'Everyone changes diapers': Advocates want change tables in men's rooms

Candidate calls for diaper change tables Vancouver city council candidate Erin Shum is calling for all public buildings to have change tables in both men’s and women’s washrooms.

A candidate for Vancouver’s municipal council is campaigning to have her city install diaper changing tables in all of its washrooms.

“Dads change, grandparents change, everyone changes diapers,” Erin Shum told CTV Vancouver. “We need to make it available to everyone.”

Although change tables are common in women’s washrooms across the country, they are few and far between in men’s rooms.

“If we’re working towards equality and that sort of thing, then why isn’t it available?” local dad Chris McDonald said in an interview with CTV Vancouver.

Last week, the Vancouver Park Board approved Shum’s motion to put change tables in all of its washrooms. Shum, who currently sits on the park board, now wants to see the same thing happen in every municipal building, much like how former U.S. President Barack Obama’s 2016 BABIES Act made change tables mandatory in all U.S. federal building washrooms.

In Vancouver, some city bathrooms have recently been upgraded, but advocates say the city still has a long way to go.

“Some of the gaps might be in some of the older facilities,” Sarah Kirby-Yung of the Vancouver Park Board told CTV Vancouver. “As we are moving towards universal washrooms, we're definitely ensuring that we’re putting those facilities in.”

Meanwhile, fathers in Saskatchewan and Quebec are urging businesses to change too.

Layne Ardell is a Saskatoon father who recently had more change tables installed at the small butcher shop chain where he works as an executive chef.

“Cultures have changed,” Ardell told CTV Saskatoon. “Dads are taking kids more,” he added. “that’s just the reality.”

Montreal father Chris Webb, meanwhile, was heartened to learn that Tim Hortons will be adding more change tables to their restaurants as part of its $700 million nationwide redesign.

“It doesn't matter where you're going, what's happening, it seems to be that the expectation is that moms look after the baby and that dads are kind of along for the ride,” Webb recently told The Canadian Press. “It seems very inconsistent as to where you can find the change table and where you can't find a change table to use as a man.”

In southwestern Ontario, Jeremy McCall of the parent group Dad Club London has been approaching local businesses with a petition that includes 760 signatures.

“The biggest backlash we got was the cost,” he told The Canadian Press. “The reality is the change table is $332 last time we checked. And we usually ... can bring out 20, 30, 40 people for a recognition event and they can make the money back pretty quickly.”

The problem is by no means confined to Canada. One Florida dad, for example, has turned to Instagram to share images of fathers like him squatting to change their children’s diapers.

“What’s the deal with not having changing tables in men’s bathroom as if we don’t exist!” Donte Palmer wrote alongside of a photo of his young son splayed across his lap. “Let’s fix this problem!”

With a report from CTV Vancouver’s Jon Woodward and files from CTV Saskatoon and The Canadian Press