staff, selecting board members, and forming technical committees.  We want opinions and experience from all types of people with disabilities in the room.  The definition of disability in the Accessible Canada Act is inclusive of the invisible disabilities.  The definition also includes cognitive disabilities as well as chronic and episodic health disabilities.  The Act and this definition guides our work.  For Accessibility Standards Canada, our position is to create standards and promote the equity and accessibility for all, and to include all people.  We encourage our technical committees to consider all disabilities as defined in the Act.  Our standards address a wide range of barriers faced by people within  invisible disabilities. Some examples include the built environment standard, which addresses the preparation of physical areas to be accessible for those with multiple chemical sensitivities or cognitive disorders. Our employment standard highlights best practices for helping employers -- employees disclose invisible to his abilities at work, accommodating them and keeping their information private, and finally, our plain language standard focuses on a large extent on solving problems of communication that are primarily connected with invisible disabilities.  We promote awareness of invisible disabilities through social media campaigns and design of our website with all disabilities in mind.  Since our inception, we thought about how to include people with invisible disabilities.  We believe all Canadians deserve and accessible Canada.  We listen to people with invisible disabilities, gather their feedback, and include their concerns in our work.  We are committed to understanding their needs better and responding to them as we grow.

Andrée Deslauriers: Thank you, Mr. Sutton. This was a great answer to end or question and answer period. I feel that we could have continued this but I'm sorry to say this is all the time we have for this part of the event today.  Again, huge thank you to everyone who has sent us questions.  It helped us shaping the content of today's event.

[Panel discussion: How we are developing standards differently to include more perspectives (Andrée Deslauriers, MC, Jutta Treviranus, and Maayan Ziv)] (45:14)

Andrée Deslauriers: Now, it is time for our panel discussion.  Last year, at our APM, we addressed what technical committees are and what they do.  Briefly, reestablished technical committees of experts to develop standards.  Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances, Dr Mahadeo Sukhai will not be able to join us for the discussion today.  We are excited though to have two of our technical committee chairs joining us today.  They will share their thoughts and experience to show how together, we are working differently to bring accessibility and inclusions into our standards.  You can find out more about each of them by going to the Annual Public Meeting webpage.  Without further delay, I welcome our distinguished guests, Dr. Jutta Treviranus and Maayan Ziv.  I will introduce you to our panelists, starting with Jutta, Chair of the technical committee on Accessible and Equitable Artificial Intelligence Systems which we also call it AI.  She's also the Chair of the technical committee on Accessibility Requirements for  Information and Communications Technologies, Products and Services.  ICT.  Welcome, Jutta and thank you for being here.

Jutta Treviranus: Thank you for this opportunity.

Andrée Deslauriers: Would you like to introduce yourself?

Jutta Treviranus: Sorry about that.  I didn't know whether that was a question.  Yes, hi everyone.  As was said, I'm the Chair of both of those committees.  I'm also the director of the Inclusive Design and Research Centre at OCAD University.  In terms of description, I am an older woman with grey hair and glasses, and I use the pronouns she / her. I think we were moving into a question regarding how we became committee members?  Is that correct, Andrée ?

Andrée Deslauriers: That's correct.

Jutta Treviranus: Wonderful.  So, I think the AI standard is somewhat different in that it came about largely because of a concern that I have had for quite some time.  AI, as people know, it's in the news all the time at the moment.  But I have been thinking about AI for many, many decades.  AI of course has the potential to provide very life-changing assistance to people with disabilities, but for several decades, I have been worried about the treatment of people with disabilities in statistical reasoning systems, even before AI came on the horizon.  And disability generally means that we are different from the average.  This affects how we are treated in markets, by research, by policy and by design.  And all of these domains are currently primed to favour the average or statistical mean.  Markets use economies of scale, addressing the largest customer base.  Research systems, I'm an academic and professor, and those research systems favour quantitative research and use the statistical average as the golden standard of what's evident and true. Governments make decisions based on impact and scaling by numbers and competitive design thinking processes, because I'm also a designer, use majority rules prioritization.  This means that if you are far from the average, you lose out.  Early in the last decade, I saw that AI was going to amplify, accelerate and automate this pattern or in fact, increase this bias against difference and therefore against people with disabilities. The other thing I noted was that none of the AI ethics instruments were attending to this risk. In fact, AI ethics measures, audits and certifications were actually applying the same problematic processes because people with disabilities are very different from each other, while people who are average are comparatively alike.  The extreme harms that were turning out of AI to people with disabilities was being dismissed as anecdotal or low incident, and protective guidance and standards.  And automating these processes, I felt, and turning them over to AI would have really pervasive implications for people with disabilities. At the same time, there are of course positive, life-changing opportunities of AI.  That meant people with disabilities were frequently used almost as the justification or the poster child of AI, as I have called it.  So, I felt it was imperative that we create a standard to take advantage of the opportunities while preventing the harms of AI to people with disabilities. And ASC, luckily agreed.  We drafted a document and I applied to be the chair of the committee and was accepted.

Andrée Deslauriers: Thank you, Jutta.  I very appreciate the introduction.  Now I will turn to Mayaan, Chair of the technical committee on Accessible Travel Journey.  Mayaan recently received her Meritorious Service Cross for contributions to Canada in accessibility and disability rights.  Congratulations.  Now I welcome you to introduce yourself and maybe to share as well why you decided to be part of this technical committee. Over to you, Mayaan.

Maayan Ziv: Thank you.  It's great to be here this afternoon.  I'm excited to be able to share a panel with my friend and colleague, Jutta, at the many others who have chimed in today.  A bit on me, as a backgrounder. I started a company called Access Now almost ten years ago, which is hard to believe. Because I am a wheelchair user and was really frustrated with a lack of available data, speaking of data, about the built environment when it comes to accessibility.  And that, I would say, was the beginning of my professional journey into the world of accessibility.  Prior to that, I had to just live my life as a consumer of accessible experiences and services, or lack thereof.  So, I was really excited, as I have progressed along my journey, to just chime in.  As we have heard on the call today, the value of diverse lived-experience and the value that any singular disabled voice can contribute to a conversation about various different themes about accessibility is tremendous.  And we need to hear more.  From disabled people and disabled Canadians. So, I kind of continued on my journey just sharing my voice.  I use social media as one of the tools to do that.  And just over a year and a bit ago, I had a not so pleasant experience travelling abroad. And when I arrived, at the end of my long flight over 11 hours, my wheelchair was very, very badly damaged by the airline beyond use.  And that really sparked this whole new chapter in my life and for many others.  To understand exactly what is going on, for Canadians with disabilities, when it comes to travel.  My specific experience was about air travel and similarly to the media covering AI, lately accessibility in travel has become a mainstream topic of discussion.  So, when I heard about the opportunity to contribute my perspectives that apply as Chair to the Accessible Travel Journey Technical Committee, it seemed like a no-brainer, because it was an opportunity for me to now once again contribute a perspective that I have been extremely passionate about.  So, this technical Journey Committee, this Accessible Travel Journey Technical Committee is a newer one.  We aren't as far along as others are yet, but this is a really exciting next step. Excited to be here and contribute to the discussion.  I will just close my opening with a brief visual description of myself.  I'm a power wheelchair user.  I'm speaking to you today from my home in downtown Toronto.  I have brown, shoulder length hair.  I am a white woman with green eyes.  I'm in my thirties.  All right, back to you.

Andrée Deslauriers: Thank you so much for sharing all of that.  It's great to hear more about people who engage with our work and that are involved in the technical committees.  So, our CEO shared a bit earlier the message that ASC's approach to standards development leads to better equity-based standards.  This approach supports the engagement of the individuals and communities that experience the impact of the standards the most, namely people with disabilities.

[Question 1] (56:10)

So, I will be moving forward with a few questions to you both, and starting with, as you are working on critical standards to support the commitment and aspiration of the accessibility Canada Act, can you please give a broad overview of what to expect in AI, ICT and travel, and more specifically why these are important accessibility considerations?

Jutta Treviranus: Who should go first?

Andrée Deslauriers: Want to start, Jutta?

Jutta Treviranus: Okay. So, as I sort of told you, regarding the goals of the AI standard, how we design the AI standard is very proactively.  We added to accessibility because we want to address both accessibility of people with disabilities to AI, but also, we want to ensure that AI treats disabled people equitably.  So, this standard that -- the draft or the seed at the moment has basically four parts to it.  The four parts are intended to layer on top of existing standards that are out there regarding AI.  And address the particular issues, opportunities but also potential risks for people with disability.  So, the additional pieces that are in addition to things like the automated decision-making directives that come out of the government, or the EU AI Act which is currently in the news, or even the U.S. legislation, or the expected legislation within Canada, we have added a number of things that are specific to disability.  First off, accessibility.  The ‘Nothing About Us, Without Us,’ or ‘Nothing Without Us.’ In fact, looking at people with disabilities not just as consumers of AI products, but also  disabled people as designers, developers and implementers, evaluators of AI systems.  How do we make sure all of those tools that are used to create the AI economy or to create the AI systems that are so pervasively deployed in our life at the moment are accessible to people with disabilities, so that disabled people can play a role in determining what they will be designed as. The other piece that we have added is this issue of statistical discrimination.  Which of course, has existed before AI, but as I said, it's has increased significantly when we are deploying in AI a statistical reasoning machine.  It takes it to the power tool -- takes it to the power to a level.  People have you statistical reasoning and in fact it is part of our society's convention, but if we mechanize it then there is no opportunity to say, hey, this person is an exception.  We shouldn’t be making a decision about them based upon statistics because they are a statistical outlier.  That statistical reasoning, it leads to statistical discrimination, it is something that we also want to protect people from.  And that goes beyond bias in the data, the proxies, the labels, which are what AI ethics efforts are looking at.  It also goes beyond what most standards, like the ISO standard, are concerned with, where they are concerned with the accuracy, reliability, consistency and efficiency of AI systems, because if we don't address the statistical discrimination, people with disabilities will be more accurately reliably, consistently and efficiently discriminated against.  So, we need to create protections that that does not happen.  The other thing is if anyone has been following the news about AI, a lot of the protections that are being proposed in Canada and around the world are based upon impact assessments and risk assessments.  So, it is on impact analysis or a risk analysis.  If something is deemed not to have much impact on people's lives, or is deemed not very risky, then no protections are required.  But if you are someone that is unlike the average, if every decision that is made, whether it is marketing or website content or the features in a design where the public platform for politicians, they will all be deciding against you.  Even though they are deemed to be low-impact or low risk, it's almost like death by a thousand cuts.  We want to address cumulative harm as well.  Lastly, there is something that is specific to disability as well, is education.  People with disabilities are able to participate in education about AI.  But also, anyone that’s educated about AI learns about equitable and accessible AI and that AI learns regarding the harms that happens to occur to people with disabilities. So, we are trying to do this as quickly as possible, because of course, it's a field that's moving so rapidly and both new opportunities and harms are emerging all of the time.  And to be able to do that, we are also looking at a phased approach.  Within the first phase, we are going to address the more pervasively deployed systems that already exist out there, especially the automated decision systems which decide things like, who is going to get hired, who will go into the University, who gets a loan and mortgage, what medical calculators will determine about you, what our public health policies tend to be.  All of those things now are now being guided by AI.  So, we want to address that.  In the next phase, we will deal more with the general AI or generative AI, and the application of many of the larger language models.

Andrée Deslauriers: Thank you, you have been generous with all the information.  I think it is great to hear that much detail, to understand your perspective. So Mayaan, would you like to add anything in regards to travel?

Maayan Ziv: I'm happy to provide a bit of context on this specific standard.  So, when we speak about the Accessible Travel Journey, we are really talking about a holistic end-to-end journey.  An experience that really encompasses all of the touch points from online booking and information, communications, paths of travel, washrooms, emergency egress plans, different security screening, customer service and various other components that are included in a travel experience.  I think what the standard does is it's very unique from what we have seen, specifically when it comes to   transportation or travel, is that we are really looking at the holistic journey.  That it's pan-disability, including varying different lived experiences.  The committee is very diverse in terms of expertise, across different industries, within travel from air travel to rail to ground transportation.  We talk about the experiences within airports.  That is also covered.  It is really broad in terms of what we are covering, which can be a challenge but also an incredible opportunity to get to a point where they are able to comprehensively outline what does an overall accessible, equitable travel journey constitute from end to end?  One of the things we have heard loud and clear, especially in the media, is the gaps people experience.  The unknown or that a component of travel may work well, but the inability to move from modality to modality, the barriers in handoff between different customer service representatives.  It's really all-encompassing.  I think for me, this is really something tremendously unique about this opportunity and the current standard is yes, we are looking at the critical issues that have been raised in air travel specifically.  I think it was two weeks ago several of us on the call were contributing to the National Air Travel Accessibility Summit that was hosted in Ottawa and again we were able to bring the discussion to the table.  For me, I'm incredibly honoured and humbled to facilitate as Chair, and really learning so much from the team at Accessibility Standards Canada, as well as the other technical committee members who contribute broad understandings, in-depth insights, down to the detail that are informed by industry in terms of what is working today, what we don't need to fix, as well as where the critical gaps are. And it all kind of work together toward outlining the end-to-end experience.  Because at the end of the day, we know that an accessible journey is a much better one for everyone.  So, I don't know if that covers it.  I don't want to get too far into it.  Maybe I will pass it back to you for the next question.

[Question 2] (1:08:02)

Andrée Deslauriers: It does. Thank you again for all the pertinent information you shared already.  A bit earlier today, our participants learned that when a standard has been drafted, it's published on the website for public review. And this allows all Canadians to see the draft standard and make comments on it.  So, could you, Jutta and Mayaan, both share how can we make sure that the public review process enables affected individuals and groups to provide input and what are the steps being taken to enable a broad spectrum of perspectives on standards?
Starting with you, Mayaan, if you’re ok with that? 
Maayan Ziv: Sure. I'm really excited to hear Jutta's thoughts on this as well.  I would say there are a few things.  First of all, in my role as chair with the specific standard, we are still a ways from the public review process, so we aren't there yet.  One of the things that I've been learning about is what that process looks like and how it is managed effectively.  A few of the things that stand out to me, which some have been mentioned on the call, are a) the extended period of time in which we allow for the public consultation, and the encouragement.  Even before I was involved directly, seeing other standards move through the public review process, and the ongoing outreach in social media within marketing channels to effectively engage Canadians to contribute.  It is not just a signal; it is really necessary.  So, if you are turning in and thinking, “well, I don't know…”  The feedback is so incredibly valuable.  Please do contribute. When you see a standard go out for public review, that's absolutely your time to have your feedback heard and to help shape what the future standard will look like within Canada.  So, I think the length of time people are allowed to do that, recognizing that people think and work differently, that is a very accessible method of doing this work.  Having it in plain language.  Having the ability for people to contribute really in the method in which they communicate best is a really powerful statement, not just about the standard and the work itself, but also the how, which was mentioned earlier.  So, what I think what is beautiful to see is this isn't really about a few signals because we are doing work focused on accessibility, but that every single touch point from the  application process to the meetings held within technical committees, to the public review process is all considered with the utmost care and attention to accessibility being a world-class experience.  I'm very proud to see that happening, and maybe I will pass it to you, Jutta to share a little more on what you can contribute to the conversation on public review.
Jutta Treviranus: Thank you, Mayaan.  I agree completely with everything that has been said before on the topic.  Of course, one of the issues with the particular standard that we are working on is that almost everyone feels somewhat at a loss as to how it works, what the implications are.  There's so much information in the news at the moment, dystopian and utopian stories about scary things that might happen, and miraculous things that will change everyone's lives.  So, the challenge is that people frequently feel they aren't an expert so they can't contribute.  But of course, in addition to the fact that disabled people are often -- are facing an equity in terms of resources to become informed and to participate, and to gain expertise, and we need those capacity building resources and the supports, so people are able to access the necessary information.  But even with all of those supports, AI has additional challenges.  Ask even an AI expert, they are sometimes puzzled.  What can we do with respect to protecting people against the potential harms and what might the potential harms be?  So, ASC has been wonderful in helping us create capacity building resources, resources that are outlined.  What does it mean for me?  What are the implications for my life and for the sorts of goals that I have?  What are the examples of things that might go well or may go wrong so that people can contribute, and they feel confident understanding what the implications are, and that it translated into a language that is not very technical, and that is also relevant and stated in relevant terms regarding people's lives?  Our standard is a little bit of an anomaly in that we have also decided it should be an international standard so that we have an international committee participating.  We have representatives not just from many communities across, or the wonderful practices that ASC has in making sure that people are represented from across the country and from different groups, but also that we have participation from both the EU and U.S., which are considering AI.  And this opens the door to potential harmonization, because some things that are being regulated within Canada are often not under the control, or many aspects aren't under Canada's control.  And there is then the opportunity of working together and collaborating with other jurisdictions in developing the standard. 

[Question 3] (1:14:51)

Andrée Deslauriers: Thank you.  I would like to end our discussion talking about why Accessibility Standards Canada's approach to developing standards matter.  I know you both briefly explain in your introduction why this is meaningful to you, but could you, please each briefly explain your vision and share why should our participants care about the standards your committees are developing? Maybe you could start, Jutta?

Jutta Treviranus: Yeah.  For AI, I think we are at a critical moment in the development and one of the things that we know about accessibility is that it's really hard to retroactively change something.  That's even more the case with information and communication technology in things like AI.  Once it is broadly adopted, it will be very difficult to change.  So, we need to be proactive.  Canada is leading the way and I think there's global attention to the fact that we are looking at accessibility of these emerging systems.  AI presents both extreme opportunities and extreme risks for people with disabilities.  So, I think it is important that we do this, and we do it in a way that is engages that commitment to ‘Nothing Without Us,’ because everything is about us.  In fact, this is very much about disabled people and the disability community and so it's a very critical standard.

Andrée Deslauriers: Thank you.  Mayaan, would you like to add a few words?

Maayan Ziv: Yeah.  So, when I started speaking more publicly about travel, specifically air travel, sometimes I would be faced with pushback about why this is a priority.  Why does this matter?  There's so many barriers to creating a more accessible life in all aspects of life, for people with disabilities.  Why should travel really be on that list in terms of importance or priority.  So yes, I am biased, and I love to travel personally.  I'm personally passionate about it.  Beyond that, I think when we speak about travel, we are also speaking about our ability to be connected to each other, to various communities across Canada and internationally throughout the world.  And whether it is that we are speaking about personal opportunities, you want to go on a trip, you want to take a vacation, you are going to a wedding or having your own honeymoon, going to visit a grandparent’s birthday, there are many delightful reasons why people would want to travel and be connected, or whether it's for employment opportunities.  In my work the ability to travel has been fundamental to my ability as the founder of an accessible tech company, to be able to travel and meet with people and connect with thought leaders.  So often for employment opportunities, travel is quite critical.  But also, for medical appointments.  For the ability to see a specialist. To connect with someone who might not be local to the region, that has specific expertise on something you have to investigate or look for supports.  So, when we speak about advancing the rights of people with disabilities and therefore all people, accessibility is fundamental in everything in all aspects of our lives.  For me, I think I will focus on this component – travel for my answer, then obviously as chairperson, because I think it is incredibly meaningful for how we understand ourselves and our relationships to each other, and our relationship to the planet.  That's why I'm so passionate and why I think people should care about this.  I always tell people, if you want to understand where we are when it comes to accessibility, go to the airport. There are still barriers there and they touch all aspects of disability life, from built environment to communications to training and customer service to representation.  You name it, it's all there.  And so, if we have an opportunity within the travel journey, to look holistically at all of those touch points, which interact with other standards that are in development or will be in development, then I think we have an opportunity to alsowork collaboratively to outline exactly what that holistic experience looks like.

Andrée Deslauriers: Thank you. This is all the time we have for today.  I really want to think the two panelists again for being with us.  Thank you for sharing your vision. Thank you for sharing with us your experience.  I will invite all the participants, if they wish, to read more about the two panelists today.  Their biographies are on our website.  So now, before closing the event for today, I would like to invite Ms. Reid from the Board of Directors to say a few words.

Mary Reid: Thank you, Andrée.  I want to thank everyone for attending our Annual Public Meeting.  I hope you all had a great time with us today.  I'm happy to see this work continuing throughout the year and I find it very, very exciting.  You know, leading change is hard work. There is resistance to change.  It can be messy.  It can take a long time.  But I really believe, I know we are on the right path.  We are not going to rest on our laurels or slow up.  We are going to continue along.  In the spirit of ‘Nothing Without Us,’ we are determined for Accessibility Standards Canada to lead the way towards a barrier-free Canada by 2040. So, you've heard about many of the ways that you can get involved in our activities and I hope you are getting excited by that and can't wait to get started.  One way that has been mentioned throughout by Kory and Mayaan and Juuta is being involved in the public review and sending comments back on public reviews.  You have an opportunity now, because there is a draft standard on Plain Language that is currently out for public review.  So please, send us your comments.  That is open until July 8th.  Before I give them my back to Andrée, I want to remind you that next week is National Accessibility Week.  In fact, tomorrow, on May 23rd, is the third annual Canadian Congress on Disability Inclusion, and that will kickstart NAW, National Accessibility Week.  It is free, open to the public, so you are welcome to go online to register and also see what other activities are happening.  Back to you Andrée.

Andrée Deslauriers: Thank you, Ms. Reid.  This is the end of today's program.  I would like to thank all of our staff and all the people who worked in the background.  This event wouldn't have been possible without you.  You heard about many different ways today for Accessibility Standards Canada to lead the fight, to make Canada more accessible to everyone.  We couldn't have done that without you.  As you have heard before, remain engaged, remain connected.  We look forward to continuing working with you to make Canada more accessible and more inclusive country.  We look forward to working with you.
You can call or e-mail us. Our contact information is on the website.  We would appreciate your feedback on today's event.  After this meeting today, you will receive an invitation via e-mail, and it's a short questionnaire for you to complete.  Your input will help us improve our approach for the next Annual Public Meeting. The slide you see shows a picture of the gestures for thank you, which translates into the same sign in American Sign Language and Langue des signes québécoise.  Thank you.  See you next year.