Acquisition of IT-Related Adaptive Products and Services
[Music] good afternoon and welcome to the canada school of public service my name is isabel rasin and i am the executive director of the national managers community dnmc i will be the moderator for today's discussion welcome to the last the third event of the series on workplace accommodation consultation today's event is entitled accessible procurement i would like to begin by acknowledging that since i am located in ghetts no quebec the land on which i gather or we gather is the traditional and unceded territory of the anishina biwaki moak and oawa algonquin people i recognize that we all work in different places and therefore on a different traditional indigenous territory i encourage you to take a moment to reflect on this we have a great discussion plan for you and i want you to have the best possible experience therefore could you please log off your vpn to help you experience the event at the fullest level if you are experiencing technical issues it is recommended that you relaunch the webcast link provided please note you have been sent a powerpoint that will be presented today please refer to the reminder email you received from the school which happened to have the link to download the document additional resources are available on the gcpedia page of the office of the public service accessibility as currently posted on the screen also throughout the event you may submit your questions by clicking on the top icon that looks like a race and toward the end of the event we have planned some time for questions and answers i will now hand it over to ms yasmin laroche deputy minister office of the public service accessibility treasury board of canada secretariat over to you yes men thank you so much isabel and hi everybody i'm so happy to be here uh this is a community that that is so important in the work that we're trying to accomplish and i'm just honored to be able to be here to to speak to you today before going any further i would like to acknowledge that i am physically located right now in ottawa on the unseated traditional territory of the algonquin anishinabe peoples thank you for taking the time to participate in this event today we're so happy to be presenting this in collaboration with the national managers community and as isabel mentioned this is our third and final session in the workplace accommodation consultation series for those of you who might be joining for the first time the reason we organized this series was really to give effect to some of the feedback we got from public service employees and managers through the 2019 benchmarking study that we did of workplace accommodations as well as the nmc managers learning needs survey so what did we hear we heard that managers wanted more information and more resources around workplace accommodation around adaptive technologies and the subject of today's event accessible procurement in the first session we shared some very interesting findings from the benchmarking study one of the things we learned was that when employees have access to timely and effective accommodations it leads to greatly increased productivity as well as improvements in mental health and morale and confidence about career prospects we also learned that more than half of accommodation requests involve at least one piece of adaptive technology in the second session the accessibility accommodation and adaptive computer technology program of shared services canada also known as the triple a ct provided information about the wide range of expertise and support that they can provide to you the manager and to your employees the procurement process was also identified as a particular concern for managers who asked for better guidance and for access to experts and expert advice today in this final session you will hear from the experts of the accessible procurement resources center of public services and procurement canada pspc will discuss not only the acquisition of adaptive products and services but your role in accessible procurement in ensuring the goods and services that are purchased are accessible by default and in march the comptroller general jakupei and i issued new guidance to all deputy heads and cfos to encourage using acquisition cards to purchase low dollar like under five hundred dollars accommodation related items and services as a means of equipping employees much faster so that they can work safely and to their full potential as you participate in today's event i'd like you to think about what you as a manager do to support inclusion and a feeling of belonging and and the things that you can do to break down barriers that are faced in many cases every day by people living with disabilities in our workplace i'm counting on you you're leaders in our public service and i our goal is to make our public service the most accessible and inclusive in the world and i know you share that vision and i would like to thank you for participating i want to thank our partners at the national managers community and the canada school of public service for hosting this learning series and pspc for the wonderful resources and expertise that you're going to share today i wish you all the best for today's event thanks so much everybody back to you isabel thank you yes man for these words i would now like to introduce mr awan tagaj associate deputy minister transport canada and deputy minister champion for the nmc over to you evan thanks isabel and good afternoon everyone and i too would like to begin my brief remarks by uh acknowledging the land on uh which i'm working from today in ottawa ontario is the traditional unseated territory of the algonquin and ashabi people the algonquin people have lived on this land since time immemorial and we are very grateful to have the opportunity to be present uh here today um and i'm you know i'm very pleased to be joining the discussion today and at the nmc we want to play a role in ensuring that managers are provided um and equipped with the the right conditions um with for persons with disabilities to bring their talents to the forefront we want to ensure that persons with disabilities can participate and contribute without barriers at making the public service better for all and the need for every one of us to strive to make our society more caring and inclusive continues to be critical especially in light of the recent and horrific and devastating news coming out of kamloops and of london ontario we stand in solidarity against acts of violence like this today's session is the third event of a three series three event series on workplace accommodation the first event entitled benchmarking study of workplace accommodation practices in the federal public service had over 800 participants and the second event entitled acquisition of information technology related adaptive products and services had over 1500 participants this demonstrates that the sessions were relevant and meaningful to managers and i'm confident that today's session uh will be no different later this summer we will make sure that all three events are available and fully accessible for those who may have missed them we have also received many questions following these first two sessions and the plan is to post the q's and a's on gc connects later this summer fostering diversity and inclusion in the workplace has been highlighted for man by managers across the country as a topic we need to address as a community the nmc has been extremely active on that front for example we have been involved in conversations with the public service commission who in partnership with the human resources council are launching a series of continuous intake uh inventories to support government-wide hiring of persons with disabilities into professional and scientific positions the first two inventories for candidates with disabilities were launched on march 31st to 2021 in the fields of data and policy for of data and policy for positions in the ec groups and digital technology for positions in the cs or computer systems groups these inventories contain more than 150 candidates each and managers can expect candidates to be ready for referrals by uh mid to late summer planning consultation is also underway in the fields of financial management as well as sciences so more to come on that in addition to the gc jobs platform these opportunities are featured on the psc self-declared web page the psc hrc work group is working group is also working on a centralized database of candidacy information of previously assessed and qualified candidates who have self-declared sorry who have self-declared in in external staffing processes and who have not yet been hired into the federal public service the first data set is currently being validated and candidates are expected to be available by mid-summer and on and on an ongoing basis you can visit the psc website to access tools services recruitment products and student programs all candidates are encouraged to self-declare and their hr advisors can help you navigate the various options available to you the nmc has also been hosting learning opportunities on diversity inclusion and anti-racism we've posted our first uh dni fully accessible video we've hosted an inclusive student hiring event with the public service commission and the school of public service we have shared an inclusion and diversity manager toolkit we've had an event on courageous conversations opening the dialogue with our teams on systemic racism in our workplace we have hosted an event on managing linguistic insecurities and provided insight on how to create safe places at work we have collected ensured feedback from regional nmc uh committee and manager advisory board members on diversity and inclusion with the minister of the treasury board of canada secretary the nmc was also on the assessment board for the building black leaders program in the atlantic over the next few months we will continue our work with partners such as opsed to meet the training needs of managers make your voices heard and address the various components of the call to action i wish you all a great event today so thank you and over to you isabel thank you evelyn i would uh now like to introduce angus o'leary from public service and procurement canada who will be presenting the content for today and this is the dg strategic policy sector at pspc over to you angus so uh thank you all it's a pleasure to be here with you today during national public service week uh to talk about accessible procurement so first a shout out to everyone uh for for being public servants in this week and and it's been a tremendous year i think for the public service in terms of the way we've been able to respond and pull together to respond to the covet crisis across the country um i will also add that uh i too am speaking from the unseated uh algonquin and in the back territory apologies for showing up today um and i'd also like to add that it is a distinct pleasure to uh be sharing the stage here today with them laroche and uh sangaraj so um as isabel mentioned my name is angus o'leary i'm the acting director general for public service and procurement canada's acquisitions program strategic policy sector so i'm still fairly new to the job so i'm joined today by a couple of experts on my team who are sandra charles and stephania lappa so they will join me in in answering questions if uh if the questions get too difficult so um madame laroche referred in her opening remarks to the study that was completed and so one of the links that makes is that accessible procurement is integral to creating a barrier-free and inclusive workplace and to ensuring that the goods and services we purchase are accessible to the broadest range of canadians so this really is where psdc comes in as additional information it was needed both on the acquisition of adaptive i.t related equipment and services as well as a variety of other areas so this is largely where pspc comes in but at the same time i think you may be surprised to know that a lot of the purchases that need to be done are actually done within the dollar thresholds that are delegated to individual departments themselves i'll just make a note here that i believe everybody has the deck that's in front of them um it's not being broadcast today but i'll refer to the slides because i think you've all got a copy so i'm moving down to slide three which will kind of take us back to the basics so pspc i think as you're all aware procures goods and services on behalf of all federal departments and agencies these procurements range from office supplies to military ships to security systems and everything in between inside these purchases there are 10 mandatory commodities for which all federal departments must use pspc standing offers and supply arrangements so these are key tools that we use for contracting and these mandatory standing offers and supply arrangements include furniture office supplies and devices professional administrative and management support services all departments have the discretion to purchase and purchase goods and services themselves up to certain limits that are established by the treasury board contracting policy so given various dollar thresholds the acquisition of adaptive i.t products can typically be purchased within the financial and procurement authorities that are actually delegated to departments themselves in fact the use and application of departmental acquisition cards as madame rush just referred to is is a convenient and much less burdensome method of procuring and paying for adaptive products themselves so we strongly encourage that uh this was recently echoed by both the controller general and the dem laroche uh encouraging all departments to use acquisition cards to the best extent possible for workplace accommodation so that employees receive adaptive goods and services in a timely efficient and cost-effective manner pspc however does have a very important role to play in ensuring the goods and services that the government purchases are accessible by design and inclusive by default so that canadians and public servants with disabilities can use them without adaptation this is where we've really spent a lot of our attention most notably the most recent budget budget 21 proposed funding for psbc to incorporate accessibility considerations into federal procurement ensuring goods and services are available by design this is really where accessible procurement comes in which i'm going to turn to now so i'm now turning to slide four for those of you who are following in the deck as you may know the accessible canada act requires federal organizations to identify remove and prevent barriers in seven key areas uh of which procurement is won since the inception of the act itself treasury board updated its contracting policy uh requiring departments to consider accessibility and procurement and to provide a justification when accessible at when accessibility criteria are not included this means that technical authorities are responsible for considering accessibility criteria in their procurements by taking into account the needs needs of end users interacting with the good or service and leveraging the accessibility standards where possible so once the department has taken these actions to meaningfully consider accessibility and still decides that the accessibility criteria cannot be included in procurement uh they must still ensure that a justification is included on the procurement file itself so the reasons for justification may vary depending on the commodity goods such as armament fuels energy and bandwidth are a few examples where accessibility is not likely at least at this point to apply so turning to slide five uh managers have an important role to play around accessible procurement because persons with disabilities are your co-workers and your clients so we must all work to remove and prevent barriers and provide accessible programs and services to canadians and create inclusive workspaces for public servants from the start rather than seeking accommodations after the fact so even those of us who do not report having a disability can expect to experience a temporary or mild disability at some point in our lives or through our careers various among us find ourselves on crutches develop arthritis or experience an episodic disability so in thinking about accessibility we are potentially thinking about every canadian at some point in their life experiencing something along these lines according to the canadian survey on disability conducted by statistics canada it's estimated that one in five canadians or approximately 6.2 million
people aged 15 years and over have reported having at least one disability so the audience here is really very broad and the applicability thereby is very broad so turning to slide six this is where pspc comes in so the department in 2018 established the accessible procurement resource center and the aprc as it's commonly known in the department is mandated to support federal departments and agencies in integrating accessibility criteria into their procurement requirements for goods and services two to ensure that federal that the federal procurement process itself is accessible and fair and three to prevent or remove barriers to the participation of persons with disabilities in the procurement process so these are kind of three core areas for us where we have dedicated a fair amount of resources so the accessible procurement resource center itself was built through engagement with key stakeholders including the federal accessibility legislation alliance which stressed the importance of understanding that no one individual organization or company can represent all disabilities uh disability itself is a widely diverse set of lived experiences so while we consult broadly we we don't expect to be able to to hear the needs of of everyone turning to slide seven uh this is why last summer the accessible procurement resource center conducted uh several stakeholder engagement activities with members of the disabled community across the country to hear about their lived experience when it comes to interacting with the goods and services that the federal government procures what the aprc heard from our own employees from disability organizations and canadians with disabilities is that the barriers they face when interacting with a good or service may vary according to the disability type so for example telecommunications voice products such as phones or similar devices for everyday tasks may pose minimal to no barriers for those with mobility challenges but would very much impact those with seeing hearing or dexterity challenges so that just kind of adds to the complexity of the work that's being done here so one of the most significant challenges that the accessible procurement resource center heard were barriers associated with accessing public-facing procurement documents so the procurement process is by definition a complex and burdensome process uh made all the more so when uh there are potential disabilities involved so several participants as well as experts in the disability field who were interviewed indicated that tender documents were often inaccessible to those with seeing disabilities for example one of these experts shared an example where an employee was blind and his task was to look for requests for proposals that the company could apply to and start the process of the application so the issue he read into uh often was that he could not read the rfp because it was not compatible with the screen reader so if the procurement process had been fully accessible from the beginning there would be persons with disabilities involved at all points in the process itself so this is just one example so in terms of what we're doing as we turn to slide eight i would like like that since its inception in 2018 uh the aprc has developed a suite of tools including a series of videos to support procurement officers and client departments in considering is in procurement while we've made a fair amount of progress there's still significant work required to advance the inclusion of accessibility though in federal procurement we fully realize that so the accessible procurement resource center is working to develop and share commodity specific tools and guidance for goods and services that have the highest impact of the lives of persons with disabilities such as in the areas of vehicles uh and telecommunication advice our devices excuse me we are also working to ensure that standing offers and supply arrangements incorporate accessibility considerations as they come up for renewal so these things are often done for five year periods difficult to change while we process but as they periodically renew we're able to incorporate those new considerations in and the department has equally committed to developing an accessible procurement process to pursue a higher level of participation from canadians of all abilities an assessment of select procurement documents on our tendering site was recently undertaken with the aim of identifying barriers and improving the accessibility of information available to canadians so we are aware that we must be able to monitor and measure changes around accessible procurement and to do this we've developed a series of key performance indicators to measure the inclusion of accessibility criteria in our procurements we'll also be measuring the extent to which procurement officers and technical authorities such as yourselves and then you end users such as our employees understand their roles and responsibilities when it comes to accessible procurement and finally we are committed to increasing supplier diversity through inclusive procurement opportunities for traditionally underrepresented business communities including businesses owned or led by persons uh with disabilities and and for for the first time in its history uh psbc has recently uh developed and begun implementing its very first social procurement policy so this is something of which we're we're very proud of we have conducted as well a marketplace study of businesses owed or led by persons with disabilities in canada looking at industry at commodity types their geographic location and their firm size the research is really a first of its kind in canada we plan to build on this evidence with a request for information of businesses old or led by persons with disabilities it's kind of a sad state of affairs when you don't have that kind of basic data but at least we have the tools that are available now to help us to collect this data and that's going to help us really to overcome i think a lot of the the challenges that we're finding uh turning to slide 9 which identifies the current challenges we note that while some markets are fairly mature in providing universally accessible goods and services office furniture for example other commodities have little or no market readiness so things like food and beverage packaging this is uh in large part due to the lack of accessibility standards and guidelines in many industries whether it comes to product and service designer usage but the information is still useful for us as it identifies again what uh what's missing and what's needed as mentioned in the previous slide we're also addressing challenges associated with identifying businesses owned or led by this by persons with disabilities our marketplace study is the first step in this direction to understanding where these vendors exist across canada and which industries they reside uh this challenge incidentally is one that we face across the the spectrum of our efforts to diversify uh suppliers of the procurement process as we lack really baseline data for a lot of underrepresented groups uh in terms of the nature and type of businesses that they're in and finally we recognize that we need to change our own culture to ensure adaptability and flexibility of the goods services that we procure in order to support an accessible workplace of accessible programs and services we also need to find ways to consistently assess the accessibility of goods and services that are procured for us this means that we need to work closely with our clients with the community and with procurement specialists to ensure that we buy the right goods and services to meet the necessary requirements of everyone including people with disabilities so turning to slide 10 kind of the key takeaways we would like to leave you with today are that accessible procurement means developing inclusive and accessible goods and services from the start rather rather than seeking accommodation after the fact it's easier to build things in from the beginning than to to try to change the ones that are in place uh we would also ask you to remember that when it comes to the acquisition of adaptive i.t related products uh to use departmental acquisition cards where possible and finally we need to engage with the community including employee disability networks to take into account the needs of end users and to ensure that the goods and services purchased by the federal government are accessible to the broadest range of canadians so with that i would like to thank you for the time uh for your for your time here today i'm happy to take questions uh and as i mentioned i'm joined by sandra charles who is the associate director and stefan yalapa who is the manager of the accessible procurement resource center so they're going to join me in fielding any questions that you may have today with that i'll turn back to i guess it's isabel yes thank you angus thank you for the presentation which highlighted well how to procure accessible products and services as you mentioned we'll open the floor to questions for participants a reminder that you may send your questions by pressing the raise hand icon in the upper right corner of your screen as a first question i'd like to ask you angus can you provide an example of the types of goods and services that i might need to procure as a manager that require an accessibility consideration uh sure so under uh under treasury board contracting policy uh client departments are required to consider accessibility in the in the purchase of all goods and services it is in rare circumstance that after meaningful consideration accessibility uh does not apply in which case a justification itself must be on file so if we take for example professional services if you have a contractor who will be providing a report or other form of document that document should be in an accessible format and adhere to accessibility standards namely the harmonized european standard this means having larger print so serif font apologies if i didn't pronounce that correctly good contrast levels and all text for pictures and tables among other factors so if you're preparing professional services you would include the requirement for accessible documentation in the statement of work itself from our old experience the accessible procurement resource center procures guidance and training products so these products need to be accessible and in the development of the statement of work for a micro alerting video the aprc incorporated relevant accessibility standards so in this case the web content accessibility rules they also considered accessibility beyond the minimum standards by ensuring the video script was in plain language and requiring sign language in the video in addition to narration uh and closed captioning so those are the the types of examples of goods and services that require the accessibility consideration excellent thank you um i've got another question here where can i find existing accessibility standards that might apply to a specific product so a list of existing standards my team is rushing to my defense a list of existing standards for goods and services can be found on the accessibility hub a site which is hosted by the public service accessibility office the list describes the accessibility standards for goods and services and we're working with accessibility standards canada to develop accessibility standards for procurement that will apply to the federal government and the federally regulated entities thank you um we've got another question from the audience can you explain how you partner with other government departments when buying information and communication technology sure um what i may do here is maybe ask stefania if she wants to jump up on screen and she could be ahead hi angus hi everyone uh thank you for joining us today um absolutely thank you for the question when it comes to how we partner with other government departments particularly in the acquisition of information and communication technology this is normally where we work very closely with our colleagues at shared services canada in particular act many of you may have been on their presentation that transpired last month through the same channel so while we are sort of the first point of contact when it comes to how to incorporate accessible goods and services in federal procurement um and we're by no means um commodity experts as angus had uh mentioned we procure everything from office furniture to freighter jets um ict adaptive technology really is sort of in the wheelhouse of shared services canada um so um and oftentimes if we do receive a question or if there's a procurement that does have an ict related component we will almost certainly work in close collaboration with our friends at shared services shared services canada and particularly act to get the right uh resources in the hands of those that need them excellent thank you stephania um another question is is there a contact where we can reach out to if we have questions about accessible procurement or if we need help while incorporating accessibility into our procurement sure uh sorry am i mute no no you're good sorry okay um yes so again we would uh recommend that you reach out directly to the accessible procurement resource center so for those of you who have a copy of the presentation uh you can find the contact information in annex a thank you um i'm just waiting to see if there's another question coming from there's a few questions so it's a question of just uh getting the next one my way give me a second okay under the treasury board contracting policy departments are responsible for considering accessibility and if deemed not applicable a written justification is required it put under a procurement file can you explain what the justification entails and what kind of justification is deemed acceptable and where can i find a template or do you have examples of good justifications so uh you can find the template again on the accessibility hub that can be used to create or record a rationale um the rationale is considered acceptable if the department decides after a thorough accessibility review that accessibility criteria should not be incorporated into the project um there's three kind of basic criteria which is one that the criteria are not accept or not excuse me are not applicable uh so accessibility criteria do not apply to the targeted product so if it's fuel lubricant bandwidth etc uh or if the the criteria of unavailability so there are no accessible goods and service available on the market or there's an other category which can be used for a mandatory justification so the justification form itself must be approved by the technical authority like other procurement documents themselves and again you can find templates on the accessibility hub excellent um you mentioned english tenders not being accessible for everyone for example not com being compatible with some screen readers for people with limited vision how would we know that our tender document is compatible with their specific screen readers or how would we determine accommodation needs of interested suppliers so on that one i think i'm going to turn back to stephania this is the great thing about this job is is when when there's something i can't answer i just turned to someone who's smarter and more incapable no worries i'm here to support as best as i can so no thank you very much for the question um in terms of uh tinder is not being accessible for everyone and this is certainly as angus had pointed out um our ourselves trying to ensure that the procurement process itself is accessible to the broadest range of canadians so in most cases uh while we do encourage anyone that is that is producing a document to really um go by treasury board guidance when it comes to using european harmonized standards and this is recommended as i mentioned by treasury board and you can certainly send the links and our friends at shared services canada can provide more information on what those requirements look like um that would certainly um help in ensuring that the document itself you know is meeting certain non-web content unfortunately the minute we put any document or tinder in a pdf format and if we are not uh you know savvy in terms of how to make that pdf document um accessible the way it should be then we have certainly uh created a barrier for those that need to use a screen reader um so this is an area that uh we're very much aware of it and we are making um strides to uh correct this um you know for sure pspc wide and then working more closely with shared services canada um and our colleagues at treasury board to um implement a more streamlining government uh approach on you know when we're actually you know posting uh tender documents um that they are accessible to um those that you know including those that need adaptive related technologies um we can certainly um you know also uh point to the new the new electronic uh procurement solution or many of you might i know that as sort of uh what would be sort of our old buy and sell site uh or now called canada the buys where we're certainly ensuring that we have accessibility standards up to date to assure that any republican information public-facing information um is accessible including our our tenders um you know whether they're going to be in either a pdf document maybe in an alternative format um right now when it comes to i think the last question um how would we determine a combination needs of interested suppliers um i think it's a few things in some cases suppliers might actually contact the contracting authority responsible for the procurement so for example if you know you're the client and you're looking to procure either professional services or request for proposal on um maybe a particular good normally the contracting authority and has the contact of their contact information at the end of the tender so normally they would receive any questions when it comes to the supplier views of the accessible procurement or anything else related to that request for proposal and this is where we would understand the combination accommodation needs of interested suppliers for those specific procurements maybe they cannot access them in the format in which they're deal being delivered in or maybe in terms of the actual deliverable itself when we ask for it to be you know accessible so that would be the first point of contact um another area that we're trying to you know understand the supply base is what angus had already mentioned we have done a marketplace analysis already to better understand the supplier landscape what does the marketplace look like in terms of any suppliers who are owned or led by a person with a disability so whether their challenges what markets do they reside in we know that fewer than one percent of them actually do business with the government of canada so in those cases we're trying to understand um that supply base and separately also trying to understand what is the market readiness um views of the various commodities and actually delivering an accessible good or service um you know some markets are mature more ready and mature than others so for instance you know telecommunications uh certainly has you know um areas um that can obviously meet accessibility uh standards the same thing when we're looking at training when we get into more of the gray area where you know as you know angus mentioned when it's armaments or maybe invisible um sort of commodities like bandwidth um you know that market may not be as ready or you know um the readily goods and services might not necessarily uh be accessible um and finally i'd like to end in terms of suppliers and their accommodation needs specific to um accessibility we are embarking on a request for information later on this year to better understand what uh suppliers face vis-a-vis the procurement process particularly those who are owned or aligned by persons with disabilities excellent thank you stephania so you as you heard the beeps coming in stephanie is also monitoring the inbox of questions so i that tells me that there's quite a few there's traffic on the line um as uh we wait for more of the incoming questions i want to ask are there um any standard language or clauses around accessibility requirements that use or integrate that i need to use or integrate into my statement of work um so on that one there's a there's a guide to standard text when incorporating accessibility criteria into various procurement related documents uh again found on the accessibility hub so causes relating to accessibility requirements do not exist except in the area of information and communication technology so in accordance with the tbs guideline on the usability of information technology by all uh departments and organizations are encouraged to draw inspiration from the harmonized european standard when they acquire or develop internal or public i.t solutions and equipment so that includes web content and all it tools and equipment and consider accessibility in the life cycle management of existing i.t solutions and equipment including web content so in in accordance with the harmonized european standard uh ministries agencies and organizations are strongly encouraged to use the most recent version of the web content excessive accessibility rules which is version 2.1 level aaa which might be a little too much detail but nonetheless thank you another question are there any steps processes that pspc uses to ensure that software acquired meets the wcag compliance at the specified level i'm sure there are and i prefer to uh the technical lifeline stephania yes no no problem with all and i'm happy to answer that question and um maybe because this is an easy one uh in our part um it's really again our friends at sherwood services canada and um more specifically act um they are so great this is really their bread and butter so when it comes to ensuring you know that we're using um software um acquired that really meets uh wicked compliance at a specified level um i know treasury board uh does encourage a double a but um you know we were always hearing that wicked 2.1 aaa really is a cadillac um when it comes to uh compliance levels um so they really are your first point of contact um if you have their their generic inbox otherwise again we work quite closely with them that if we get questions that come our way that they're anything ict related we make sure that we get them to act uh quickly and i don't want to speak on their behalf but i know there's a lot of work in that area they also have help those actually want to write up the requirements when it comes to wiki compliance i believe they're working towards um coming up with a list of um conformance testers out there in the supply base to help with performance testing i'll stop there because i'll start to paraphrase and might not articulate um all the wonderful work they do but uh certainly uh we work very closely with them uh to ensure that anything ict related is is addressed okay excellent stuff and in the q and a's as we're working with them and the package for the series we can also ask for their guidance in answering the question uh when we're going to post that later on this summer so what is my role as a contracting authority when technical authorities do not consider accessibility so again that's that that's a really good question so your role really is to act as a challenge function and to ask the technical authorities if they've consulted with end users if they've leveraged international accessibility standards and universal design principles to determine if accessibility criteria should be included in the procurement so the scope of the role really includes ensuring that technical authorities provide a good justification if accessibility criteria are not appropriate or if they're unable to obtain goods and services that comply with the accessibility requirements so it's not a policing role per se but really kind of a challenge function to make sure that at least the documentation is complete and that the role is understood excellent so how might accessible procurement fit into a broader conversation about social and sustainable procurement is this something being considered or are the different areas kept separate so again this is this is a a really great question and very timely so um social procurement is is currently a a a very high priority i think of of various respective ministers certainly uh the minister of responsible for psbc accessibility is just what is one factor that we need to consider along with other social factors including green procurement uh social procurement itself and we're working closely with all of these teams right now to develop more commodity specific guidance such as scorecards and developing kind of a community of practice and agents of change in these areas while they're important and meaningful priorities it is kind of new era a new area new territory so we're still kind of fighting our way but at the same time these are all kind of really important uh factors that i think are going to change the way that we do procurement going forward for quite a while i have another question from participants do you have any guides to share an accessible procurement where are you storing the information uh yeah uh so we have the tools and resources available on the accessibility hub on gcpedia um so if you go to the link at the end of the presentation that was shared with you today that should take you right to that that source excellent um is including accessibility standard and a tender requirements enough to satisfy meaningful consideration of accessibility and procurement so it's always a good practice to examine accessibility at the forefront and not as an end thought that that's kind of one of the key takeaways for the day itself um to that and accessibility standards should be seen as the minimum an additional step should be taken to ensure that accessibility has meaningfully been considered what we mean really by meaningful consideration of accessibility is focusing on the end user uh and how they will interact with the goods and services and facilities you are procuring or providing we recognize there's no one-size-fits-all approach so it's vital to identify barriers faced by your end user through consulting with your clients co-workers we would note that you could also consult with the network for people with disabilities within your department or disability advocacy groups uh examine both universal design principles and accessibility standards to ensure that goods and services being procured are inclusive by design and accessible by default another question how to assess whether a justification to not consider accessibility is acceptable what are some examples of exceptions or exemptions the person who's asking the question works with police and there are justifications that fight fit for duty to not considering accessibility okay so i think i'm going to refer back to stephanie on this one that's going to join me back on screen yes no problem and this is a great question um we do get this question often enough especially when we are talking about either the rscmp or caf members or i'm policing um when you know we're looking for a site fit for duty so um we should also um caveat that you know when we are considering accessible procurement of course when it comes to anything that's related to national security and safety i mean there are always other things that will for sure um you know trump right and these are sort of our pillars that you know we're not by any means you know um asking to change any sort of considerations that might uh come you know accessibility considerations that might come in conflict um with um certain um exemptions or when we're talking about you know national security so we do get this question often enough again it depends on the commodities so you know in some cases if we're talking about maybe uh procuring let's say something like uh guard services or policing services i mean i think it's still fair to say that you know um we could have an accessibility requirement when it comes to ensuring that whoever is providing that service has you know again in terms of you know who is the end user and if they um are able to you know maybe interact with you know persons with uh disabilities whether you know their um detainees um maybe in some cases in the policing uh world if uh we're consulting for professional services uh again we always recommend that any final deliverable by way of a report um is fully accessible to the broadest range of canadians or end users who are using that report i should also say that your end user of today um you know is not necessarily your end user of tomorrow so in some cases you know if it's administrative uh maybe um items that maybe you're uh procuring and again it's the same thing we've had questions about you know maybe it's filing cabinets and in those cases um you want to make sure that maybe your end user today um may not have any um adaptation or challenges um related with accessing that that end uh product um but maybe your end user later on down the road might so these might be some questions that you know maybe relate to the goods or services you're procuring in the world of policing um uniforms again is another one that uh you know it could forcibly have some accessibility considerations um but again um in terms of you know a justification again if this is something where you're procuring something like armaments and you know you've done your homework you look at accessibility standards uh none seem to exist when it comes to the greater service that you're procuring you've spoken to your end user who is interacting with that good or service that you're procuring even if it is in the world of policing and if after all that you know um comes to no avail i would say you've meaningfully considered accessibility and in that case it would be fair to say that a justification form could be put um on the procurement file and again we're happy to have these one-on-one you know conversations uh while we're not commodity experts and any and all uh commodities um we can certainly help you um think through the decision-making process again in some cases it's very clear in some commodities where you know yeah accessibility would um would make a lot of sense in other cases um it's a little bit more uh gray and we know that it's a gray area but you would be surprised more times than not uh that accessibility would in fact apply and as angus mentioned in his presentation we are looking towards commodity specific guidance in the future um and you know areas that might pertain to uh policing um necessary might actually uh be helpful as well and i should also mention you know in terms of you know how to include it in your um statement of work um it doesn't always have to be mandatory so if you know in some cases that you know your market and you know again if it's tough uh you know or members or the rcmp or policing where you know you've got certain national uh you know security uh requirements that um obviously uh you know take uh priority in these cases you know you may not necessarily want to make um accessibility um a mandatory if you know your suppliers won't be able to meet that criteria now but you could signal it maybe in a points rated depending on how you use the evaluation where maybe some extra points are awarded you know if they're able to deliver that good or service um in an accessible way and really what this is aiming to do is signaling to the supply bays to know that as a government uh you know as a federal government we are you know um making it mandatory and they'll start to see it more often than not that accessibility will be um a permanent you know a and regular inclusion in uh our procurement criteria i hope that answers that question yes thank you stephanie i'll give you a few seconds to look at incoming questions because you're doing uh two roles right now um but it's great to know that uh you really as a manager if we have questions on any of our procurement needs and how to consider accessibility that we can just write you an email and then uh that that you'll it support us in in helping us and guide us i guess and and our needs so that that that's great um i'm just waiting to see if there's more questions yes there's another one um is pscpc working on making their rfp rfs show templates accessible and if so when should these be available to departments so the templates posted on your uh saac manual site so again good questions so the accessibility procurement resource center is working toward making procurement documents including tender documents accessible uh recently we completed a study of procurement documents on the canada buys website to assess accessibility uh and we're still kind of reviewing those findings so there's no timeline for templates specifically but it is on our radar uh and we'll be we'll be sure to inform the procurement community when that becomes available how can we apply these criteria when acquiring complex scientific instruments or just stay on on screen with me here no no problem and um i i do actually really like the question funny enough we we do get that one often enough and um so i will i will try to answer it as best as i can um so when it comes to accessibility in uh scientific equipment um again um our first uh our first reflex should always be that accessibility should apply as opposed to not applying so always start with that mind frame and then you know start to sort of um work it through that way and it does take uh practice so really also then depends on you know the type of specific equipment that you're procuring right so again what is your commodity what is the good or deliverable uh within that commodity that you're looking to purchase um so there may be some questions that you might want to think of when it's specific to scientific equipment again does the good uh present a barrier to an end user who's interacting with the good so as the end user possibly might have some you know visual barriers um maybe hearing physical um and is there any alternative to actually remove those barriers so maybe it's something as simple as an instruction manual and we get this often where maybe we're you know procuring very specific you know equipment whether it's scientific equipment it could be engines for vessels of course again just like policing we're not asking to necessarily change the particular good um in those cases itself but maybe they come with you know instruction manuals and those can easily become accessible maybe the text is going to be made easier by you know using line font high contrast maybe sometimes they might come you know in in braille for example um so in those cases you might want to look at even the instruction manuals and maybe again that's something that's point rated if they're able to offer that in you know plain text or an alternative format um that would be one way um that you know your meeting accessibility uh criteria um another example if you're looking at things like measuring devices is the print large enough on the device you know is there high enough uh contrast markings on the actual you know label and and print on the device itself um is the labeling may be available in braille if um if need be um there are some resources online when it comes to specific um you know criterias or um specifications when it comes to scientific equipment um like i said it's funny we do get this uh question often enough so we actually already have some information available on it and we're most certainly um happy to provide that if you email us at our generic email and you can provide additional information on on this topic thank you stefania um i don't know if you want to stay with us and let me know if there's more questions yes there's more questions okay um i'll just wait for the question sorry we're monitoring so we're going through different mailboxes in order to manage the events so that's why i don't have access to in the incoming questions okay so here's this question some products used uh in the public service make the physical workplace inaccessible to employees recent examples include pandemic products like hand sanitizers and wipes that are scented these are strong triggers for employees who have a medical intolerance to scented products and can lead to a serious illness as the government of canada aims to become a scent-free workplace can avoidance of these products be considered as part of the procurement practices that's a great question yeah i i mean it is a great question and and scent-free products are a great example of what we refer to as being accessible by default um so definitely something that should be considered at the initial stages of uh procurement um i do however know that at the beginning of the pandemic um finding finding these products period was an almost impossibility let alone finding uh sent free but nonetheless this is all definitely a key area to build in by design from the beginning of the process to ensure that those requirements are taken into consideration so one of the questions is will there be more robust and practical training offered to contracting and technical authorities on accessible procurement um yes so the the um aprc in in pspc is is currently working on additional kind of micro learning videos there's two videos already created that are posted up on the accessibility hub and the aprc is also working on training pspc employees to be made available on alto and in the future we're looking kind of at more robust training through the csp through the canada school itself so but we do agree that there is a need for uh better training and more improved and accessible training across government for sure excellent thank you i'm waiting to see i think that might be towards the end of the questions we've received um i'll give it just a few seconds to see if there's anything else that's coming in uh okay so i don't think we have more questions so uh what i'll do is i'll thank you angus and i want to say that the federal public public service is stronger and most effective when we do reflect the diversity of canada's population we serve um i did note many great takeaways for today's session namely the use of acquisition card for low value lower value accessible goods and the role of managers and ensuring accessibility is taken into account in all our procurement needs it is our hope that the information and tools shared with you today will be helpful as we continue to make progress to increase representation of persons with disability on behalf of the school the nmc i'd like to thank yasmin agun angus and stefania recognizing that one of the strengths of canada is our diversity and on behalf of the nmc in the school i'd like to thank you for being part of today's discussion from coast to coast i hope that you have enjoyed today's event and that you will it will leave you feeling inspired the presentation uh as mentioned earlier the presentations from the three events in this series uh are available on the accommodations resource page of the accessibility on gcpdm there you'll also find the ssc process and guide to the acquisition of i.t
related adaptive technology the joint message that was mentioned by yasmin from the controller general of canada occupy and herself to encourage the use of acquisition cards for accommodations the gc workplace accessibility passport and a wealth of other information related to the five goals of the accessibility strategy for the public service your feed gap feedback is very important so i encourage you to complete the electronic evaluation that you will receive in the next few days this week the nmc is recognizing events for national public service week with various partners and we encourage you to make your voices heard and celebrate your successes and recognize those of your teams and your colleagues i greatly encourage you to follow our twitter angel at nmc underscore cng our facebook linkedin and gc connects pages as well as our newsletter for all updat
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