DDA Talks Accessibilty with Brad McCannell

B.C. is a leader when it comes to accessibility. Just ask The Rick Hansen Foundation's Brad McCannell. However, attitudes still need to shift in order to guarantee inclusion for everyone, and that means making noise so everyone is heard. 

 

TRANSCRIPT

 

DDA Talks Accessibility with Brad McCannell

 

00:05

Hello and welcome once again to DDA's encouraging abilities podcast. I am your host, DDA communications manager, Evan Kelly. Now one of the big topics we like to talk about is accessibility. It's such an important topic because many people don't realize that at some point in their life, they might find themselves with limited mobility, limited vision, hearing, even cognitive ability. It's going to happen to all of us. Joining us today is Brad McKennell. He has the experience.

 

00:31

uh... and a resume that's gonna take me a few minutes just to read so i'll try to do the abridged version now brad's career uh... inac access consulting began in nineteen ninety when he formed uh... canadian barrier-free design that cbfd and has created to fill the gap between the application of building code in the real needs of the community of people with disabilities he himself became a c six seven quadriplegic after a car accident on

 

00:59

So he does have his lived experience. He uses a wheelchair and a service dog on a daily basis. Today, he finds himself the vice president of access and inclusion for the Rick Hansen Foundation, a member of the International Paralympic Committee's Access Working Group, and was recently appointed as the director of the Accessibility Standards Council of Canada. Additionally, his consulting has been sought by the Vancouver International Airport, Airports Council International.

 

01:27

the project advisory panel of CSA housing standards and the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games. He was appointed to the newly struck BC technical committee on employment accessibility. And that was fairly recently. Now today at the Rick Hansen Foundation, he was tasked with developing an industry standard certification program that would be used as a guide to creating more accessible environments. Now that would be the Rick Hansen Foundation accessibility certification.

 

01:55

RHFAC, that's a rating program that has been rolled out nationally even to develop common methodology and common language for professionals working to do to develop access for people with disabilities in the built environment. He is, I'm not done, he is the recipient of the City of Vancouver's Access and Inclusion Award 2010 and the Canadian Paraplegic Association's Award of Distinction. Okay.

 

02:23

Brad, I think I'm done with that. Thank you very much for joining us today. Gosh, I'm exhausted. You're exhausted. It's quite a list, and it's quite an unbelievable list of accomplishments and awards. It's really, really impressive. Now, having been in the field of accessibility for almost 30 years, what are some of the major changes you've seen in BC's approach to accessibility? Well, first, let me thank you so much for this opportunity. It's a real pleasure to speak with you today.

 

02:53

I've been a professional access consultant for 27 years, but I've been a member of the community of people with disabilities for 43 years. So my experience is both personal and professional. And having said that, the difference is night and day in terms of the approach. I mean, British Columbia has been a leader in meaningful access for decades. I think it's important to recognize the history here. You know, most people don't even realize.

 

03:21

the history of leadership that we've shown here as a province and as people with lived experience. It started with the great Ed Desjardins, a personal hero of mine. This guy was something called G.F. Strong in 1948. That was the first spinal cord rehabilitation center in North America. So there's real history. Ed got the very first accessible parking space requirements written in the building code in Vancouver here in the early 70s.

 

03:50

I've hired this stuff for decades and I think understanding that and understanding our history is part of knowing why BC is a leader in the whole country in this issue. I think Sir Paul would need to be congratulated for the leadership in developing the environment, but in terms of changes in the approach, I would say the biggest change is there's a much better focus on inclusion now, understanding that wheelchair users, the focus has always been on wheelchair users.

 

04:18

and it may seem odd, probably for a wheelchair user, but gosh, no, we've dominated the discussion, we've dominated the codes, we've dominated the regulations. Now, if you ask somebody in the street about disability, the first thing that pops in their head is a wheelchair. The international symbol for people with disabilities is a wheelchair, and yet we're somewhere south of 40% of the population with disabilities.

 

04:41

So what's heartening to me is that discussion is now changing to really include people with hearing loss and people with impairment, and people in the neurodiverse community. That's a huge thing, but it's a much bigger challenge. Yeah, of course that would be. Now, do you think there are some places where BC needs to improve just off the top of your head? Where have we missed the mark a little bit?

 

05:01

Oh, well, it's really easy to poke holes in projects because everything was built using a code minimum access strategy. And as I said, if you're meeting code, you're not meeting the needs of the community. It's just vuln It's one of the biggest problems in the community is what we face in terms of the built environment is the idea that meeting code somehow makes you accessible. And don't just start, that's just not a reasonable equation.

 

05:31

and architecture schools don't teach accessibility, don't teach universal design. Museum schools, engineering, nobody thinks of it.

 

05:39

It's not part of the curriculum. It's very weird to me. I think you need a doctor trying to learn how to be a doctor without understanding nutrition. How can you know what to do if you don't know what goes into it kind of thing? No, no, exactly. Well, that's why the RHFAC was created, because we need that extra tool. The industry needs that tool. So tell me a little bit of how that certification, the Rick Hansen Foundation Accessibility Certification came about.

 

06:08

Well, we knew we needed a reference standard for the industry, but code wasn't cutting it. Code couldn't possibly see that. Our job was to tell people what's actually there and who it affects.

 

06:21

So we're not the code police. We don't come in here and tell you all the things you did wrong. And in fact, one of the critical parts of our program is to identify and celebrate access where it's there. Too often it's just taken for granted. So we want, part of our rating system is a section on innovation. So if you've done something really cool, we want to celebrate that. So the RxFAC is designed just to create a baseline specific to your facility.

 

06:47

It's a place to start. It's not an end, it's a beginning. You can't help you fix things unless you know they're broken. So how is the certification then sort of employed, if you will? Well, it's a process. To begin with, it's not another checklist. It's a rating system, it's a weighted scale that can only be administered by a person who's taking the RIT training and understand

 

07:17

the various lines. But the process is a skilled professional, a large FEC professional will come on site and use the rating system to literally go through your building and see what's there and on the weighted scale determine what level of access is being provided overall. And one of the most important keys to our process is that holistic approach. What's happening now is people are working on feature-based access. So

 

07:45

facility operator will grab a checklist from somewhere and they're everywhere. Everybody's got a checklist. I hate checklists. But they take the checklist and they run into the facility and they go to the washroom and they say, oh, look, we've got grab bars, check. We've got a lowered urinal, check. Paper towels in the right spot, check. Okay, well, you've got a pretty good washroom. And then they run over to the elevator and they say, oh, look, we've got a light colored floor, check. We've got handrails, check. We've got Braille symbols. Oh, it looks like we've got a pretty good facility.

 

08:14

No, you don't. You got a half piece in the wash, even a code elevated. Nobody checked the reception, nobody checked to see if someone could actually work there. Nobody checked if there was any kind of emergency egress for people with disabilities. It's looking at that whole experience. The RHFAC takes it from the moment you get out of your car or off a bus or just walking off the street. You go through the building, you work there, you operate there. It takes the whole experience of the user under consideration, not just whether you can go to the bathroom or not.

 

08:45

Now, when it comes to someone, say I'm a developer and I'm making a community center or something, and I get the Rick Hansen Foundation accessibility certification person coming in to check it out, am I obligated to then adhere to all the recommendations? Oh, that's one of the powers of the piece. You're not obligated to do anything. If it's designed to inform you on what the current status is exactly,

 

09:14

And so it's a process that professionalizes the delivery of accessible design to start with. It creates an inventory of access on the site. It creates incentives for building owners and operators. It places improvements into the long-term planning process. And most importantly, from my perspective, it normalizes access considerations as part of a normal design and operating process. The great thing about it is if you have an R-X,

 

09:42

reading done, you remain in control of that. We would never publish that. We would never take that information and use it outside. It's your information on your facility and it's designed to help you plan and move forward. Now, have you heard of any developers sort of pushing back against some of these ideas or changes? Oh, sure. Yeah. It's an industry that hates change of any kind. I mean, change always costs money.

 

10:08

And one of the problems we've got is as we increase the requirements in basic code and standards for the industry that can be perceived as just more regulations, more things they have to do. And what we try to help them with is the idea of the return on investment. This is where you do create accessible buildings and maybe more importantly how to change the culture within your organization to not see it as just more regulation.

 

10:36

and rather see it as an opportunity. And it's just a huge opportunity, both in terms of making money. We always say that a barrier to a person with a disability is a barrier to making a profit. But also, not just from a customer base, from a workforce perspective, everybody knows that the population is aging, but they're not equating that to the fact that their workforce is aging. And in order to keep that workforce working, changes are gonna need to be made in the built environment. So...

 

11:04

Best you know what your built environment is supplying right now.

 

11:10

And is there any other programs out there like this particular certification program or is this breaking new ground here and across the country? Oh, this is definitely new grounded and internationally as well. Most of all the solutions are code-based solutions. And that's problematic on a number of ways. Relying on codes, typically it takes an average of seven to 12 years to get a code changed.

 

11:38

in Canada, depending on where you are and who you are. And it's so common in fact, and it's so entrenched in the system, they have a name for it, it's called code cycle. So they're always 10 years behind, no matter what they do. And that's the nature of codes. And frankly, that's right and good because the industry needs that stability of code. What we're doing is coming in and saying, here's the real needs of the community. If you want to access...

 

12:04

you know, the tremendous work force that's available. We hear this all the time, watching the news, you watch an owner, oh, I can't find anybody to hire. Ringing their hands, touching their pearls, and they're, oh gosh, what are we gonna do? Well, 57% of our community's unemployed. Look, you can't find people to work for you. Where are you looking? The whole nature of this thing has to be...

 

12:28

When you make these changes, you're making changes that are profitable both on the customer side and the human side. Yes, absolutely. And that goes to my previous introduction. We're all getting older.

 

12:44

and arguably living longer and we might need to work longer. So these things need to be in place. Now we've talked a little bit about universal design. Is that really the way forward? Is that level of sort of perfection in your mind possible? Oh yeah, I mean, don't think of it as perfection. Just think of it as common sense.

 

13:08

Unquestionably, universal design is the way forward. With the caveat that the whole concept of universal design is an aspirational goal. These are principles to be followed. They're not hard inside of schools. So how that gets interpreted in the built environment is going to be different for every single site. Every built environment is unique. Every occupancy is different. It has to be recognized that the idea of fully accessible, when we hear it's laughable.

 

13:36

There's no such thing as fully accessible. You can't be fully accessible. You can't be accessible to all people with all disabilities and all occupancies at the same time. It's an unattainable dream. But what that leaves you with is setting target levels of accessibility, understanding who you are serving.

 

13:59

who your customers really are, who people with disabilities really are. And spoiler alert, it's not about a few wheelchair guys. Like you said before, everybody's gonna experience disability and so forth. It doesn't matter whether you do a face plant and you're a teenager and you end up in a wheelchair or you're 65 years old and you need a walker and a hearing aid. You will experience disability and really quickly. When, for how long? Yeah, absolutely. So how, so can a developer get,

 

14:26

get their own certification and then build? Or is it someone that's not in the company that has to come forward and do the certification? No, the only requirement is the person registering the rating on the registered state has to be an RHS distance professional. So for example, you could take the course and assess your own property.

 

14:54

Well, the sales safe on that for us is in the process. Once an RHFAC professional has posted something in the registry, it immediately goes to the CSA, CSA Outbreak Registry, the third party, and they vet it for accuracy. And then it goes to an adjudicator who looks at it and makes sure that the RHFAC professional wasn't this low and small. So you can't just say, hey, it's good old testing.

 

15:22

It goes in, our indicators look at it, they review the pictures, sometimes video as well, and they establish that yes, that is in fact a gold building, or yes, that is 80% on our scale. So that allows you to be able to assess your own building. And what's important for us there, we want as many people as possible to take the RITFAP training. That's the cultural shift we're looking for.

 

15:47

It wasn't enough just to create a bunch of access professionals. We've got access professionals all across the country. Really good ones. What we needed was to shift the actual existing culture, the existing industry, the existing architects, planners, and building inspectors, and help them understand the real built environment as a speak of disabilities and understand it's not just about a few wheelchairs.

 

16:13

And so the goal of the developer, whoever is doing building, is to get what you mentioned was a gold rating? Yeah, and that could be different from building to building. So in our program, if you get more than 80% of the available points, then you're in gold territory. Some people may get that because they're just exceptional for people with vision loss. Some people may get that because they're exceptional for people with hearing loss.

 

16:39

The object of the extra guide is to get more than 80% of the available points on our scale. And just by way of comparison, if you built a commercial space and followed the Ontario Building Code, accessibility provisions right to the letter, then you'd probably get up around 40% on our scale. So half on our scale, 60%.

 

17:03

So it has to be better than that, but getting to that level is not really difficult once you sort of look at the system and look at the low-hanging fruit, as we call it. So much of creating access is really easy, really inexpensive. It's just a matter of knowing that you need to do it. I want to switch gears a little bit, but is there anything else you'd like to add in terms of that sort of certification piece? Oh, I guess how important it really is.

 

17:32

It's a way of measuring how we're doing in terms of creating meaningful access. So it's a measuring tool, but the real power is the training courses. The great advantage we have is once we start showing professionals in the field barriers to people with disabilities, once they start seeing that, they can never stop.

 

17:55

And so it's really quite heartening because it really is. It's a total ITV experience when people are taking our course and then come out there exercising. And once they start seeing all that stuff, that I've got like a disciple of, I can move on to the next week because that's the culture of shift we're looking for. So I just implore people to take the training, whatever they can. I guess I should ask, for builders, developers, whoever, how do they, do they just get in touch with the Rick Hansen Foundation to get the course going?

 

18:26

Yeah, rickhanson.com, best place to go. There's lots of links there on accessibility. And there's kind of two levels. There's the base level, which is called Accessible Spaces 101. And that's for people who are interested in universal design. And I just want to understand that a little more. But there's also the professional course, which is the Rick Hanson Foundation's Festival Certification Program itself. And that's restricted to industry professionals, so architects, engineers, people with experience in the built environment.

 

18:54

And that's the professional side of the thing. But there's two ways to come in. The best portal of all is RickHanson.com. There's so much stuff on there. It's very educational. I actually lied. I do have another question. How has this been received across the country and globally? Well, I'm really, really pleased to say that it's been accepted quite well.

 

19:20

nationally, it's a process. We're actually, like I said earlier, changing an industry that doesn't have any kind of change. But what's happening is people are seeing the value in it. They're seeing how by using the RHSC, it focuses their energy and puts the whole process of accessibility into the normal design and planning process. It's that idea, if it's measurable, it gets fixed. If it's not measurable, it just becomes an anecdotal story.

 

19:49

creating the common language, creating common methodology means that we're all calling access the same thing, so it's measurable. That has found great footing across the country. And for example, the new, as you may be aware, the repairing and rebuilding the parliamentary precinct, parliament buildings in Ottawa and everything has to be read and read. They're going to use our RGFIC gold as their standard. It's that kind of traction that we're getting went across the country. Halifax is doing amazing things.

 

20:18

Vancouver's doing amazing things. So having that kind of uptake has been really heartening, but even more heartening is when we took the program to international conferences. And everybody said the same thing. They said, my gosh, nobody's doing this. Everybody's taking a code approach. And the problem with codes is, you know, it's an old joke. It's like the slogans will continue until morale improves.

 

20:44

You can't just keep making the clothes harder and harder than the penalty sufferer and topper without educating the industry. The industry is paying for all this. So rather than have them feel it's just, oh gosh, it's more regulations and more hassle, the opportunity here is to show them the opportunity to make money on this deal. How about they return on investment? What's in it for you? And it's not just all altruistic and feel-good stuff. It's dollars and cents.

 

21:14

That's fantastic. It sounds like you do an incredible job. So your history here in BC goes back obviously many years. You've been working on the 2010 Olympic Games as a consultant. Tell me a little bit about that. Oh, that was probably the high point of my career to be honest. It was, I'd gone to Beijing in 2008.

 

21:37

which was one of the largest international Paralympic Games events for participants. There were well over 4,000 athletes there. And that was a big undertaking. But to do that same thing in winter is a much different proposition. But Van Ock was fabulous. The Vancouver organizing committee called Van Ock. And when I approached them at the bed stage, and I said, we should include accessibility right from the very beginning there.

 

22:06

And to their credit, they got on board right away. But we were doing things at that event that never been done before in the Olympics. For example, on the downhill ski run, we were able to put 200 people with disabilities along that route, outside, watching the actual ski event, watching the high quads.

 

22:27

event-dependent quads and wheelchairs parked on the side of a mountain to watch an event. And it was fabulous. And we were able to do things unheard of in the presentation of the Winter Games in particular. And so for me, it all came down to the end when Jacques Rignes, who at the time was the head of the International Organizing Committee, and he always designated the games, each game, every game is the friendliest games or the most wonderful games or the best games.

 

22:56

He designated Vancouver's games as the most family-friendly games ever. And that's me. That's universal design. That's that idea that if we can make it work and face and fund for young people and old people, everything else in the middle will work itself out. And we were able to do that in unprecedented terms. It was a huge success for me. Wow, that must make you feel quite proud.

 

23:24

So how does your work with the Rick Hansen Foundation differ from your work with the Accessibility Standards Canada Board? Ah, well that's, I love the apples and oranges, that the ASC, Accessible Standards Canada, is mission to design standards to support building folks across the country, and the idea is to get federally regulated.

 

23:50

businesses, operations to align to this code. And then they get the provinces to align to that again. So we have a standard consistent messaging across the country. And that is important as a code approach. But as I said earlier, that's only half the problem. We need strong codes, we need strong enforcement and we need significant families for people who don't follow the code. You need the big stick, but that by itself won't get it done.

 

24:16

If you want real change, you have to shift the culture. You have to get people to understand who this is about. It's not about a few wheelchair guys. It is about you, your mom, your family. Because everybody's going to experience this ability at some level. So making the built environment work is the absolute key to everything. The need for accessible transportation is lessened if there's no acceptable destination. And if you can't get in a building, then the best employment equity program in the world won't work if I can't.

 

24:46

I can't get into buildings with a lot of people. Getting this built environment sorted out is a single step. But it takes two things. It takes really strong codes, but it also takes an educated industry. An industry that understands your put-on investment and understands that this is a huge opportunity. This isn't more regulation. This isn't onerous. This is a chance to cash in. So some of this barrier breaking is just...

 

25:13

the changing of attitudes i mean according to your linkedin bio you say the biggest barrier to success for people with disabilities is the overall attitude of society the society's assumption because you have a disability it means you can't achieve as much are we are uh... society's attitudes getting better is inclusion working all yeah it's because it's becoming personal people are seeing it at home you know we did in angus we call

 

25:41

In the past, it was, oh yeah, taxes is good, I think it's good for those people, it's good for someone else. This was the first time that 30% of the respondents came back and said that they saw it in their own lives. They saw the house that they planned to retire in, when they looked at it again, realized it's nothing but tears. And so people are starting to take it personally at that level and that's where the real change is coming from. Disability taxes roughly 50% of the population today.

 

26:10

Today, it's not something that's going to happen down the road. We're not promising things in the private. You know, it's interesting how we get to that number. It's, you know, right now 24% of the population reports having a significant disability. And the key word there is reports, because there's tens of thousands of people who don't report their disability for a lot of really good reasons.

 

26:33

But you know, let's just take the 24% per second. Every one of us has at least one other person in our lives. Mother, father, sister, brother, neighbor, lover, best friend, even if it's a paid caregiver, even if it's a paid lover, we all have at least one other person in our life that also benefits from an accessible environment. And that's whether it's because it's easier for me, therefore it's easier for them.

 

27:00

It's also safer for them to help me, it's a better environment for them to assist in. And they remain able-bodied people instead of hurting themselves, getting in and out of the bathroom with them. And so, that's where the payoff is. And it sounds easy to accomplish. It sounds like just changing that attitude and changing our approach to things is not as difficult as people would think.

 

27:25

No, no, it's just what the key to it all is, is conversation, conversations like this one, helping people understand what access is really all about. And the idea that it's about a few wheelchair guys, and we fight that every day. Every presentation, I kind of start with that, just to help people learn to stand that we're not talking about a few wheelchair guys.

 

27:50

Now, I guess the one thing that's sort of been highlighted in the news a lot lately though, in terms of industries making changes, is airlines. There's been news stories about people having their wheelchairs lost or damaged beyond repair, and some of these wheelchairs are really expensive, like three, five thousand dollar wheelchairs. As a consultant, so like what sort of policies would you like to see in place to ensure that this doesn't happen?

 

28:20

Well, first off, your estimation on the cost of wheelchairs is way low. I have a power chair and it's $38,000. Wow. And that's pretty typical. So people who are vent dependent, people who are vent dependent have much more expensive chairs. And that's why it's so critical when a piece gets damaged.

 

28:42

Yeah, I think the latest piece I saw just the other day, somebody destroyed a guy's wheelchair, and they gave him what we call an active duty lightweight. It's the airport chair, it's a little aluminum thing. They cost about 600 bucks. So, you know, my chair is 38,000, that's about, that's a lot. But they give you that chair and they're thinking, okay, he's got a wheelchair. What's the problem? The problem is, you know, wheelchairs are very specific.

 

29:11

You know, they're prescribed for you. The dimensions are exact. How they hold you, where your back is to be, where you're vent dependent, how all that works. It's all critically and personal. You know, if you buy a wheelchair, I buy a wheelchair for $38,000. If I tried to sell it now, I'd get raising $1,000 for it. Because it's made for me. It's not made for anybody else.

 

29:31

And so it's understanding it. And so the airlines have got to figure this out. Now, fortunately, there's a real big movement. I'm not sure if you've heard of it. It's called the All Wheels Up. And it's a group of people who recognize airlines wrecking equipment has become way too common. I think the last that I heard was if you bring a mobility device on an airplane, there's a 20% chance it would be harmed or destroyed in that trip. So that's ridiculous.

 

30:00

I don't know the airlines have to understand how critical these are these are just like something you just replace well No, exactly. They're an extension of you aren't they like that's not just a chair. Oh Yeah, and they're not interchangeable Like I Rick Hansen's my boss. I can't use this book here But I was I was making there's a lot of Excuse me. There's a effort called all wheels up and that's what they'd find was they

 

30:29

We figured out a way you can take your wheelchair right on the airplane and just use the same kind of attaching device that using cars Whether it's a Q-strain or a strap-down system. So you'd stay in your own chair and you get on the airplane that way That would eliminate Giving up your equipment it would give people their own seating and a long trip which is really important for most of us

 

30:51

But it's an idea that's really come. The thing that held it back for so long was there was no crash testing available, so we wouldn't know the real results. Well, that's now been completed. So it's a completely viable thing. Now the hard part is to get airlines to give up the first cabin and move it to the back. Because the only way to work on an airplane is we can get in the first slash, but I can sit in the front. I think it's coming, I think it's inevitable. I don't think the airlines can keep working on equipment like this.

 

31:21

I mean, they got enough problems without wrecking our stuff. Yeah. Well, it seems like there's enough talk to moving this stuff forward, so that's good. You know, you talk about your chair being worth $38,000, which is unbelievable. Now Canada's been moving forward on the proposal. Yeah, I think that's it. I think people who are sort of like typically developed or haven't suffered injuries and then lack their mobility don't quite understand how costly it can be to have a disability.

 

31:51

So with that said, what are your feelings on the proposed Canada disability benefit that's still inching its way through the government? Well, inching its way through indeed. But it's a complete game changer. Like you say, people don't understand how much it costs to have a disability. At the risk of being way too personal, I could ask you how much does it cost you to go to the bathroom and pee?

 

32:19

Not a whole lot. Cost me five bucks. Really? Every time I go. Six hundred dollars a month I have to spend in catheters. And that's not covered by anybody. That's out of your own pocket. Wow. You know, if you want to go buy a Honda minivan, it's going to cost you around thirty-five thousand bucks. But if I want to go buy an accessible Honda minivan, it costs around ninety thousand bucks.

 

32:43

If I want to go talk to a lawyer, all I have to do is pay the lawyer. But if you're deaf, you also have to pay for an interpreter. And on top of that, just to add insult to injury, you have to pay GST on that. You're being taxed on your need for an interpreter. So all these hidden expenses around people with disabilities are having to pay.

 

33:06

having a reliable income, having a little more in the pot to work with, you know, windfall benefits for people. This is survival. And so it's critically important and yes, it's inching its way through and it's so vexing to see how long it's taking to, to me, remedy the obvious. Yeah. That's, that's, you know, that just brings that right down to reality. It's, it's, it's kind of scary.

 

33:33

So we're just about wrapping up here, Brad. What can the general public do to really foster an inclusion and accessibility from your point of view? Oh, just demand more. Don't go in the back door. If the front door is not accessible, don't go there. Don't go to noisy restaurants. Insist on alternate formats like large print and plain language for documents. Don't be quiet about it.

 

34:02

You got to make sure the rest of them knows why you don't want to go there. You have to make sure that employer if he's offering the position and not offering alternate formats for the hiring of the service, they're aware of both the legal and regulatory pitfalls, but also just how they're missing it. And I find that when this pointed out most often people go, oh my gosh, I never even thought of it. Well, on the one hand, it's terrible because you never even thought of it. You know, like.

 

34:29

with a thing about people with disabilities, right? Where World Health Organization, he says there's 1.3 billion people with disabilities in the world. That's a bigger market than China. Yeah, it is. So how can you keep ignoring it like that? It's just so incredibly vexing. Yeah, there's buying, there's a ton of buying power there, right? Businesses need to learn. And that's that return on investment we were talking about earlier. Understanding those kinds of things and how, yeah.

 

34:59

We've got to stop being quiet about it. You've got to start demanding more access and not putting up with this status quo stuff because status quo is just, we don't have any status at all. No more, it's a nice guy. He's trying to get loud. Yeah, exactly.

 

35:18

So it's, you know, I mean you sounded very, very happy with the progress that British Columbia in particular is making in terms of accessibility and inclusion, but sometimes on a smaller scale, like you're talking about restaurants, it feels like there's still quite a long way to go.

 

35:37

Well, yeah, most of it's education, but it's also the financial reality. There's a perception out there that creating access is expensive. And it's just not. It's probably the most of the stuff we call it low hanging fruit. You could do so much to make your place more user friendly, just by doing simple things, simple things like having a hearing loop at reception desk or meeting with anybody with a hearing aid, that's a game changer.

 

36:02

It's a thousand dollars at the installation, it's cheap. Using wave finding, when people talk about wave finding, they think we're talking about signage, and signage is really important. But there's other wave finding things you can do that reduce stress and make things really easy for people. You can use color, you can use texture, you can use scent, you can use sound.

 

36:24

you can use all these things. We had one problem, this goes back a few years, but the client's office was in a grey building, in a grey door, a grey entrance, everything was grey. People were busy, they had a hard time finding the door. So we planted lavender and then they knew where they were by the smell. So there are all kinds of things you can do that are really simple and really cheap. You know, we call them a can of paint.

 

36:52

One of the most vexing things in our community is the building code works really, really hard at getting people with disabilities into buildings and doesn't care at all about getting them out in an emergency. There is no requirement for emergency egress to be accessible. So the next time you're standing in front of an elevator and you see that little plaque

 

37:16

Where's the little plaque that tells me what to do? In case of fire, good luck sucker. You know, good... So it's that whole idea that... It's a full circle here. Getting me in the building isn't enough. It can't get me out. Yeah, and to me, you know, from someone who works in communications, I think it's... If I was to go into business, and I could market my business as accessible...

 

37:42

you know, in inside and out, that would be a great draw for people. You'd make money. Yes, you would. Yes, you would. And we, you know, we did another Angus repo and we found that already today, 30% of the population is making accessible business already today. It's not future stuff. And so it's remarkable to me that there is any kind of resistance to this. If I'm in the, if I'm in the industry, if I'm building any kind of public...

 

38:10

shopping malls or anything. I don't know how you could not put this at the top of your list because 50% of the population is going to be affected by it. 30% are already deciding. Can anybody decide that they can close their doors to 30% of the population? That's not possible. That would just be the wrong decision, that's for sure.

 

38:29

Now it's much harder in your business. Communication is really meaningful access. Communication is a tough job. Well, yeah, I mean... So many levels of it. Yeah, and you know, we're building a brand new website right now for DDA, and we're ensuring that everything about it is accessible. We're adding some widgets that make it, that give people lots of options. So it's actually quite a good experience, good learning experience for myself even, so. Yeah, and even the plain language movement.

 

38:57

getting documents so that they're not so complicated and that people can understand the means of living. Now, there's lots of people that, you know, that's a specific need for, but that's one of those things that everybody would benefit from. Absolutely. And we all need to keep that in mind when we're doing documents and putting them on the website. The other big thing is to create another ASL window so that if you have a, if you're introducing a program, for example, and you want to reach out to the community, having a little window there

 

39:27

and click on it and they get an ASL interpretation of what's there, it's a game changer. Yep, absolutely. And that's true inclusion. Yep, yep. We will get there, Brad. We will absolutely get there. Anything else to add today? Oh, no, I just want to thank you for the time. As I said earlier, this is the kind of conversation that we all need to have. And just to recognize that it's an opportunity, you know. Right now.

 

39:56

This whole idea of able-bodied males, the design, the building code.

 

40:02

the design parameters are all built around 18 to 55 year old male. That's just got to stop and as soon as you point that out, as soon as the architects, planners, owners, operators, as soon as they see that, they're not connecting the dots. But as soon as they do, it's wonderful what happens. So thank you for helping me connect the dots. My pleasure. Brad, it was a pleasure having you.

 

40:28

Well, you know, this is a very deep well that we kind of brushed over. But almost any one of your questions, we could probably do a show on. Exactly right. Maybe another job. Absolutely. We'll do a few more. Okay. So while you have been listening to DDA's Encouraging Abilities podcast, our guest today has been the intrepid Brad McAnnell, the Rick Hansen Foundation's Vice President of Access and Inclusion. Brad, thanks again. I am your host, Evan Kelly. We'll see you next time.