A local wheelchair user is drawing attention to the vast differences in accessibility features at Edmonton concert venues.
Raven Van Camp started using a wheelchair five years ago after discovering it helped with their myalgic encephalomyelitis, also called chronic fatigue syndrome.
“The exertion of walking places was causing my illness to get worse quicker than it should have,” they told CTV News Edmonton.
“Lots of people talk about being wheelchair-bound like, ‘Oh, that’s the saddest thing,’ but for me it was a freedom.”
Van Camp and their husband both enjoy live music, but quickly noticed the wheelchair made going out much more complicated.
“Smaller venues, the downside is usually they are in a back alley, or you go down a back alley to get into the stairs. But then there’s also five or six sets of stairs. You have to go up and down, up and down, and then usually the bathroom is in the basement and there isn’t any elevator.”
Van Camp said they decided not to attend a show at the Starlite Room after being told over the phone they would have to be carried in.
“To which I was like, ‘Well, that’s very thoughtful and I appreciate the offer, but that’s not very dignified.”
Financial barriers to accessibility
The issue doesn’t escape Tyson Boyd, one of the owner-operators of the Starlite Room.
“The building’s almost 100 years old, so it wasn’t made to be terribly friendly,” he told CTV News Edmonton.
Boyd and his business partner planned to make the venue an “accessible space for all people” by 2022, however those plans were derailed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We still have not fully recovered, so unfortunately, it’s a money thing,” he explained.
Boyd said their priority right now is “survival” as venues across North America shutter their doors.
“To get structural engineers in for the building and its age, that’s even an initial startup cost that’s kind of out of reach for us right now.”
Boyd said when they first looked into the cost of installing a lift it was in the $200,000-$250,000 range.
“And having to close down the business, doing that, is a pretty big concern,” he added.
The Starlite did recently invest in portable ramps after discovering they could be set up on a small set of stairs in an unused side entrance.
“It was Edmonton International Jazz Fest in June, where we had to get an organ in here and they rented a ramp and it was kind of a eureka moment,” Boyd said.
The entrance provides access to the main hall, but the public washroom is downstairs so anyone who can’t navigate steps must share the backstage bathroom with the performer.
“It’s not an ideal thing but it has helped immensely,” Boyd said.
Alberta among last provinces without standalone accessibility legislation
In an interview with CTV News Edmonton, the social services shadow minister and MLA for St. Albert said comprehensive accessibility legislation would help with these issues.
Marie Renaud has been advocating for such legislation and said it could be a pathway to new grants.
“You’d have your experts develop the regulations and then you’d have to do that other work. So how do you help these organizations or these entities meet those standards?
“Well, they’re going to need some help doing that.”
Alberta is one of the last provinces in Canada without standalone accessibility legislation, though the province’s disability advocate has spent two years researching it and engaging with stakeholders.
“The disability advocate did a report here not that long ago and I know there’s people within government evaluating that and determining what the next steps are,” said Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver.
The minister told CTV News Edmonton the province has “quite a bit” of accessibility legislation but acknowledged it is not all in one place.
“Some of it is in the Human Rights Code for Alberta. Some of it is in Occupational Health. Some of it is in different pieces of legislation, so bringing it together in one piece of legislation is something to think about.”
As the current government considers it, Renaud plans to introduce her own accessibility legislation as a private member’s bill this fall.
“We actually in Alberta don’t have a framework to measure the progress that we’re making in terms of identifying, removing and preventing different barriers,” she said.
“My hope is that we can pass that as a province and start to catch up with the rest of the country.”