Intro:
Max Brault has a vision: To build community by showing the world that Canadians with disabilities contribute to society―and to successful business ventures. Join us for a riveting conversation on accessibility and inclusivity in the world of business!
Stay in Touch with Max:
https://ca.linkedin.com/in/max-brault
Script:
The cost of changing something is all about understanding how you're going to spend the money.
Leading people into thinking a place is accessible when it's not, I think is the most, probably the most important thing that I'm hearing from people with disabilities.
One third of the Canadian population has some form of disability.
No one wants to go somewhere where they're uncomfortable or they're feeling disrespected.
You know, and of course the reaction is, well, we'll write off your pizza. And I'm like, no, I'm not looking for a handout. What I want you to do is stop putting the garbage can there.
For anyone listening this is a true story uh that was provided to me by one of my colleagues sarah and her partner who is paraplegic and so um this is her story. I visited a cafe with my partner who's in a motorized wheelchair. Their marketing said they were wheelchair friendly, but we didn't find that to be the case. The doorway was uncomfortably narrow. Objects like chairs and a garbage can made it hard to maneuver.
The bathroom was uncomfortably small for his wheelchair, and there were no low tables or a reachable check-out counter. When I told the manager they gave me a free coffee card, which was a nice gesture, but free coffee doesn't solve the problem, I decided to talk to the general manager who said they'd bring forward my ideas for change, but we never heard back from them. I honestly think they just don't know how to help. And this experience showed me that most places still have a long way to go to be truly accessible. And this is Erin, like, you know, breaking the third wall here. But this is a story that has, I think this has happened on a recurring basis for her and also for a few other people that we know as well. And I'm sure Max, you as well. And every time she has an experience like this, she says it makes it harder to take the risk the next time. It's not just about getting in the door. It's about being able to feel comfortable somewhere. So enter Max. Welcome to the show, Max. Max Brault.
Hi, Erin. How are you holding up?
Hello. I'm doing good, sir. Max Brault has a vision to build a community, build community by showing the world that Canadians with disabilities contribute to society and successful business ventures. Unafraid to challenge conventions to make positive change for the disability community, Max aims to identify accessibility issues for corporations, governments, international community, non-governmental agencies, and more to provide strategic solutions to address them. So that is a big goal, sir. It is. And it's by people like yourselves helping me achieve that goal to let everybody know that I exist and what I do in this great world of ours. Yes. And we, we appreciate you for it. Um, did you want to tell some people will be listening to this and others will be obviously watching on YouTube, um, or shorts or whatever. Uh, but did you want to tell the folks, uh, watching slash listening, why you care about this subject?
Well, you you're seeing is is that i'm an elderly gentleman with uh gray beard gray hair wearing a nice shirt rocketed out with a bow tie um what you're not seeing is this visual as i'm sitting in an electric wheelchair uh i'm an individual who's had a spinal muscular atrophy since i've been born. And so over the years, I've been, I've experienced all kinds of lives. I've had a physical life where I was able to walk and run and play rugby, to the point now where I am confined to an electric wheelchair. So I've kind of lived the two lines, but always having this parasitic SMA behind my back. And as well as I've been in and out of the business world, I've worked for the federal government for close to 20 years, and I've run my own businesses. And, you know, this is a common story. It's a story I hear all the time. And I've experienced some of these issues myself.
And to be honest with you, I've come to put a hard wall when they happen. And I kind of note the place where it's happened and I make sure I never go back there. It's my wife who wants to take the flag and start fighting and making the changes. But I realized that sadly, like your friend, for every one of those that don't really take accessibility seriously, there is one that does. And at the end of the day, our money is harder, right? And we want to spend money to the organizations and places that want us to come in and have a good time and be seen there. And so I'd rather spend my money there. And so that's why when a place comes up like that, I have a tendency to ignore them and then move on to the ones that do want my patronage. and then move on to the ones that do want my patronage. And look, I could spend hours talking to you about what to do and not to do in this situation. But I think that, you know, internet is becoming a more and more viable tool.
There are, you know, Google Sites. There's what myNZiv is doing with AccessNow. there's a whole bunch of different information that's starting to become more at our fingertips about what places are becoming accessible and what places are not. And I, and I think that again, taking a little bit of time and going to these sites and taking a look, which ones work for you might be a really good, you know, good starting point to avoid having that because I know a lot like your friend yeah um when I go out with my wife when I go out with my friends I don't want the evening to start off with with with a moment of man this place is not accessible and they treat me like crap I want to go out and have a good time I want to have a smile on my face I want to be be laughing and joking with the people I'm with. Yeah, absolutely. It's never going to be frictionless, but it's as frictionless as possible when you're going out. And what's the latest statistic from StatsCan? I think it was 27% of the Canadian population has at least one disability. And I'm sure that's underrepresented. Not everyone, of course, is in at least one disability. And I'm sure that's, you know, underrepresented.
Not everyone, of course, is in a motorized wheelchair, but at least one disability, which is it's that's more than 25% of the population and climbing, you know, given we have an aging population, right? Well, oddly enough, the one group that has the highest percentage of disabilities is individuals that experience some kind of pain, which floors me every time I see that statistic. Right. But because it's defined as pain, we have to make some assumptions that's, you know, everywhere in the body kind of pain. Right.
So you can have a back pain, you can have a shoulder pain, you can have, but it's still kind of an obstacle to your physical environment, right? So going out is already a challenge, because you're experiencing pain, you don't want to go somewhere where, again, you know, you want to go somewhere where, yeah, you might be having pain, but you want to mitigate it by having a good time with your friends and your family. The ROI has to be there. Yeah, for sure. And I am someone that has a pain disability and a few other disabilities as well. But in terms of pain management, like I have to know if I'm leaving my house, it better be for a good reason. I better have a good experience and feel comfortable there, you know?
So, and I don't, I think that probably most people know um so and i don't i think that probably most people feel that way they don't no one wants to go somewhere where they're uncomfortable or they're feeling disrespected you know yeah so yeah it's it's a big it's a big thing and and you know again it it goes back to you, where you spend your hard-earned dollars, where do you spend, you know, the whole, you've heard of the spoon theory, right?
And I don't know if your audience has heard of the spoon theory. But again, if you only got so much effort or not effort, energy to go out, you really want to make sure it's something that you're not going to experience another issue on top of it right and so the spoon theory is a really great explanation of that and and uh and i get that um but what what what places need to do is is that the statistic you said you know 27 it's a massive population i mean from my point of view i don't like saying 27 because i'm kind of always used to rounding it up so i just started saying you know one third of the canadian population has some form of disability and in today's world where making money um is becoming a challenge or you got so many competitors competing for that same dollar isn't it in your best interest to make your place fully accessible where you can't now there are occasions that you can't and i get that i understand that but then don't be like the situation where you advertise you are and you show up and it doesn't work out 100 transparency and like accurate information not gaslighting people into um maybe gaslighting is the wrong word but misleading people into thinking a place is accessible when it's not I think is the most probably the most important thing that i'm hearing from people with disabilities um but when you know you are going to invest in something, at least do the research to know when you're looking at making an investment, make sure that you're including that divert the disability accessibility lens.
If you're going to spend the money anyways, there's something that I heard the other day was something like, there's something that I heard the other day it was something like you know in order to include accessibility as a feature I guess within a renovation it's something like costs five to ten percent more than it would for the regular renovation I don't know if you've heard a statistic like that Max you know I I've been hearing, one thing I need to take a step back and I need to tell you, right? Yeah. I come from a real estate family.
My father basically ran a real estate management company. He basically owned and bought hundreds of condos in, in and around Montreal and Ottawa. Um, and so I grew up with, with this reno idea because whenever my father would buy a new place or whenever somebody would leave, he would have a team that would come in, fix it up, clean it up, make it ready. Right. Um, the reality is, and I'm going to call this a bad word, but you can say it's bullshit. And what I mean is, is that the cost of changing something is all about understanding how you're going to spend the money.
And what I mean is, I'm going to give you a great example of what happened to my friend of mine. My friend of mine owned a bar and he was really excited one day I was going to come in and and check out his bar because he's like I just fixed it up it's fully accessible come in and check it out and so I showed up and log behind I had to go to the bathroom so I went to the bathroom and I came wheeling out and I'm like hey you know uh James not working out for me so I'm gonna go in the back in the back alleyway and what ended up happening is is he bought a door that can go into the stall what he didn't check is that it hit the toilet right so i couldn't even wheel in like a walking person could walk in close it but i still couldn't wheel in because the door hitting the toilet didn't give me enough space to get around to close the door. Is that a wrong thing? Yes, because he thought the guy who installed it installed it for the door to open outwards, not inwards. Is that really an accessibility cost or is that just not double checking? Yeah. So. Quality control issue, I guess. Yeah. I honestly believe renovation costs, right. For a lot of things, if you do it right, it's going to be the same thing.
I'll give you another personal experience. I had to redo my, my, I bought an old house so I can make everything accessible. Every time in a room, the number one question I had my, with my wife is what we won't touch this room for 20 years. So what are we going to install? What do we need to do? Well, the first question is insulation, you know, making sure everything's up to break up the code, the windows, everything was up to code. And then what are we going to put in there? You know, are we going to put in new plumbing? Are we going to put in new electrical work? Are we going to put in whatever, lighting? But it was all about accessibility as well. And I did not feel out of my pocketbook that my accessibility was more or less than what the normal bill would have been. If that makes any sense.
I don't think it is. I mean, my mother is a kitchen designer, kitchen and bath designer, and she's done numerous accessible kitchens and baths and they cost no more. It's literally about the design. The design doesn't cost more. the design the design doesn't cost more you know um there may be a few bells and whistles you want to add or something like that but um it's not significant right it's not and and you know like if you want to put an elevator in a house yeah okay that's a cost but then the question you need to ask yourself is that really a necessity? Yeah. Right? And it might be.
You know, it might be a necessity. But in 90% of the cases where I heard an elevator being installed, it was a nice to have. It was not a necessity. Yeah. Right? So I call BS on it. Right? Yeah. right yeah and and where it starts to become expensive is if you're if you're um a restaurant or or a barbershop or something in a very old location that might need you know a ramp for stairs or might need um the bathroom wine because it's in an old structure. But at the end of the day, you're not widening that bathroom for me, you're widening that bathroom for your overall clients, because your clients are gonna appreciate a loiter bathroom, if you get where I'm coming from. Yeah, revisit the story. Yeah.
So because a lot of the things I felt like you know of course we've talked about um you know some things that are easy to kind of fix some things that are like obviously more of an investment but what I'm hearing in the story is like the doorway is uncomfortably narrow okay fine that's a renovation you know objects like chairs and garbage cans well to me that's like that's education and just awareness you know um my my biggest beef about garbage cans is they always put the damn garbage can by the push button right they do if i gotta i gotta press the button i gotta reach over a garbage can now i i don't know about some of you folks right most garbage cans are not a problem but some of them are disgusting they're overfilled there are not something i want to reach over and press another button but i gotta move the garbage can because I can't reach over that. Right. Yeah. And, and it's never easy to move a garbage can because they're heavy. Like some of the industrial ones are heavy. They're weighted at the bottom so they don't tip and they don't move easily. Right.
And the last thing I want to do is move a garbage can that all the garbage falls on me. And, you know, I kind of like looking good. I don't like looking, you know i kind of like looking good i don't like looking you know like full of garbage uh either way folks but it's still i don't want garbage all over me so that's probably one of my biggest beefs it's why is it always there right um the other thing that they mention is you know trying to provide feedback and and of the, maybe not resistance, but the friction around that. I mean, you've got to be able to take feedback as a retailer and implement it and have a process for that. And again, this is where money makes the change. The places I go to frequently, I go to a local restaurant here, Big Rig here where I live, near where I live. And they did that the first few times, the garbage can was right by the push button. And I would show up there with my family and have a pizza there. I love the pizza there. I know I'm not advertising for them, but they've seen me come a few times, right? Like it's kind of hard to miss a guy in a wheelchair who shows up, right? And by the third time, I was like, I went back and I talked to the management, and of course the reaction is, well, we'll write off your pizza. And I'm like, no, I'm not looking for a handout.
What I want you to do is stop putting the garbage can there right yeah exactly right like like just take a little bit of time find another location for the garbage can inform your staff to put it in this place because it doesn't work for a person like me right next time I went in there, lo and behold, the garbage can was located somewhere else. That's a beautiful thing. That's yeah. Right. Simple. But it's because they recognize that I was an ongoing, ongoing customer and I show up there on a regular, consistent basis. That's the problem. The problem is, is that those other places don't understand that if you don't suitable for us we're not we're not going to show up all the time right yeah right yeah and so you know I go back to something that my wife and i always talk about and i think a lot of people talk about is the customer service is is becoming a challenge and it's becoming a challenge just not only for people with disabilities but for everything right now right yeah i hate generalizing that but but it is right yeah so i you had a big part in um the accessible canada act i know this about you um tell me me what was your role in that. Tell everyone what your role was. Well, part of my role, my role was more is to socialize the document. So I worked on a handful of items, particularly to it, but I spent a lot of time running from department to department, asking them what their take is going to be in it. So we identified departments that were going to have some element that would fall onto their lap to be responsible for.
So an example would be ESDC, Employment, Social Development Canada has a really big labor element. So we wanted to make sure that anything we talk about employment was going to be suitable to what their messaging was at to be suitable to what their messaging was at the same time or what their future messaging was so then we would go back and make sure that whatever we wrote it would it would be sound to that degree the other thing is I spent a lot of time um really working with the community to make sure that what our concerns were going to be embedded in it which is one of the coolest things I get to tell you is that um this is the only piece of legislation ever designed built for canadians by canadians but also by can with disabilities. The act itself is solely based, well, not solely, I would say 80% based on literally a room full of 200 various people with disabilities talking about how to do certain things. And that's where the seven pillars came up. I don't think there's a piece of legislation that could say that. Okay. For the folks out there you know how is ace how do you feel like aoda the act of the different acts how do you feel like they contribute to supporting just the real lives of people with disabilities as you're walking through the world wanting to engage in you know regular the kinds of activities that everyone wants to engage in we the thing is we got to keep in mind that there are there are two ways to do things right there is um we tell society uh what needs to be in place and then we tell all the players in that society how to appear to that particular directive. Right. Or we could live as a free living society. And then we just do our things and just hope everybody lives comfortably and exists comfortably. Sad thing is that doesn't exist.
No. Right. So we need laws we need laws to tell people how to ensure a minimum standard of adherence to ensure that you're not being disrespectful for people right and the way i see it as you know the first big move was the charter of rights you know people with disabilities were listed in the Charter of Rights. But the Charter of Rights basically said, thou shall not be discriminated against. Honestly, anybody who's listening to me, we've all been discriminated against numerous times. Yeah. Okay, so we need to refine that a little bit better, right? And I think what the Provincial and Federal Acts will do is it will start ensuring that people understand their rights, but it also starts to a certain degree with organizations, understanding how to provide us those rights, what they need to do to ensure that our rights are being up here too, for a very simple reason or a logic is you know let's use communications as we're starting to work in a more heavier computer lived world where emails is pretty much the most common way of communicating why can't our emails be fully accessible why can't i email create an email send an email and then a blind person on the other end or a person with a neurodiverse on the other end who i don't know can read it and understand it and they can function with this why can't we have that world and that's what we're trying to do. Yeah. That makes any sense. Yeah. I mean, I can see definitely a use for AI in that space for sure.
Not that, you know, this is what we're talking about, but you know, as you, as I was imagining, you know, solutions to that specific case of, you know, translating for different types of disabilities, I can write it in my, you know in the way that I'm comfortable speaking and it can be translated somehow into the way another person can understand. Right. What a beautiful way to use artificial intelligence.
And I got to tell you, some of the stuff i'm starting to see with the i love this word in french melange with the melange of ai and and and other technology and accessibility all coming into like like a pot like a hot you know sauce totally and some of the stuff that's coming out of this is awesome and yeah you know i'm kind of a little jealous of people who are young and disabled now because i don't think their their world because the technology will be as harsh as mine you know they're going to have apps they're going to have things that are going to make things to a certain degree a lot easier look i'm not saying all things are going to be eliminated but i think there are a lot of things that will be yeah right and and ai and technology is going to be some of the driving factors to this yeah i mean i think it's a beautiful goal to try to make the sandbox as big as possible for people with disabilities to play in you know um how do you make a bigger world that's I think that's a beautiful idea you know uh i i was just reading a report yesterday from a colleague of mine uh who was talking about the Louvre, the museum in Paris, in France, Paris, how they are literally designing and building an experience that's fully accessible for this population.
Wow. And for the record, I went to the Louvre many, many, many years ago when I was still walking, and that place is massive like you know whatever you're used to times the white pen and that's the signs of the Louvre okay so by them trying to make it accessible an accessible experience that's a heavy investment no no shit sorry yeah you, and part of my philosophy too is to work with people like you to make everybody aware that it exists because that's philosophy you built it, they will come as bullshit as well. You need to advertise the living heck out of what people are doing to make this a more accessible world. Yeah, and you need to band together. You need to find alliances, partnerships, collaborations. Yeah.
And, and it, it, it's interesting. I've been finding that like a lot of folks in the space are solopreneurs or like micro organizations micro companies you know like under 10 people and so it's really hard to make a really big impact unless you're collaborating with other people by yourself you know if you're by yourself or you're just working with a few other people so yeah that's it's really important yeah yeah the, yeah, that, that's a whole other side argument. Totally. Yeah. We can talk about that, but yeah, the, the, the reality is, is that for at least the foreseeable future, a lot of the driving forces will be from small entrepreneurial companies with people with disabilities but here's the really cool thing i will say in canada the uk australia united states and a handful of other countries these organizations have the first time in a long time the opportunity to actually grow to become multinational corporations the question is is who yeah who and how yeah yeah so for um a smaller you know perhaps a cafe chain who are interested in becoming more accessible uh and and have a few obstacles in the way, literally and figuratively. What do you say to them? What are your final thoughts?
Know your customers. At the end of the day, you're fighting for 10 cents all the time. And so sometimes you need to spend a dollar to get the 10 cents. But if you make your environment not only exclusive you know accessibly exclusive for people with disabilities you're opening it up to the whole community as well like that's the beauty of accessibility the beauty of accessibility it's not just you make the door wider and now just wheelchairs could come in and that's going to show up. No, you're going to see mothers with carriages coming in. You're going to see a whole lot of other group of people that, wow, I can get in here easily or whatever. You have lower counters. You're going to have a whole bunch of group of different people coming in. You're not going to put your garbage can by the right place, the wrong places.
You're going to have more people who are as experienced and nicer and say, I'm going to come back and spend another dollar here. So, you know, know your customers, you know, and listen to what your customers are telling you. And then hopefully you get to survive a little bit longer and make some money. Yeah. As you were speaking, the thought popped into my head that accessibility is inclusion. What do you think about that? It is. Yeah. Right. How many, like, I don't know how old you are, but I remember the time when you used to go to malls. Yeah. And malls didn't have the self-opening doors, right? I know. They had the pull on them, right? Or the rotating ones, yeah right or the rotating ones yeah or the rotating ones right yeah who can get in those so go to a mall now how many of them have self-opening doors and if they don't how many of them have push button doors they all do why because it works for everybody well and the acts you know at a certain point they have to yeah it's legislated i'm pretty sure I would say it is but but i think from a from a from a mall point of view it was pretty much a no-brainer wait a second you can make doors open easier but it still closes so we don't lose the heat in the wintertime yeah let's sign up for that well and that's the thing it's like a lot of these um these retrofits or whatever they are um they're they're just good business you know what i mean like a lot of these decisions it's just good business in the end you can make it a win-win yeah yeah and the other thing i'll add um accessibility is also not an expensive equation and and we need to start having conversations with people and the answer cannot be about money because you know as stephanie cadeau says the the chief accessibility officer um when you're going to retrofit your place design it with accessibility in mind.
So that way it's not an extra cost.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. 100%.
Thank you so much for joining me today, Max. As always, it's a pleasure and an honor.
Not a problem.
Awesome. High five.
Don't forget to stay weird, stay stay wonderful and don't stay out of trouble!
