Red Deer-South MLA Cal Dallas will introduce a private member’s motion this spring to raise public awareness and, possibly, create new policy to encourage home builders to create more accessible designs.
Motion 505 will ask the provincial government to explore how to persuade home builders to develop optional designs that include at least one no-step entrance, interior doorways with a 32-inch clearance in width, and one half-bathroom on the main floor.
Dallas said he’s become aware of accessibility issues in residential homes since befriending Marlin Styner, who he beat out for the PC’s Red Deer South nomination in 2007. Styner was rendered paraplegic in 1981 and is chairman on the Premier’s Council on the Status of Persons with Disabilities.
Dallas said the disabled would most likely not be the only beneficiaries of the motion.
According to Statistics Canada, 48 per cent of Canadians will be over 65 years-old by 2032.
“The long-term goal is making sure all Albertans have a choice of how they want to live out their later years and how they access services; and also asks if these simple changes might provide some savings to our health-care system,” Dallas said.
A 2000 National Health Care study suggested 30 per cent of seniors who injure themselves in a fall will die within one year of the accident; and every time seniors injure themselves in a fall costs the health-care system approximately $118,000.
Dallas would like to debate the motion by late April. If it passes, the province could then work on policy that describes how much (if any) of a rebate home builders would receive for including the three minimum accessibility options in the homes they build.
He also said Motion 505 is in no way an attempt to force the industry to abide by a new regulation.
“I want to be clear that I’m not purposing legislation that in any way makes these concepts mandatory to implement into a new home,” Dallas said.