Karen McCall clicked eagerly on the link tweeted out by her provincial health ministry, keen to read the promised list of tips meant to help her protect against COVID-19.
But a familiar sense of disappointment soon set in when she realized the pointers were provided in a format incompatible with the screen-reading technology she relies upon to access the internet. She soon resorted to trolling through a variety of other sites in a bid to access the information.
McCall, who is legally blind, said the common practice of sharing information through images rather than through text has persisted even at a time when a global pandemic is prompting both the public and private sector to share potentially life-saving advice.
Disabled Canadians, she argued, routinely face barriers to receiving these vital messages.
“Information in this time of pandemic should be available to everyone,” McCall said in a telephone interview from her home in Paris, Ont., where she is in self-isolation after potentially coming into contact with a COVID-19 patient. “Those of us with disabilities shouldn’t have to try to piece information together from a variety of sources.”
McCall said the oversight is especially egregious in light of the fact that Ontario is one of the few Canadian provinces to have accessibility legislation in place. A spokesman for the Ministry of Health said recent COVID-19 messaging has been in compliance with that law, but offered no further details.
Communication barriers are not unique to Canadians with visual impairments, according to individuals and organizations representing people with a range of disabilities. But the obstacles to accessibility that present a frustrating struggle at the best of times pose a more formidable threat during an outbreak that has triggered unprecedented closures and protective measures across the country.
While such barriers persist throughout Canadian society, advocates said the oversights from government agencies are particularly glaring as the outbreak unfolds.
A consortium of deaf and hard-of-hearing Canadians, for instance, is calling on the federal government to ensure public briefings include sign language interpretation in both English and French.
No such interpreter was on-hand for any of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s recent addresses to the nation, including one held Tuesday morning. Briefings involving a number of federal ministers only began including sign language on Monday, and several provincial governments and health authorities still don’t feature the service at all.
Lisa Anderson, who is deaf and served as past chair of the Deaf Wireless Canada Consultative Committee, said excluding sign language leaves roughly 365,000 Canadians out of the loop at a critical time.
“Public officials are doing an injustice in not providing full accessibility for these citizens with a lack of provisions of sign language interpreters to stand next to the government or health officials in the majority of the provincial and national televised or live messaging,” she said in an email-based interview.
Anderson and other advocates said broadcasters also have a role to play by ensuring that interpreters are actually shown on-screen when they are present. Closed-captioning is another crucial service, they added.
The federal government, which passed Canada’s first piece of national accessibility legislation in June 2019, acknowledged sign language has not been a regular feature at most briefings to date, including Trudeau’s updates.
A spokeswoman for Disability Inclusion Minister Carla Qualtrough said some government staff from the department of social development have transferred to the Ministry of Health on an interim basis to provide more guidance on supporting disabled Canadians.
Marielle Hossack said Ottawa is “working hard” to make sign language consistently available, as well as to make sure social media graphics are accessible to the visually impaired and plain-text communications are in place for those with intellectual disabilities.
That latter demographic, some argue, has been especially overlooked during the COVID-19 crisis.
Dave Hingsburger, a wheelchair user and director of clinical and education services at Toronto-based Vita Community Living, said most public and private messaging is written in a verbose style that excludes non-traditional communicators.
He said effective communications should include photos that demonstrate key concepts such as hand-washing, as well as simple language that would serve the dual purpose of catering to the intellectually disabled and being more accessible to those who don’t speak either of Canada’s official languages.
Failing to implement such measures, he cautioned, could heighten the risk for those who already find themselves in a precarious situation.
“The government designates certain groups of people as vulnerable,” Hingsburger said. “By excluding (people with disabilities) from the messaging, they make them even more vulnerable.”
This story by The Canadian Press was first published March 18, 2020.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
