 I'd first like to begin by acknowledging that we are on the territory of the Lekwangan-speaking people, the Esquimalt and Songhees nations. I'm Dan Coulter, BC's Parliamentary Secretary for Accessibility. Joining me today is Nicholas Simons, Minister of Social Development and Poverty Reduction, and Spring Haas, my co-chair on the Provincial Accessibility Committee. We also have Nigel Howard translating for us ASL, which is great. So I'd like to thank everyone for joining us this afternoon. We're here to celebrate the launch of Accessible BC, government's first plan for accessibility since the Accessible BC Act passed last year. It's been a long time since we had the opportunity to see each other in person to celebrate our accomplishments, although I know that even if we couldn't come together like this, we'd find a way to safely gather. If there's one thing the disability community knows, it's how to find a way around a barrier. This is an exciting day for all of us, and I know the Minister is eager to share a few words with you, so please welcome Minister Simons. Thank you, Dan. Thank you very much. Well, thank you very much. Thanks for the introduction, and it's really nice to see everyone here today. I'd like to echo Dan's comment and say thank you. Thank you to everybody who's been involved as well. So today we're celebrating a number of things. Not only is this BC's fifth year commemorating Accessibility Week, it's the first year we've been able to do so with accessibility legislation in place. And thanks to the Accessible BC Act, and the many people who helped shape that legislation, we're now celebrating the release of government's new accessibility plan, Accessible BC. Much like the Act, our new plan would not have been possible without the leadership, the care, and the dedication of British Columbians living with disabilities. Our Accessible BC plan outlines how ministries across government will be working over the next three years to embed accessibility and inclusion into the work they do and the services that they provide. Updated at least once every three years, the plan sets out government's priorities for advancing accessibility, while continuing to collaborate with people with disabilities as we move forward in our work. As you may know, in April we announced a new accessibility regulation taking effect on September 1st that requires over 750 organizations to start establishing accessibility committees, accessibility plans, and a public feedback mechanism. And we wanted to make sure that government continues to lead by example. Our Provincial Accessibility Committee was appointed in December 2021, and now we have an accessibility plan that we can point to, and show that making a plan to integrate accessibility into the core of what we do is not only feasible, it just simply makes sense. As of 2017, there are over 925,000 people living with disabilities in British Columbia. Not having a plan in place to identify, remove, and prevent barriers means potentially excluding hundreds of thousands of people from necessary supports and services. That's why we've identified five priority areas for improving accessibility within government. These five are creating a culture of accessibility and inclusion, information and communications, buildings, infrastructure, and public spaces, employment in the BC Public Service, and finally, delivery of goods and services. By focusing on these areas, the accessibility plan will help us to shape a more accessible and inclusive future for everyone. Alongside our new accessibility plan, today we're also announcing the first two accessibility standards that government is ready to start developing. They are the Accessible Employment Standard and the Accessible Service Delivery Standard. The two new standards will be shaped by recommendations made by the Provincial Accessibility Committee with support from technical committees and they will be guided by the overall objective to identify, remove, and prevent barriers to the full and equal participation of people with disabilities. As always, we follow the principle of nothing about us without us. I know that the Provincial Accessibility Committee will continue to provide invaluable advice and with their insight, we're working to make sure that the province develops laws, standards, and policies that support people with disabilities to live with dignity and equitable opportunity for success. We know that the disability community is diverse and we remain committed to involving as many voices as we can as we move forward. So once again, I'd like to acknowledge that today's event and all that we are celebrating would not be possible without the leadership of people living with disabilities in British Columbia. Because of their guidance, because of your guidance, we are all well on our way to a future where everyone has the opportunity to enjoy full and equal participation in their communities. I'd also like to take this time to recognize the hard work and the many hours that Parliamentary Secretary Dan Coulter, my friend and colleague, and the Ministry's Accessibility Directorate have put into making today happen. I feel very fortunate to be working aside all of you and thank you. I'm looking forward to celebrating with you again in the fall when we announce government's feedback mechanism. So thank you everyone for being here today, for joining us to recognize and celebrate this important milestone. The many ways people with disabilities contribute to our workplaces, communities, and lives will be put into action as we develop these standards. I know that the Accessible BC plan is just one of many accomplishments we'll achieve together. So once again, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much, Minister. As with every milestone we achieve on our path towards accessibility, it's important to highlight the voices of those who are helping us on our journey. That is why it is my honor to introduce Spring Haas, the co-chair of the Provincial Accessibility Committee and tireless advocate for the hundreds of thousands of people living in BC with disabilities. Spring. Thank you so much, Minister and Parliamentary Secretary. My name is Spring Haas and I'm the co-chair of the Provincial Accessibility Committee. And I'd like to also let you know that there are several members of our committee in the audience today. Maybe you can raise your hand so people know who you are. Thank you for coming for this exciting day. I'm very pleased and happy to be here to make this announcement and to mark this day. As a disabled woman, accessibility or the lack of it is a part of my daily existence. I and many other disabled British Columbians encounter barriers every day that prevent us from enjoying the same rights and freedoms that others take for granted. Inaccessibility creates real harm. Others can impede our access to health care or emergency services or safe places to live and they can prevent us from spending time with our family and our friends, from cultivating relationships, participating in activities and finding meaningful work. As a direct result, people living with disability experience social isolation and loneliness at much higher rates than others. We know that loneliness is a public health concern and a serious concern and issue for people with disabilities. The barriers disabled people confront are not inevitable. They are the result of a history of choices that have been made and values that are reflected in policy. Ableism is built into the structure of the society we live in. It informs our systems, our organizations and our built environment. But we know that that doesn't have to be that way. The concept of disability itself is a colonial and socially constructed identity. We're learning through research being undertaken with indigenous elders and by indigenous researchers like Dr. Rihanna Robinson, who is a member of our accessibility committee and is here today, how many indigenous communities and societies did not recognize disability as a specific identity. Rather, all individuals in the attributes and gifts that they bring to the world, regardless of ableist oriented perceptions, were valued and respected as an important and integral part of the community. And so I recognize that there's much to learn from these world views and we have much learned many ways to grow. Access is not a gift. Access is not a favor. Access is a right. It's outlined in the UN Convention of the Rights of People with Disabilities. The intent behind the plan that we're announcing here today is to honor those rights and to begin to dismantle barriers so that more disabled British Columbians can live their lives fully without the arbitrary limits that exist today. I look forward to a time when disabled people and the diversity that we represent are fully embraced and celebrated. Let's always work towards a better, more equitable world rather than the one that's been created by colonization. We can do that together. Thank you very much Spring for taking the time to be here today. So I've been BC's parliamentary secretary for accessibility for almost 20 months now. I know, sorry, in that time I've had the great opportunity and privilege to work with many people who are dedicated to removing barriers to accessibility and I've been inspired by their passion because this is hard work and at times it seems progress can be slow. But as the minister spoke to, in the last year we've accomplished a lot. I'm proud of the work we've done together and I know that the accessible BC plan will help guide us as we continue to work on building a more accessible, more inclusive British Columbia for everyone. Thank you to the thousands upon thousands of people who have used their voices and experiences of living with disabilities or supporting people with disabilities to help us get to this moment. I know we're all looking forward to continuing this work and building a barrier-free BC that works for everyone. With that, I'll conclude my remarks and we'll open it up to questions. Rick. A reminder to everyone on the phone, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star one to enter the queue. You will be limited to a question and a follow-up. For media here in the room, please come to the microphone where I'm standing, to the left of the cameras, to queue for your question. I'm just going to give media a second here to queue up on the line. Please bear with us. Okay. Our first question is going to come from the phone line. We're going to hear from Sara Zenos, Radio Canada. Sara, please go ahead. Hello. My question is for our minister, Simon. I'm just wondering when we're talking about creating a culture of accessibility and inclusion. What would that actually look like concretely in the province, and if you can have an entrance in French as well as the question, please? I'm sorry. I didn't hear the question completely. It was a little bit. Sara, would you mind repeating once more, please? Sure. So I'm just wondering when we're talking about creating a culture of accessibility and inclusion in the province with the accessible plan, what would that look like concretely in the province for the next three days, three years, sorry? And if it's possible to have an entrance in French as well? I'll let Dan do the answer in French. No. I won't. Merci pour la question. Je veux, si je comprends bien, c'est qu'on veut savoir qu'est-ce que la province va être différente en quelques années à cause de la législation qu'on vient de annoncer. Mais je pense que c'est l'attitude, les barrières, les barrières étudiants qui vont être adressés, on va voir que les gens qui ont une disability vont être plus capables de accesser toutes les choses que tout le monde peut accesser aussi. Donc ça va vraiment avoir un bon effet sur les personnes avec une disability. So if I can say the same thing in English, I think that what we're seeing with the establishment of the two new accessibility standards is we're going to see more opportunity for people who are facing barriers, whether it's an employment or whether it's receiving services from organizations, we're going to see a better way to ensure that there are no barriers to those services. And I hope I understood the question correctly and I hope I said what I think I said in French. Thank you very much. Sarah, if I could ask you to please make sure you're not on speakerphone just to hear you a little bit more clearly in the room. And please go ahead with your follow up. Thank you and yes, you answer perfectly. I'm just wondering if it's possible to you also in French to tell me a bit more of some example of barriers that people with a disability could live right now in the province. So in English I'll say what I plan to say in French and hopefully they'll coincide. So for example, accessibility barriers when it comes to employment. We know that many people are very capable of finding employment and the barriers exist perhaps in the recruitment or the interview process or in the accommodation that employers will make for their employees. So what we hope by the establishment of the accessible employment standards is that in this case over 750 organizations are going to have a plan on how they intend to ensure that people with the qualifications and maybe with some barriers in their life are able to access those employment opportunities. So that's just one example I think that demonstrates why it's important to have these standards in place so that we can actually measure our ability to find the success and in removing barriers. And in French, the barriers for employment, there are problems for some people to access the opportunity to be employed with organizations that maybe don't have the ability for recruitment. And I think that the standards announced today will give people an opportunity to be employed. How is that, Dan? Okay. I hope that was okay. It's been a long time since I spoke French. Thank you, Sarah. Thank you, Minister. Now we will come to the room. Our first question in the room today comes from Binder Sajan, CTV News. Hi, Minister. So you talk about a cultural shift here and I'm wondering how much of this is changing people's minds and misconceptions about people with disabilities and their ability to be in employment. I know you've got the plan here, but what is government's plan to address those kinds of issues? And if I can get an answer in Punjabi as well. I'm kidding. I'm sorry, I learned my Punjabi from my colleagues and I don't think I'm allowed to. But I'll ask Power Mentory Secretary Coulter to provide a response. Yeah, I'd say that attitudinal barriers are the most pervasive barriers and really a culture shift in breaking down attitudinal barriers is what's going to create an accessible British Columbia. Our accessible BC regulation that is asking, not asking, requiring over 750 organizations to have accessibility plans like we're introducing here to have an accessibility committee and to have a feedback mechanism is part of a culture shift. That many organizations, they're all within the public sector. Having those requirements is absolutely amazing and that's right across the province and I think that is going, you're going to see a culture shift. And I guess do you anticipate that employers will be more open to this type of work given the types of labor shortages we're expected to see in the coming years and also wondering, is there a legal framework here that if an organization says it will abide by, you know, trying to access and have more people with disabilities employed and they fail to do that, is there like a legal mechanism where someone can challenge that? Yes, so there's feedback mechanisms at all these different organizations. The legislation does give an accessibility or the accessibility officer the ability to find someone up to $250,000. However, we are not going to go that way. We want to collaborate with people and we'll be providing resources to different people. I think employers are going to be very excited about, you know, about getting the resources so that they can hire more people, whether it's people with disabilities or not. And I think we've all learned from COVID and, you know, the technology that we've been using over the last year that employment is already becoming more accessible. But I think, you know, through the employment standard, accessibility standard, we're going to see a lot of great changes for folks with disabilities. And our next question comes from Mira Baines, CBC. Minister, how will you measure the success of this program? Yeah, success is going to be incremental. I think we see some organizations already making adaptations in their employment circumstances. We expect this to just be more planned, more specific. And if I understand, we're going to see improvements to access for people who face barriers in all sectors of our community. And I may have lost the question in there somewhere. Well, as my follow-up question, I'm just wondering, will you be collecting data on how you'll be improving accessibility for folks? Most of the data we're going to collect is from the plans that we see, the accessibility plans, the feedback mechanisms we're going to hear about the success or attempts of success. I think what we can expect is that, as Dan often talks about, we're going to be encouraging employers, we're going to be partners with organizations in this province. It's not about coercion at all. It's about really making our province more accessible. And I think in a way that every British Columbian wants to see the province more accessible. And I think, Dan, you can talk a bit about, as we age as well, the barriers that we may face. Of course, I mean, we're all temporarily abled, I like to say, right? At some point in our life, and this is the definition of a disability in the act, is where an impairment meets a barrier. And so we're all just temporarily abled. This legislation is going to be transformative in people's lives. It's going to allow, whether it's because you're aging or whether because you develop a disability, it is going to help you have full participation in your community. I'd just like to give a shout out because we're talking about employment here. We have Yat Lee, who's, are you the executive director? Senior consultant with the president's group, which is a group of companies that the government has been working closely with. And they are dedicated to increasing accessibility. And it includes very large companies all the way down to small businesses. It's an amazing group. And so we're already seeing people wanting to make their workplaces accessible and to hire more people with disabilities. Thank you very much. That concludes the questions from the media today. However, I understand that there will be the opportunity for refreshments next door, some mingling, some chatting. I would ask that our speakers please remain at the front of the room. We're going to take a picture and then we'll let you all go next door and enjoy the refreshments. Thank you everybody for your participation and for being here today.