Although grateful, I'm also left bewildered as Accessible Media Inc is the only organization in Canada to have engaged with us on this subject since the United Nations complaint was made public via social media accounts (the UN letter was pinned to my Twitter account on April 20th and posted publicly on my Facebook account on May 20th). There hasn't been one government department (municipal, provincial/territorial or federal), not one special interest group, not one human rights lawyer or anyone else whose salary is based on disability rights that's been in contact with either of us about this UN complaint since it went public. I acknowledge that my many tweets about discriminatory building code policy (that excludes Canadians with mobility disabilities from the majority of new private housing) can be abrasive or harsh at times but the subject matter is very important. The majority of new private housing in Canada continues to be built in a way that ignores 35 years of human rights law in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (section 15 equality rights for Canadians with disabilities became law in 1985, this hasn't been the case in new private housing since then).
Let me clarify, I've had regular contact with one federal department about discriminatory building code policy since June 30, 2015...the Canadian Commission on Building and Fire Codes (CCBFC). It's been a very frustrating process to go through a Code Change Request for that long yet building code still exempts new private housing from human rights law. That's why the United Nations complaint was submitted in January 2019, my frustration with the CCBFC reached a boiling point because of their incredibly slow review of my Code Change Request which is soon approaching five years. My original submission in June 2015 not only highlighted human rights but also domestic and international research and best practices. I even highlighted the significant risk of litigation to the CCBFC, again with no immediate effect.
Another frustration has been the fact that I can't get an answer regarding Covid's impact on the July 21st deadline imposed by the United Nations. Will Covid mean an extension to the 6-month deadline indicated in the January 21st letter to the Government of Canada? My opinion is that 6 months is ample time to answer, Covid or not, because there are multiple federal departments impacted by the UN complaint (the Canadian Commission on Building and Fire Codes, the National Research Council of Canada, Codes Canada, the Canadian Human Rights Commission, the Office of Disability Issues, etc). Given the fact that it pertains to chronic human rights violations (specifically, contempt of human rights law), I would hope that it would be a high priority subject for our federal government. To say that I'm eager for July 21st is an understatement. Will the Government of Canada acknowledge that the 2020 update of the National Building Code of Canada, delayed to February 2021, must end their exemption in section 3.8.2.1? Or will it be deferred to the 2025 update, thereby condoning this injustice for a full 40 years? Deferring to 2025 would likely open the door wide open to litigation with significant settlements as there are 600,000 Canadians with mobility disabilities...if ony 0.1% decided to sue, that would be 600 cases or one significant class-action case.
Again, my sincere thanks to Accessible Media Inc for their interest in our United Nations complaint (registered as case 76/2020 on January 21, 2020).
