People with disabilities face barriers to navigating B.C. Legislature, say politicians and advocates

To get to the house floor from the B.C. Legislature's dining room, MLA Dana Lajeunesse travels down a hallway, outside into a courtyard and up two steep ramps that bring him to the front half of the building, around a corner, down another hall, up an elevator, through a door, and down a final hallway back toward the rear of the building.

His colleagues make the same journey in a fraction of the time, by climbing three flights of stairs.

"Although it doesn't seem that inaccessible to me, I always arrive after everyone else, so it could be better," said Lajeunesse, the MLA for Juan de Fuca-Malahat and B.C.'s parliamentary secretary for accessibility, who uses a wheelchair for mobility. 

The complicated journey represents just one barrier of many that staff with disabilities, guests, press, and politicians face to navigate the building that is British Columbia's political seat of power.

The B.C. Legislature was completed in 1897. Like many historic buildings in Canada, accessibility wasn't prioritized in its design. This has left the province facing financial and logistical challenges in bringing it up to modern standards.

However, advocates and those with disabilities who have worked there say that the building's barriers create an inequitable environment and could deter people from taking jobs there.

"It does seem quite embarrassing that the province's symbolic building, i.e. the legislature, is not accessible and I think what the province really needs to do is back up their accessibility legislation with action by being role models in making change and reducing these barriers," said Helaine Boyd, executive director of Disability Alliance B.C.

"Anything that they own or lease or have responsibility for, they then have responsibility to make accessible."

B.C.'s Office of the Clerk said in a statement that new accessibility upgrades are expected to be made to the public galleries this summer.

These upgrades are decided on based on impact, cost, and heritage implications, the statement said, and each project is prioritized based on the current needs of those working in the building and capital planning.

"Historic buildings like the Parliament Buildings pose significant physical accessibility challenges due to structural limitations and heritage features," wrote the Office of the Clerk. "Many improvements have been made, but structural realities make full retrofits difficult (as they can pose significant risks to the overall structural integrity of the building envelope) and are often exceptionally costly."

Steep ramps, limited accessible entrances

Stephanie Cadieux, Canada's first chief accessibility officer, worked in the B.C. Legislature from 2009 to 2022 as an MLA and minister for multiple ministries. As someone who uses a wheelchair, she said there were many things that felt short of accessible to her, along with things that could pose a challenge for others with disabilities.

"When I first arrived, there was only one entrance to the building that I could use, and it's a very steep ramp off to one side of the building," she said. "I couldn't enter through the front at all."

Throughout, there are heavy doors, inaccessible bathrooms, dim or fluorescent lighting that presents challenges for those with vision impairments, and no assisted listening devices.

Some parts of the building, such as the press gallery and parts of the public galleries, are inaccessible to those with mobility issues, which, according to the Office of the Clerk, is "due to structural and heritage building constraints."

Where ramps have been added to the building, Lajeunesse says they work but are "about twice as steep as would be allowable under the building code."

There are ongoing efforts to bring the building closer to equitable standards. In 2013, the Mowat Entrance — named after Doug Mowat, B.C.'s first MLA to use a wheelchair while in office —  was installed at the front of the legislature, creating a second basement-level accessible entrance.

Cadieux and Lajeunesse say they've been glad to see a willingness to adapt the building to modern accessibility standards by the Speaker's Office, which is responsible for procedural and administrative aspects of the Legislative Assembly. Doors along both MLAs' typical routes were outfitted with a power opening. When Lajeunesse approaches a door, he can press a button on a remote, and it opens automatically.

Currently, 11 out of the 17 public washrooms in the legislature are now accessible, with the remaining six in stairwells. American Sign Language translation is available for those watching proceedings in the legislature.

Some changes coming but more needed

This summer, a "fully accessible space" will be added to the public galleries, according to the Office of the Clerk, and other improvements are part of the building's capital plan. The clerk's office said there is no fixed timeline for this, and did not provide details on specific further accessibility upgrades.

B.C. commissioned an accessibility review of the B.C. Parliament Buildings in 2023 by Flashability Access, which Sogomonian said is being used to identify areas in need of accessibility upgrades. The report's recommendations include assisted listening devices in meeting rooms, a relief area for service animals, and ensuring wall-mounted fixtures are within reach for people in wheelchairs.

Boyd says it's often the historic buildings, though costly and logistically complicated to retrofit, that are the most important to make accessible so that everyone has the opportunity to engage in them. 

She feels the province needs to respond not just to the needs of current MLAs and staff, but to anyone who may wish to work or participate in the legislature, so they don't have to spend time advocating for their own accessibility needs.

"If you continue to create barriers for people with disabilities, then they will not be able to engage," said Boyd, who would like to see public consultation on accessibility upgrades done with the wider community beyond current occupants of the building. 

"The province needs to be more proactive in making these changes for future MLAs and just the general public."

Lajeunesse says he would like to see other MLAs try to navigate the building by using a wheelchair, to broaden their understanding about what challenges people with disabilities can encounter in the legislature.

"I think for people, until you're in this situation, you can't possibly understand what it's like," he said. 

Cadieux has been happy to see how much the building has changed since she first started there, but feels there's more work to be done within the legislature and beyond.

"Even today [there's] the expectation of where people with disabilities will show up, right, like 'Oh well, we don't need to put access there because nobody with a disability is going to use that,'" she said. 

"It's that unconscious bias and ableism that's inherent in our thinking that allows us to exclude people by design, and we really have to keep challenging that mindset."