OTTAWA – BUSINESS – “Accessible transportation is a human right whose realization is essential to achieving equality, inclusion, and dignity for Canadians with disabilities. Despite these challenging times, it is as important as ever that accessibility be integrated in transportation service providers’ planning and reporting mechanisms. These proposed regulations seek to proactively identify, remove and prevent barriers that limit accessibility to transportation in Canada,” states Scott Streiner, Chair and CEO of the Canadian Transportation Agency.
The Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) today announced that its proposed Accessible Transportation Planning and Reporting Regulations are now published in Part I of the Canada Gazette for public review and comments.
The proposed regulations will implement planning and reporting requirements in the Accessible Canada Act for Transportation Service Providers (TSPs) in the federal transportation network. TSPs will be required to develop accessibility plans, feedback processes and progress reports that will ensure the identification and removal of barriers – and the prevention of new barriers – in transportation-related areas such as communication, services and equipment. The CTA’s proposed regulations set out important details, such as when accessibility plans must be published and in what formats they should be provided.
TSPs include companies that operate planes, ferries, trains and buses that travel long distances, as well as terminals, like airports, ferry terminals, train and bus stations, and ports where cruise ships dock. This covers foreign and domestic transportation service providers, operating, to, from and within Canada.
How to comment
Comments can be submitted to OTC.CETA-CEAT.CTA@otc-cta.gc.ca until April 18 2021. For highlights on the proposed regulations, refer to the Summary of the Proposed Accessible Transportation Planning and Reporting Regulations.
Next steps
The CTA will develop final regulations, taking into account all input received.
The CTA will work to have final regulations in place as soon as possible, which may be enforceable with a penalty of up to $250,000, based on the level of severity of the violation.
About the Agency
The Canadian Transportation Agency is an independent, quasi-judicial tribunal and regulator that has, with respect to all matters necessary for the exercise of its jurisdiction, all the powers of a superior court. The CTA has three core mandates: helping to keep the national transportation system running efficiently and smoothly, protecting the fundamental right of persons with disabilities to accessible transportation services, and providing consumer protection for air passengers. To help advance these mandates, the CTA makes and enforces ground rules that establish the rights and responsibilities of transportation service providers and users and level the playing field among competitors, resolves disputes using a range of tools from facilitation and mediation to arbitration and adjudication, and ensures that transportation service providers and users are aware of their rights and responsibilities and how the CTA can help them.
