Eventually an
"I spent four hours alone in a wheelchair, blind, without anybody checking on me," she said. "I couldn't go to the bathroom. I couldn't eat. I couldn't find anybody to help me.
"Then they expected me to be able to get up out of the chair and climb up stairs onto my flight. It was ridiculous," said Walkus, who heads the
"It's like I was parked luggage," she said. You're just dumped and left.”
Walkus is among the accessibility advocates to come forward this week about unreliable assistance in air travel, pointing to regulatory gaps and scattershot enforcement that can leave travellers with disabilities injured, stranded or demeaned.
Community leaders describe mangled mobility aids, seemingly untrained staff and a check-in and boarding process akin to a slow-motion relay that shuttles passengers from one point to another, sometimes with hours-long waits and no assistance.
The criticism comes after
In
Yet the problems go beyond a single airline, as "gaping holes" in the Accessible Canada Act allow problems to persist in areas ranging from consultation to assistance protocols, Walkus said — despite a regulatory overhaul in 2020 brought on by that legislation.
On top of a dearth of detail on how to train staff, she cited the example of a rule requiring federally regulated companies to involve people with disabilities in developing policies, programs and services — a "regulation you could drive a truck through."
"You could send the administrator down to
Service for the hundreds of thousands of passengers who fly in
"I have gotten everything, from people who know what they're doing, to people who obviously had no training," said
"I have to teach them how to guide a blind person."
He questioned why
“That is a formula for ineffectiveness," said Lepofsky, who heads the Accessibility for Ontarians with
Announced Thursday,
Leduc said she was skeptical and criticized the language as vague, while Lepofsky said that merely improving service fell short of barrier-free travel. Damaged mobility aids should be treated with the same zero-tolerance approach as safety breaches, he said.
He also slammed the
However, Walkus said she took heart in recent steps from the regulator's chairwoman, France Pégeot, who accepted the top spot in
"Their understanding of equity and inclusion has shifted the way CTA looks at how business must be done with people with disabilities," she said, noting Pégeot's inclusion of advocates in discussions with smaller airlines.
For now, problems remain, tinged with a hint of hope.
Last summer, Walkus arrived in
"What we want is just to be able to travel without being harmed and delayed and held hostage because our wheelchair didn't show up," Walkus said, calling for an inquiry into subpar assistance.
"We're looked at as an alien group that has to be dealt with. It's really a demeaning process.
"The attitudinal part is going to be the biggest shift," she added, "but I've seen shifts already."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published
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