St. Albert city council has voted to start the process of creating an Accessibility Advisory Committee (AAC), following a motion from Coun. Wes Brodhead.
The motion, which asks administration to develop a bylaw for council's consideration, passed by a vote of 6-1, with Coun. Natalie Joly opposed.
Brodhead said specific details such as how regularly they meet were left vague enough in the motion to be able to adjust to what will work for the community and the city. Committee members would include people with disabilities and people with lived experience such as caregivers and organizations that deal with the accessibility community like the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB).
Brodhead said he sees the committee being fairly hands-on and specific to issues facing the community.
"I just believe that there needs to be a committee advising council on this issue alone and they'll have enough work to do the way it is," Brodhead said. "The needs of the accessibility community are huge enough on their own."
Coun. Sheena Hughes questioned if the need this committee would provide is already met with work from the Family and Community Support Services and the Seniors Advisory Committee, on which she sits as council's representative.
"I think one of the intentions behind the seniors committee was to provide input on this and yet I don't think admin has ever come to the seniors committee to really deliberately ask them about accessibility issues," Hughes said. "I'm just not sure if we're creating a committee that's going to come back the same or similar to what the seniors have had, where they have often struggled to provide input because they were just never asked."
The city's Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Bill Fletcher said that this is one of the potential pitfalls when creating a committee, and that it would be incumbent on council and city administration to avoid that from happening with this potential new committee. He added that they would take Hughes' feedback on optimizing their utilization of current committees for consultation on accessibility issues.
Brodhead responded to some of Hughes' concerns and said that various provinces in Canada have developed legislation to define committees such as this.
"It doesn't work if you don't have people who actually have lived experience in the accessibility community giving feedback," he said, and pointed out that the needs of one portion of the disabled population can differ to a large extent from another disability population, and that he's heard from community members who say this committee is something St. Albert should have had a long time ago.
Joly, who voted against the motion, said it was rare that her and Brodhead disagree on this kind of issue, but said she was voting against it because she believed these perspectives should be embedded across other committees and shouldn't be siloed off.
"In my day job I work in the healthcare and accessibility world, and I know the folks we serve and collaborate with want meaningful inclusion, not inclusion in some othered group," Joly said. She also shared Hughes' concern that creating this new group risks creating some of the same challenges they've experienced with the Seniors Advisory Committee.
As administration develops the bylaw, Brodhead said he hopes the potential committee would be able to help advise on practical applications around the city, such as improving access for mobility services.
"I just think we owe it to the people in our community to do the effort to allow them to participate in our society as much as able-bodied people," he said.
