Respect rights, increase public transit ridership

Struggle for accessibility should not require a lawsuit, Pearl Eliadis says.

Montreal’s public-transit system is reporting plummeting ridership on buses. And while métro ridership is up, the system is not easy for many people.

Lots of good ideas have been offered for making the public-transit system more attractive and user-friendly.

Here’s one more: Why not make our system accessible?

According to Statistics Canada, long-term disability affects about 10 per cent of Quebecers. Many face severe obstacles in accessing our public-transit system. Add to the mix people who are suffering temporary injuries, carrying young children in strollers, or even those carrying heavy bags, and you have a whole lot of potential clients who are seriously underserved by our publictransit system.

Basic accessibility has become an arduous fight against an obdurate system.

Since 1976, Quebec has had quasi-constitutional guarantees of non-discrimination, among other rights. Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms has protected equality since 1985. In 2010, Canada ratified an international agreement obliging it to provide equal access to transportation. Quebec, too, is bound by these international obligations.

Forty years later, the pace of improvement has been glacial. And yet, there have been breathless announcements about new, exciting and expensive transit projects from all three levels of government: the extension of the métro Blue Line, the planned REM light-rail train and new rapid bus services. Then there is the hoped-for new métro Pink Line, which would cost billions.

These initiatives show that when cities and politicians want to get things done, they can find the money.

It is disappointing that Quebec’s Human Rights Commission has been more hindrance than help. After six years of investigation, in January 2017 it tossed more than a dozen complaints about the pervasive and persistent inaccessibility of Montreal’s transit system.

The commission’s role as “gatekeeper” blocked the matter from going to a public hearing before Quebec’s human rights tribunal. The commission said that the deficiencies were merely bad service.

Certainly, discriminatory public service is bad service. It can also be far more than that. After years of delays and being brushed aside, the Quebec disability group RAPLIQ apparently thought so too, and decided to go to court.

In June 2017, before Mr. Justice Barin Babak, they won the right to challenge the Quebec Human Rights Commission’s decision.

In a separate case last year, they also won the right to institute a class action on behalf of people with disabilities in Quebec. According to the evidence described by Madam Justice Marie-Anne Paquette in her decision:

Of the 68 métro stations in the STM system, 11 have elevators; most are thus inaccessible to people in wheelchairs. Of the 71 commuter trains operated by the Agence métroplitain de transport (now exo) nine can accommodate wheelchairs. Low-floor buses and paratransit services are limited and often fail.

The city of Montreal, the STM and the AMT tried to have the lawsuit dismissed even before the case was heard on the grounds that public institutions should all be “immune.” Decisions about how to offer services (and, presumably, who gets to enjoy them) are political, they argued.

If that “immunity” argument were swallowed whole, human-rights legislation and Charter equality claims would be gutted of their remedial power.

Fortunately, the judge saw it differently, at least at the preliminary stage. The classaction suit is now before the courts.

But all this litigation is regrettable. Suing transit and transportation companies forces disability groups to draw on scarce resources.

City and transit authorities will spend millions of taxpayer dollars fighting these lawsuits, especially the class action.

It is time for all levels of government to stop fighting and develop a reasonable plan for full accessibility in our transit system within a decade.

Is that too much to ask? At the very least, we could make up for the recent drops in ridership.

Pearl Eliadis is a Montreal lawyer and a member of the McGill Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism.