Semaine national de l’accessibilité 2023

May 29th, 2023

Good morning,

National AccessAbility Week is taking place from May 28 to June 3. It is an opportunity to celebrate the valuable contributions and leadership of Canadians with disabilities, highlight the work of people, organizations and communities that are removing barriers, and reflect on ongoing efforts to become a better, more accessible, more inclusive Canada. It is the later opportunity that we would like to focus during this special week. How can we become better? One step is ensuring that we are raising awareness within the Agency and with our team members. 

This week, we encourage you to participate in the Canadian Congress on Disability Inclusion. The virtual event provides an opportunity to bring people together to exchange ideas and ground-breaking insights to help shape accessible and inclusively designed communities and workplaces across Canada. We also invite you to join the Learn from Yesterday, Change Today, Enhance Tomorrow: Building an Accessible Public Service Together event on May 30, 2023.

Please take the time to visit ParksNet regularly to discover our daily “Did you know” accessibility publications. Every day, we will feature a new piece that will present ways in which we can individually, and as an Agency, focus on becoming more accessible and more inclusive. As co-champions for employees with disabilities, one of our biggest learnings has been that it is our responsibility to educate ourselves. We are therefore offering you an opportunity to learn more about accessibility by devoting only a few minutes of your time each day. We are confident we will all learn a few things we can put into practice.

The pursuit of equity, diversity, and inclusion is only possible through collaboration and mobilization. At Parks Canada, we remains committed to offering inclusive workspaces by addressing topics such as representation, accommodations, and accountability. On this front, we invite you to read the 2022-2025 Accessibility Action Plan to learn more about the important steps we are taking towards a more accessible and inclusive Agency for both team members and visitors.

Please join us this week in seeking ways to put into practice behaviours that will better this Agency on its path to being more accessible and inclusive. Visit the NAAW 2023 GCPedia page to review accessibility resources and a list of events taking place across the public service.

Darlene Upton and Nicholas Irving
Co-champions for employees with disabilities