Link to transcript: http://bit.ly/3dP7yU2
The Accessible BC Act Update
Youtube: https://youtu.be/_mEGcMXLyrM
0.00
Behind me, the wall is dark grey. The sofa behind me is silver/grey. The picture to my right is a black and white painting of tall buildings. My shirt is long-sleeved, the top two buttons are unbuttoned and open. The shirt is dark purple with tiny pink polka dots all over. I am sitting on a black office chair that swivels.
We would like to acknowledge the shared, unceded traditional territory of the Katzie, Semiahmoo, Kwantlen and other Coast Salish Peoples on which we live, work, play and learn. [Forrest integrated some Indigenous Sign Languages in this acknowledgement]
My name is Forrest Smith and I am the President of GVAD. I have good news for those of you in B.C. It’s exciting, the Ministry of SDPR, Social Development and Poverty Reduction, informed us that they will be bringing forward legislation this spring, specifically The Accessible BC Act (ABCA). THIS spring, wow, exciting!
1.30
I want to explain the history, current plans, future plans, those timelines. Back in June 2019, a team started developing the accessibility law, a team led by Sam Turcott, a real neat team. They invited me to be part of the Advisory Committee on Accessibility, which I have been on since June 2019.
Who are the others on the committee? [Representatives from] the Neil Squire Society, the Rick Hansen Foundation, the BC Disability Alliance, Inclusion BC, BCANDS, along with some others. We met regularly, with about 20 people attending. A good group. That was with the Minister of SDPR, Shane Simpson. He was always there, in fact, I don’t think he ever missed a meeting. These meetings also included the Deputy Minister, and of course, Sam, the Lead for the Accessibility team. They were also at all the sessions. They were good meetings.
2.40
The Minister, Shane, had a goal to pass the Act, the Accessibility Act, in November 2020, but that had to be put on hold in March 2020 due to COVID. The Advisory Committee changed into the COVID-19 Disability Advisory Committee [COVID-19 Disability Working Group] and continued to meet. Those meetings were put on hold in the fall due to the provincial elections, so both Accessibility and COVID-19 meetings were put on hold while the government wrapped up the election and sorted out who the new cabinet members would be and what roles MLAs [Members of the Legislative Assembly] would have, this was in November. On December 17th, the new Minister of SDPR called us, the Accessibility Advisory Committee, back together. That was December 17th. The goal was now to have the legislation brought forward in the spring session, which was good to know.
3.48
At that time, they added new positions, a Parliamentary Secretary for Accessibility and a Parliamentary Secretary for Communities [Parliamentary Secretary for Community Development and Non-Profits], they’re both MLAs. When we met, it was good, I was able to explain about the needs of Deaf, hard of hearing and Deaf-Blind people, but you all know what it’s like when you have to start over with someone new, it takes time for them to really understand the Deaf community. I did my best to provide them with information. Being a part of the ‘Disability’ sector is great, but the Deaf community is usually at the bottom of that list, I want to elevate it. Sam and his team understand that, they’re good about it.
4.25
On January 27, the Advisory Committee met again and the Minister of SDPR confirmed that the legislation will be brought forward this spring. That got me thinking, so I asked the Minister, the Deputy Minister, the two Parliament Secretaries, and Sam’s team, if in mid-March, some Deaf leaders could present to them prior to the bill being brought forward. I wanted to be proactive and not wait until after they’ve had their first reading, readings are part of the parliamentary process. Once legislation has had its first reading, it’s harder to change, it’s become a public document. I don’t want the same as what happened with Federal Bill C-81, it wasn’t until the second or third reading, that ASL, LSQ and ISLs were added to that Bill, late in the process. I would rather we get that information in the BC legislation before it’s brought forward for the first reading, but we can’t see the full document until it’s brought forward [in the legislative assembly].
5.36
So after the January 27 meeting, I gave it a lot of thought and decided, and the GVAD Board agreed, that I would call many people, about 40 people, Deaf, hearing, hard of hearing and Deaf-Blind individuals. I don’t believe in sending emails, so I personally video called each of them the weekend of January 29th, 30th and 31st. I connected with people all day Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and they were very keen. We all established the Deaf Accessibility Caucus. I believe that the entire Deaf community should be involved, not just GVAD working on its own and making all the decisions. This was for The Accessible BC Act, which means all of BC, not just Vancouver, the whole province.
So how did it work? For every person I contacted, I asked them to tell me their top three recommendations for who else should get involved. After gathering all those recommendations, I had a group of about 40 people, which was good. The first caucus meeting was on February 5th, a Friday night, with a total of 32-33 people. It was good. We got things going and everyone had an opportunity to comment. I realized we needed some leaders, people with skill in policy analysis, research and familiarity with the law, government, and politics. Skilled in writing and collecting information. I asked five people, they were interested, this briefly went down to four but then came back up to five. The five people are Lisa Anderson, Dr. Joe McLaughlin, Brianne Braun, Paula Wesley [you may know her by her previous sign name] and Renu Sangha.
I had been looking for these kinds of people, people who had skill sets and expertise that exceeded my own capabilities. They are a group of motivated and eager people, it is exciting. They will be leading the caucus, networking, making proposals, researching, writing, and assisting the DAC with identifying priorities.
8.25
I recommended the four individuals at our February 12th Caucus meeting, there were no objections. The next day, I added a fifth person to complete the group, and that was Brianne Braun. I booked a meeting with Sam Turcott and his team, to introduce the five leaders and allow them to start asking questions and gather information. This occurred the afternoon of Friday, February 19th. We met over Zoom, gathered and shared information.
That evening, February 19th, we had another Caucus meeting. Joe was unable to make it, but the four female leaders were at the Caucus meeting and they all shared what they had learned from the earlier meeting with Sam. A good number of people turned up that evening, previously we had 32, 27, on average we have about 25-27 come out for Caucus meetings. The third meeting was good.
9.45
The five leaders, Renu, Paula, Lisa, Joe, and Brianne, have been working really hard, I can’t believe how much they’ve sacrificed, time with their kids, their jobs, and their rest, because this is time-sensitive. They have rolled up their sleeves because they’re thinking about the future, to a better life for us, better access, plus for our next generation to really thrive.
Please do me a favour, don’t give them a hard time, make ugly comments or criticisms, encourage and support them, ok.
10.40
I’ve contacted OVAD – Okanagan Valley Association of the Deaf and had a video call with them to discuss. I am also aiming to talk with SVIAD, South Vancouver Island Association of the Deaf. I also talked with PDHHS, Provincial Deaf and Hard of Hearing Services, their leadership team, about what we are doing. Their staff, who are employees of the government, can’t share much with us due to confidentiality and the nature of their jobs, but it’s important to have both the government (internal) and the Deaf community (external) be on the same page.
I hope that when we work out the proposed priorities, that we will be able to engage with key stakeholder groups within the Deaf community, such as senior citizens, Muslim (religious groups), LGBTQA+ community, DeafBlind people, POC (people of colour), all these diverse groups. The leadership team will take the feedback from all these groups, do a final tweak, then share that information in March, educating the government , helping them to better understand the Deaf community before the legislation is brought forward. That is my goal and the government seems interested in listening, which is great. This is exciting and we are making good progress.
12:08
Now, if you do some research or have information you want to share and would like to connect with the five leaders, Paula, Renu, Lisa, Joe and Brianne, they have a new email address, it is bcdeafaccessibility@gmail.com. You can reach out to them to share, discuss things, provide information, have a video call, etc. However, we don’t need any additional personal real-life stories, as we already have a huge amount of anecdotal experiences and examples on hand from 2014 onwards. Some of that evidence may be dated and removed, but most is still the same and we have added new information. So we welcome people to share ideas, suggestions and concerns at this time.
I can send you documents and links and can be reached at gvadpresident@gmail.com , but I would prefer you contact the five leaders at their email address, bcdeafaccessibility@gmail.com
13.25
I want to sincerely thank Alayna Finley. GVAD had chosen her as a volunteer leader to gather all the information for this [holding up a document that says British Columbia Framework for Accessibility Legislation] back in November 2019. This was at the Deaf Hub where there were between 50-80 people who attended the roundtables, contributed, and made suggestions. Alayna was able to compile all of that information for the government. If you want to read it, I can send it to you. Thank you again Alayna, for giving up your time and volunteering to do this.
As a final note, this is time-sensitive and it is important to think to the future. In March/this Spring, the legislative session begins. The schedule is not yet set, we don’t know those details, so we look forward to finding out when the first reading will be and what that will look like. Sam said it should be addressed this session, which is from March/Spring to June, but it may be moved later if need be. He doubts the legislation would “die” if time happens to run out before Parliament closes. So it’s coming soon. Exciting times. See you soon.
