HUMA Committee Meeting

37th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION

Standing Committee on Human Resources Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Tuesday, April 16, 2002

Á

1110

The Chair (Mrs. Judi Longfield (Whitby--Ajax, Lib.))

Ms. Chloé Serradori (Executive Director, Confédération des organismes de personnes handicapées du Québec)

Á

1115

The Chair

Mr. Gary Malkowski (Director, Consumer and Government Relations, Canadian Hearing Society (Interpretation))

Á

1120

Mr. Gary Malkowski

Á

1125

The Chair

Ms. Elisabeth Ostiguy (Director, Public Issues, Canadian Mental Health Association)

Ms. Wendy Steinberg (Policy Analyst, Canadian Mental Health Association)

Ms. Elisabeth Ostiguy

Á

1130

Ms. Wendy Steinberg

The Chair

Ms. Myriam Girard (Researcher and Writer, Government relations and international liaison, Canadian National Institute for the Blind)

Á

1135

Á

1140

The Chair

Mr. Reed Elley (Nanaimo--Cowichan, Canadian Alliance)

Ms. Myriam Girard

Ms. Fran Cutler (Chair, National Board, Canadian National Institute for the Blind)

Mr. Reed Elley

Á

1145

Ms. Chloé Serradori

Mr. Reed Elley

The Chair

Ms. Diane St-Jacques (Shefford, Lib.)

Ms. Elisabeth Ostiguy

Á

1150

Ms. Myriam Girard

Ms. Diane St-Jacques

Ms. Myriam Girard

Ms. Diane St-Jacques

Ms. Chloé Serradori

The Chair

Ms. Wendy Steinberg

Á

1155

The Chair

Mr. Garry Malkowski (Interpretation)

The Chair

Ms. Monique Guay (Laurentides, BQ)

Â

1200

The Chair

Ms. Myriam Girard

The Chair

Ms. Fran Cutler

The Chair

Ms. Wendy Steinberg

The Chair

Ms. Chloé Serradori

Â

1205

The Chair

Mr. Gary Malkowski (Interpretation)

The Chair

Mr. Alan Tonks (York South--Weston, Lib.)

Ms. Chloé Serradori

Â

1210

Mr. Alan Tonks

Mr. Gary Malkowski (Interpretation)

Â

1215

Mr. Alan Tonks

The Chair

Mr. Gurbax Malhi (Bramalea--Gore--Malton--Springdale, Lib.)

Ms. Elisabeth Ostiguy

Ms. Chloé Serradori

Â

1220

Mr. Gurbax Malhi

Ms. Elisabeth Ostiguy

Ms. Wendy Steinberg

The Chair

Mr. Gary Malkowski (Interpretation)

Â

1225

The Chair

Ms. Raymonde Folco (Laval West, Lib.)

Ms. Chloé Serradori

The Chair

Mr. Gary Malkowski (Interpretation)

The Chair

Ms. Raymonde Folco

Â

1230

The Chair

Ms. Raymonde Folco

Mr. Gary Malkowski (Interpretation)

The Chair

Ms. Myriam Girard

The Chair

Ms. Carolyn Bennett (St. Paul's, Lib.)

Mr. Gary Malkowski

Â

1235

Ms. Elisabeth Ostiguy

Mr. Gary Malkowski

Ms. Carolyn Bennett

The Chair

The Chair

Mr. Michael Bach (Vice-President, Canadian Association for Community Living)

Mr. Jean-Claude Jalbert (Board Member, Canadian Association for Community Living)

Mr. Parteepan Rasaratnam (Self Advocate, Canadian Association for Canadian Living)

Mr. Michael Bach

Â

1250

Â

1255

The Chair

Mr. Laurie Beachell (National Coordinator, Council of Canadians with Disabilities)

·

1300

·

1305

The Chair

Mr. Brian Payne (Founding Co-Chair, National Institute of Disability Management and Research; National President, Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada)

Mr. Viateur Camire (Director and Vice-President, Human Resources, Abitibi-Consolidated Inc., National Institute of Disability Management and Research)

·

1310

Mr. Brian Payne

M. Viateur Camire

·

1315

The Chair

Mr. Gary Birch (Executive Director, Neil Squire Foundation)

·

1320

·

1325

The Chair

Mr. Reed Elley

Mr. Michael Bach

The Chair

Mr. Laurie Beachell

·

1330

The Chair

Mr. Gary Birch

The Chair

Mr. Brian Payne

·

1335

The Chair

Mr. Alan Tonks

Mr. Michael Bach

Mr. Jean-Claude Jalbert

·

1340

Mr. Michael Bach

Mr. Parteepan Rasaratnam

Mr. Laurie Beachell

Mr. Gary Birch

The Chair

·

1345

Ms. Monique Guay

M. Viateur Camire

Ms. Monique Guay

M. Viateur Camire

·

1350

The Chair

Mr. Brian Payne

The Chair

Mr. Laurie Beachell

The Chair

Ms. Raymonde Folco

·

1355

Mr. Brian Payne

Ms. Raymonde Folco

Mr. Brian Payne

The Chair

Mr. Gary Birch

¸

1400

The Chair

---

CANADA

Standing Committee on Human Resources Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities

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NUMBER 058

l

1st SESSION

l

37th PARLIAMENT

---

EVIDENCE

Tuesday, April 16, 2002

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Á  (1110)  

[English]

    The Chair (Mrs. Judi Longfield (Whitby--Ajax, Lib.)): We'll call this meeting to order. I welcome everyone to the 58th meeting of the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities. We are continuing our review of the Employment Equity Act.

    We have a very full agenda today. We're divided into two sections. Our first section, which will commence momentarily and proceed until 12:30 p.m., has four organizations. I'm going to ask the representatives from each of the four to make their presentations. I know the clerk has informed you that you should keep your opening remarks as close to five minutes as you possibly can because that provides an opportunity for members to ask questions, and very often we find that some of the most important matters arise with the questions.

    So without further ado, I welcome, from the Confédération des organismes de personnes handicapées du Québec, Mercedes Benegbi and Chloé Serradori. We also have, from the Canadian Hearing Society, Gary Malkowski; from the Canadian Mental Health Association, Elisabeth Ostiguy and Wendy Steinberg; and from the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, Myriam Girard and Fran Cutler.

     I'm going to start with the Confédération des organismes de personnes handicapées du Québec, please.

[Translation]

    Ms. Chloé Serradori (Executive Director, Confédération des organismes de personnes handicapées du Québec) : Good morning, Madam Chair. Thank you for inviting us to make some comments in the context of your review of the Employment Equity Act.

    First of all, I want to tell you a little about the Confédération des organismes de personnes handicapées du Québec. It is a not-for-profit organization that promotes the interests and defends the rights of all individuals with functional limitations.

    We will be discussing mainly the recognition of special needs and the need for accommodations, regardless of the individuals employability. In the documents you will be receiving, you will find a fairly long historical background and some statistics. I will not read the five or six pages. I will simply say that the situation of individual's with functional limitations has not progressed much in 20 years.

    Our first recommendation has to do with statistics. We recommend that the census statistics always include individuals with functional limitations. In addition, it is extremely important that people with functional limitations be included in the various statistics on the labour force.

    With respect to the purpose and application of the Act, it should be mentioned that individual's with functional limitations are found in the four designated groups and often face discrimination on two or three fronts. We would therefore ask that people with functional limitations be targeted also in the three others designated groups.

    Section 3 sets out the definitions of terms contained in the Act, including the definition of persons with functional limitations. While we agree with the definition, we would ask that it reflect both the definition contained in the International Classification of Impairments, Disabilities and Handicaps, and the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in the Mercier/Troilo case on employment and discrimination based on disability.

    Section 4 defines the application of the act. The act excludes some companies that bid on contracts for goods and services. In particular, companies with at least 100 employees that bid on contracts worth $200,000 or more must have an employment equity program. We would like to see companies and organizations that bid on contracts for goods and services or that apply for grants included in the act, regardless of the value of the contract or the number of employees.

    Sections 5 to 16 describe the employer's obligations as regards employment equity. In our view, training, special accommodations and acknowledgment of the potential for acquiring skills must all be implemented. That is why we are asking that the accommodations under paragraph 5(b) be made mandatory.

    We have been working for years on achieving recognition of the right to accommodations and the application of this right. It is included in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Many decisions of the Supreme Court, in 1990 and 1998, refer to the recognition of this right. We want an obligation to make accommodations to be included in paragraph 5(b), but in addition, we want the need for training and acknowledgment of the potential for acquiring skills to be included in a new paragraph, 5(c).

    With respect to section 6, we would ask that employers be required to describe more logically the undue hardship related to a safety risk, excessive costs or health. We would also ask that the following words be added: “and that the employer have demonstrated that the individuals do not have the abilities or skills required in order to do the job.”

    As regards all matters involving collective agreements, we do not challenge the principle of seniority. However, here again, in order to eliminate systemic discrimination, an equal access to employment programs should include negotiated procedures with respect to the application of seniority to ensure fair representation.

    We would therefore ask that the word “seniority” be replaced by the following: “measures negotiated with respect to the application of seniority” in subsections 8(1), 8(2) and 8(3).

    We would like to make a little comment about the word “workforce” in section 9. After the word “workforce”, we would like the following to be added “including temporary or part-time staff”, first, because this is often the way in which people with functional limitations get into the labour force, and also because we have noticed that some employers took advantage of part-time or temporary employment to increase their statistics before filing their report.

    The other question we are very concerned about is self-identification. This is still a problem with some individuals with functional limitations, particularly those with a mental health problem, or those with an intermittent health problem. It is very difficult for these individuals to identify themselves as having functional limitations. In addition, this can be harmful as regards selection, hiring and promotion.

    We would therefore ask that the attitudes of employers and unions be examined, that training and awareness programs for employers, employees and unions be offered, and, finally, that people with functional limitations be assured that they will suffer no discrimination in terms of selection, hiring or promotion.

    We would also call on the Canadian Human Rights Commission to assess the skills and experience that are really required for a job before ruling on the under-representation of designated groups. In the definition of the employment equity plan, some aspects are priorities for us. These include result objectives by job type or group of job types; qualitative objectives for the elimination of barriers by job type or group of job types; redress procedures that would make it possible to reduce discrepancies temporarily; control mechanisms that would also make it possible to evaluate results; and a results evaluation mechanism.

    This is already in the act, but we would like a genuine focus on this and we would like the Canadian Human Rights Commission to review these matters as a priority.

    We would also ask that the concept of reasonable progress, which is described in section 11, and that of reasonable efforts described in section 12 be better defined in light of court decisions including decisions, Thwaites and the following cases, and particularly the concepts of individual evaluation of a person's capacities, an evaluation of alternative measures and our assessment of the risks involved.

    As regards the application of the act, and this will be my last point, we would ask that the Canadian Human Rights Commission receive the human and financial resources it requires from the government in order to play its role fully.

    We would ask the same for Human Resources Development Canada, particularly for those responsible for helping employers set up programs. We would very much like to see the establishment of an advisory-committee type of mechanism made up of representatives from the Canadian Human Rights Commission, the movement of persons with functional limitations, the Labour Division of Human Resources Development Canada, employers and unions, to help the Canadian Human Rights Commission guarantee employment equity for people with functional limitations.

    Thank you very much.

Á  (1115)  

[English]

    The Chair: Thank you very much.

    We'll now move onto Gary Malkowski.

    Mr. Gary Malkowski (Director, Consumer and Government Relations, Canadian Hearing Society (Interpretation)): Good morning, Madam Chair. Thank you very much for the invitation to speak to you here this morning.

    My name is Gary Malkowski. I am the director of consumer and government relations at the Canadian Hearing Society. We are a non-profit organization established in 1940. Our mandate is to provide services that enhance the independence of deaf, deafened, and hard-of-hearing persons and that encourage the prevention of hearing loss.

    I would like to discuss with you today barriers that prevent deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals from joining the Canadian labour force. Significant barriers include deficiencies in the employability assistance for people with disabilities, EAPD, initiative, double taxation imposed on accommodations required by deaf and hard-of-hearing students and HRDC consumers, barriers created by HRDC, and related issues that weaken the Employment Equity Act.

    Before the EAPD initiative was launched in 1998, there was an ample or good supply of professionals and highly skilled deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals available, making it relatively easy for employers to recruit and hire these individuals. Tragically, after the EAPD's creation, there have been fewer and fewer professionals and highly skilled deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals available, making it extremely difficult for employers to recruit and hire these individuals.

    My submission contains further details of EAPD deficiencies--double taxation imposed on accommodations required by deaf and hard-of-hearing consumers, barriers created by HRDC, and issues that weaken the Employment Equity Act.

    I would strongly urge this standing committee to adopt the following recommendations and to direct the Ministers of Human Resources Development Canada and Labour Canada to resolve these serious and long-standing issues as soon as possible.

    Number one, introduce and pass into law a strong, effective, and enforceable Canadians with disabilities act that will first--I have three points--strengthen programs sponsored by the employability assistance for persons with disabilities initiative; secondly, ensure equal access to post-secondary education in Canada by removing taxes on disability supports and out-of-country bursaries, restoring grants to students with disabilities, and removing barriers to accessibility encountered by students with disabilities; and thirdly, enforce accessibility standards in all federal offices, particularly HRDC and Labour Canada and places of business operated by employers on the federal employment equity list.

    Number two, we would like to call the federal, provincial, and territorial ministers responsible for education and social services to jointly address financial and accommodation barriers that effectively deny deaf and hard-of-hearing students and consumers access to professional employment opportunities.

    Number three, amend regulations to the Employment Equity Act to include the following three points: require employers to establish their own disability advisory committees consisting of employees and community members with disabilities; require employers to conduct separate employment reviews of both employees who are hired disabled and employees who become disabled after hire for the company's annual employment equity report and for compliance audit purposes; and thirdly, require HRDC and Labour Canada to implement a program that guides local offices and employers in the development of policies and procedures to accommodate deaf and hard-of-hearing job seekers and employees.

    In conclusion, these recommendations will strengthen the Employment Equity Act. Furthermore, they will effectively bring persons with disabilities, including those who are deaf and hard of hearing, back into the labour force, thereby saving taxpayers money. Your acceptance of these recommendations will send a message to the public that you care about our needs.

    The Chair: Thank you very much.

Á  (1120)  

    Mr. Gary Malkowski: You do care, don't you?

Á  (1125)  

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Our next presentation is on behalf of the Canadian Mental Health Association.

[Translation]

    Ms. Elisabeth Ostiguy (Director, Public Issues, Canadian Mental Health Association): Good morning, Madam Chair. My name is Elisabeth Ostiguy, and I am the director of public issues at the Canadian Mental Health Association.

[English]

    With me today is Wendy Steinberg, policy analyst with the Canadian Mental Health Association's national office.

    Wendy.

    Ms. Wendy Steinberg (Policy Analyst, Canadian Mental Health Association): The Canadian Mental Health Association is a national voluntary association that has existed for over 80 years to promote the mental health of all people. Our infrastructure of 12 provincial-territorial divisions and approximately 120 local branches and regions includes consumers of mental health services, family members, service providers, and interested community members. We are thus in a unique position to convey the common concerns of Canadians coming from a variety of perspectives, all of whom care about mental health and mental illness.

    The Canadian Mental Health Association wishes to go on record supporting legislative measures that assist people with psychiatric, mental, or emotional disabilities in obtaining an equal opportunity to participate in the workplace. The Government of Canada has shown its commitment to ensuring that Canadians have equal opportunities for employment through the creation and implementation of the Employment Equity Act.

    At present, the track record for ensuring equity for persons with disabilities, much less those with psychiatric disabilities, is far from shining. According to the 2001 employment equity annual report, persons with disabilities represent 2.4% of the workforce, drastically below the labour market availability of 6.5%. The representation of persons with disabilities fell this year, continuing a declining trend that started in 1996. This group has experienced the least progress under the act. The rate at which employees with disabilities are leaving the workforce is alarming. In 2000, the number of employees with disabilities terminated was higher than the number hired.

    The completeness and accuracy of the equity data depend on the willingness to self-identify. For those with psychiatric disabilities, this poses a problem, which we will expand upon shortly. The result is that figures relating to persons with disabilities are most probably skewed towards physical disabilities.

    Ms. Elisabeth Ostiguy: CMHA feels strongly that there is a continued need for the Employment Equity Act. However, there is a need for greater clarity within the existing act and regulations to better assist employers in meeting their obligations, and perhaps there is a need for different outcome measures.

    Mental illness covers a wide range of ailments, from mild depression to schizophrenia. It is difficult to say how any particular illness will affect a person's ability to work, if indeed it does at all. People with mental illness are rarely continuously ill, but rather often cycle between periods of wellness and illness, through periods of ability and disability. Today there are many effective treatments for these conditions, though no cure.

    People with mental illness usually have average or above average intelligence. Their abilities vary, just as they do for any member of the general population.

    Let us make one thing perfectly clear: psychiatric disabilities are not intellectual or developmental disabilities. Human resource practices and policies must accurately reflect the nature of the disability. Instructions on ensuring an equitable workplace must not promote further stigmatization or discriminatory attitudes. For instance, the Treasury Board pamphlet on creating a welcoming workplace for employees with disabilities groups developmental and psychiatric disabilities together when describing how to foster a comfortable workplace. In the instructions, they suggest that you don't pat someone with a disability on the head when greeting them. These instructions are condescending and only promote further discrimination.

    The issue of self-identification is without a doubt one of the most complex issues that confront people who experience psychiatric disorders. In our culture, there is a strong social stigma attached to having a mental illness. The stigma manifests itself in incorrect negative stereotypes and discriminating behaviours. A person disabled by a psychiatric ailment is not likely to advertise this fact for fear of being misunderstood, undervalued, and labelled with negative stereotypes, as perpetuated in the media through images like the violent mental patient.

    Yet in order to receive workplace accommodations or special measures as specified under the Employment Equity Act, one must self-identify as a person with a disability who considers him or herself to be disadvantaged in employment by reason of that impairment.

Á  (1130)  

    Ms. Wendy Steinberg: Stigma and discrimination are major attitudinal barriers. They are the invisible yet persistent barriers to employment that operate in subtle yet very destructive ways. The act was brought into force to deal with people's attitudes and create more openness to hiring certain groups of people.

    According to the Canadian Human Rights Commission, employers often ignore the whole area of attitudinal barriers when designing plans and measures for the employment systems review. Physical disabilities are easier to deal with when implementing the act.

    You can make a building wheelchair accessible through the construction of a ramp and installation of automatic doors. A visually impaired person can work with the help of a voice-activated computer. TTD facilitates communication for a hearing impaired person. You can make room for a guide dog. Evidence shows building ramps is easier than changing attitudes.

    Given that the need to self-identify is a significant issue for this group, it is critical to enact strong and effective legislation that requires barrier removal and prevention at a systemic level and does not require people with mental illness to publicly self-identify, which serves to remove only one barrier at a time.

    Barrier-free workplaces can be achieved by focusing on the development of positive employment equity policies that would be considered beneficial to all employees. This would involve developing human resource policies that are positive, constructive, and flexible.

    Having a mental illness does not always affect a person's ability to work, or it may affect the ability to work for a certain period of time. Limitations may include working according to a structured workplace schedule, hours of employment worked, or concentration on specific tasks.

    Flexibility in policies can take many forms. Workplaces can permit a self-paced workload, the use of sick leave for emotional as well as physical illness, a work-at-home policy, banked overtime, job sharing, and flexible schedules for medical appointments. To cover the uncertainty that surrounds hospitalization, workplaces could advance additional paid or unpaid leave and provide backup coverage while keeping the position open.

    An equitable, fair, and welcoming workplace should have formalized written accommodation policies to meet the needs of all employees and ensure operational requirements are met. For example, flexible schedules would not only benefit persons with psychiatric disabilities, in terms of taking care of their personal health needs, but also parents with young children or people caring for elderly parents.

    A humane work environment addresses everyone's individual needs. This means flexible work hours, job sharing, defining tasks suitable to abilities, shortened work schedules, more frequent rest periods, mentoring programs, etc. What it really means is removing the need to be labelled at all.

    Many progressive employers are increasingly realizing the importance of establishing a workplace that welcomes diversity in the workforce and recognizes the productive potential of all members of the community.

    Employment equity is good for business and the bottom line. It is not only the right thing to do, it is also the bright thing to do, from a dollars-and-cents perspective. Removing barriers to employment will yield the best candidates, which in turn will increase Canadian businesses' competitive edge in the global marketplace. Employment equity is not only about numbers but about fair employment policies and practices. The act should focus less on numerical benchmarks and more on employer accountability for progress.

    At this time, we thank the standing committee for providing the Canadian Mental Health Association with the opportunity to participate in these public hearings and to express its concerns respecting persons with psychiatric disabilities in the workplace. It is our sincere hope that the legislative review of the Employment Equity Act will result in the creation of a more equitable workplace that is humane and attractive to all Canadians.

    Thank you.

    The Chair: Thank you very much.

    Our final presentation in this section is from the Canadian National Institute for the Blind.

[Translation]

    Ms. Myriam Girard (Researcher and Writer, Government relations and international liaison, Canadian National Institute for the Blind): Good morning, Madam Chair. I am pleased to make this presentation on behalf of the CNIB.

Á  (1135)  

[English]

    I'm here this morning with Madame Fran Cutler, who is chair of the national board of the CNIB. Maybe some of the questions should be addressed to her. I've passed around a little simulator of what various sight impairments can be. Madame Cutler suffers from macular degeneration, the top one. She actually was director of employment equity for the CBC from 1992 to 1996, so I'm sure she has lots of information to convey to the committee.

    First of all, thank you for allowing us to appear in front of you today. The Canadian National Institute for the Blind assists over 105,000 Canadians who are blind, vision impaired, and deaf-blind to become full participants in all aspects of Canadian society. Basically we have had that mandate since 1918. It is not possible, actually, under the legislation as it exists right now to have distinct figures for blind people under the employment equity results, but our figures are that 70% of blind people who are of working age are unemployed at the present time.

    We provide seven core services, one of which is career development and employment for our clients. We're here to tell the committee today that we are quite pleased with the progress that has been accomplished since the enactment of employment equity legislation in this country. The reason for that is because we believe that the Employment Equity Act and its predecessor, and employment equity legislation in general, plays a very crucial role in the changing attitudes towards persons with disabilities we have witnessed in the last decade.

    Only a few years ago the average Canadian employer did not think a blind person could be employed anywhere but in specific jobs restricted to the blind. Today, many employers are quite willing to hire a person who is blind or visually impaired. Their big concern is how do we do it, and it's one of our positions today that this should be the concern of the committee as well: How do we do it? The attitudes have opened up to a large extent. How can we make all of this feasible?

    Of course, we have, as has the committee, seen the reports from the Canadian Human Rights Commission. There's a lack of satisfactory results achieved by persons with disabilities since the inception of employment equity legislation. We know that actually firsthand in the work we're doing.

    However, we believe that the attitudinal and systemic barriers that existed at the beginning were such that they simply could not be overcome that rapidly. Rome was not built in one day. It takes a long time to move from point A to point D. We believe the employment equity legislation has done a very good job of it so far. We believe, of course, that the committee has been doing a very good job on that, as I think it's heard, but it's also thanks to the close monitoring by the Canadian Human Rights Commission. Apparently, sometimes--well, most of the time--employers have to be followed closely before they realize that they will have to do something about these things.

    So we have a number of issues that we are presenting today. One of them is that the results of the employment equity legislation are good. We should say they are very good, but it should be a cautious good. Strict monitoring of both the private and the public sector by the Canadian Human Rights Commission is still needed to overcome systemic inertia and to ensure that both the private and the public sector achieve and maintain compliance through their statutory obligations as soon as possible.

    Our first recommendation is going to be that this committee should adopt all the recommendations made by the employment equity branch of the Canadian Human Rights Commission in its discussion paper entitled, “Legislative Review of the Employment Equity Act”. I'm not going to repeat why; they've explained why.

    A second recommendation is going to be that the committee should review the Employment Equity Act and its regulations to make it consistent with the case law developed since it was enacted in 1995. We're referring here specifically to three cases by the Supreme Court of Canada--Eldridge, Meiorin, and Grismer. It explains in our brief exactly what they stand for and gives their citation. We also have a quote from “The Will to Act”, which in French is la volonté d'intégrer les personnes handicapées. The document had a section about the inclusive labour market. We're saying in our recommendations that the vision of “The Will to Act” has been somewhat recognized and implemented by the Supreme Court of Canada. Why don't we bring the act up to date to make it reflect what the law is right now, as stated by the Supreme Court of Canada?

Á  (1140)  

    Now we're going to raise some issues on implementation.

    I'm not going to talk about the census data. Everybody has made the same recommendation. The census data is 13 years old. Once we have the new data, it's going to rapidly become obsolete again. A periodic and permanent data collection mechanism has to be put in place, and we do not understand why the figures are not even used by the public service sector, why they're using 4.8 instead of 6.5, because the figures are already low enough. And we expect that because of the change in attitudes in the community at large, there are a lot more disabled people on the market right now than 13 years ago.

    Our last recommendation is that the committee should recommend that the federal government and its agencies develop a global strategy aimed at increasing significantly and permanently the workforce representation of persons with disabilities.

    That would be done in various ways. Maybe it could be a workplace strategy of HRDC, because they have already done quite a bit of work along those lines. They could maybe be the focal point of this patchwork that we see around the federal government.

    As you know, although we're supposed to be going forward, the federal government is not yet in compliance with its obligations under the law. The employment equity positive measures program was closed on March 31, including the resource centre for persons with disabilities.

    Water flows in the river, we can understand that, but we're saying these functions have to be retained somewhere. It's not as though people with disabilities have made such headway that we don't need that any more at this point in time.

    Those are my recommendations at this point. Thank you for listening to us.

    The Chair: Thank you very much.

    We'll move now to perhaps six-minute rounds, and we'll start with Mr. Elley from the Canadian Alliance.

    Mr. Reed Elley (Nanaimo--Cowichan, Canadian Alliance): Thank you very much. I do appreciate all of you for coming in today and sharing with us the perspectives of your organizations and your unique perspectives on this issue. I have questions for everybody, but I obviously can't ask everybody a question.

    I was most interested in the submission by the Canadian National Institute for the Blind. I was quite amazed when you said 70% of people in this country who have visual impairment or who are blind are not employed, and I'm just wondering if you could help me understand why that is the case. Has it something to do with the age of our visually impaired population, or that we've had better medical advances so that there are not as many visually impaired? Can you help us to understand that statement?

    Ms. Myriam Girard: I think Madam Cutler is going to answer that question.

    Ms. Fran Cutler (Chair, National Board, Canadian National Institute for the Blind): Thank you.

    We really can't say how many reasons there are or what they are, but we are referring to those in the working-age category between 18 and 65 when we use that 70% figure. Now that is an improvement. It used to be above 75%.

    What it seems is that it's the attitude of the employers--the people we sometimes call “temporarily able-bodied”. Computers, for example, for blind people have taken the “dis” out of disability. The information technology revolution allows blind and vision-impaired people to do any job in the information society, but public attitudes have not yet entirely caught up, unfortunately.

    There are equipment costs; certainly that is a factor. But when you look at equipment costs for a person with a visual disability to do a job vis-à-vis the long-term benefits, it's really a small price to pay.

    Mr. Reed Elley: Thank you.

    I have a question to our friends from the Confédération des organismes de personnes handicapées du Québec.

    Is there any difference between the long-range plans of say large corporations vis-à-vis small individual businesses in terms of their actual desire and ability to employ people who have physical disabilities? Do you see any differences between those two groups, and are we making what you would call important progress in terms of hiring in that area?

Á  (1145)  

[Translation]

    Ms. Chloé Serradori: I do not have all the information here, but from the documents we have read and the report of the Human Rights Commission, there has been a significant decline in all private corporations, and a slight increase within the federal public service. We attribute this slight increase to self-identification, rather than to an active recruitment system.

    If I may, to answer your previous question, I would say that the main problem is as follows. We always think that people with functional limitations are ready for employment at age 18, but that from age 4 to age 18, they have to go to school and take training. They still have tremendous difficulty gaining access to education and training, because there is also the issue of the right to accommodations. All the statistics show that people with functional limitations are among those with the lowest levels of education. So we cannot separate employment from training.

    I think much more needs to be done to make major corporations aware of the issue, and it may be more difficult to do this with small and medium-sized firms. Our colleagues were speaking about changing attitudes. When there are really no awareness or training programs, when people with functional disabilities are not on committees or involved in awareness programs, then it takes a long time to change attitudes.

[English]

    Mr. Reed Elley: Merci beaucoup.

    The Chair: Madame St. Jacques.

[Translation]

    Ms. Diane St-Jacques (Shefford, Lib.): Thank you, Madam Chair.

    My question is about voluntary identification. I would like the various groups to tell me whether they think changes should be made as regards self-identification.

    I would also like to ask a more specific question of the Canadian Mental Health Association. You say in your brief that people with psychiatric problems have difficulty with self-identification, and, for that reason, this procedure should be eliminated. If we did that, how would we be able to determine, in our statistics, whether these people were hired or not? So my question is for all our witnesses, and particularly for the representatives from the Canadian Mental Health Association.

    Ms. Elisabeth Ostiguy: At the moment, we know there is a stigma attached to mental illness. Even people suffering from mild depression would not dare seek treatment or even say to their employer that they are seeing a psychologist or a psychiatrist, because they are afraid that this will be put in their file and have an impact on their career advancement. In day-to-day activities, people do not self-identify even when they have a case of mild depression. For individuals with more serious problems, it is even more difficult for them to say that they have schizophrenia, for example, and have to take drugs, and are nevertheless looking for employment.

    That is why we said in our remarks that it was necessary to change attitudes and establish a work environment that is welcoming to all people, in all their diversity. It is very difficult to ask individuals who know that they could encounter negative attitudes to reveal that they are suffering from a particular disease. Perhaps we need to change perceptions as well.

    It is not necessary to measure everything. I know that measurements are the easiest way to determine whether or not we have been successful. Schools today are changing the way they measure so that there is not too much competition among the students. However, ultimately, all human beings always like to know whether or not they are successful. So we always ask for measurements. We have to change the workplace and attitudes, and remove from instructions any comments that disregard human dignity. That is the only way of achieving the objectives set out in the act at the moment.

Á  (1150)  

    Ms. Myriam Girard: I would like to make a comment. We are somewhat concerned about the issue of self-identification, because this can have a perverse effect, particularly in the case of the aging labour force. The 2001 Employment Equity Report of the Canadian Human Rights Commission states, and I quote:

The data suggest that the increase in the number of persons with disabilities in the federal public service is largely due to increased self-identification, rather than to hires.

    We could increase the numbers constantly, just by counting people who are already fully integrated into labour force and who develop various problems attributable to age, without trying to integrate people who are outside the labour force. We have experienced this ourselves, and we are concerned about this aspect.

    Ms. Diane St-Jacques: Do you have any recommendations in this regard?

    Ms. Myriam Girard: There are two aspects: hiring, job maintenance and promotions, but there are all those people who are still on the street, and who have not yet got a job. Perhaps the act should make some provision for this. There would be one system for those who are further ahead, but we need a more comprehensive strategy for people who are not yet employed, one geared specifically to their needs.

    Ms. Diane St-Jacques: Would you like to comment, Ms. Serradori?

    Ms. Chloé Serradori: We realize that attitudes and prejudices constitute one of the main obstacles. There's still a great deal of prejudice. We think it is important that employers' attitudes be properly evaluated. For example, an employer may systematically give people with functional limitations part-time jobs. He may take a great deal of time making the necessary accommodations. An employer may systematically hire individuals with a particular type of functional limitation, but completely disregard the others. We do not see this in terms of punishment. The idea is to get an accurate portrait of these obstacles. It is also extremely important to make employers aware, because in an ideal world, there should not be any self-identification.

    We were talking about people with mental health problems. This is truly tragic, but it is also tragic for individuals with multiple sclerosis, people with HIV and functional limitations, and people with a cognitive impairment. These individuals really suffer from discrimination.

    Earlier, we were talking about types of accommodation. Often employers are satisfied if they do everything with respect to architectural accommodations. However, this is not enough. We also mentioned changes to collective agreements and to work schedules. These changes must be introduced, and we must help employers do this. We have established this concept to promote equity, but it actually creates discrimination.

[English]

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Wendy.

    Ms. Wendy Steinberg: I want to add one thing about the numerical benchmark. I think that's certainly one piece for evaluating the implementation of the act. By putting in place positive human resource policies and changing attitudes, you will see self-identification numbers go up in certain categories by virtue of people seeing it as less stigmatizing if accommodations are made more universal for everybody and not for particular groups. So I think you will still be able to count as one component, one measurement. You won't lose that. In fact, I think you'll get a more accurate reflection if you first target the practices and policies and then look to the number as only one indicator.

Á  (1155)  

    The Chair: Mr. Malkowski had something to add.

    Mr. Garry Malkowski (Interpretation): Yes, I do. There are actually two points I'd like to bring out at this point.

    One of the difficulties we have with the act is the reviewing of statistics. The act focuses on persons who are disabled and are either seeking employment or are employed. But it's silent on the issue of persons who are employed currently and who become disabled after the fact. So we do take issue with that seeming discrepancy.

    What we recommend is that a two-pronged employment systems review be conducted, one of the prongs being for persons who are currently disabled and are seeking employment or who are employed, and the other for those who are not disabled but do become disabled after the fact or after their employment.

    The second point I'd like to bring out is that much of our concern actually does not have to do with the act but has to do with the way HRDC implements the act. In my presentation I've brought out the concept of double taxation, and I'll just illustrate this.

    A deaf person who receives funds from either EI or from the opportunity fund or who receives a Canada student assistance loan is given these funds to procure services for their accommodation, for interpretation services or disability support. The deaf person is in receipt of these funds and as a result, in HRDC's view, gets a taxable benefit and should be taxed on it.

    At the same time, when the deaf client remits these funds to the person who provides them the support, such as an interpreter, the interpreter also pays tax on those funds in terms of income. This is double taxation. Effectively, what you're doing is punishing...it's a punitive measure against a deaf person who's seeking accommodation, and rather than eliminating barriers, it effectively creates them. This ends up preventing deaf and hard-of-hearing persons from seeking post-secondary education, and we would like to see a fundamental change from it being a loan, as it is at present, to being a grant. The concept of it being a loan and the double taxation are problems, in our view.

    The Chair: Ms. Guay.

[Translation]

    Ms. Monique Guay (Laurentides, BQ): Thank you, Madam Chair.

    I would like to thank you for taking the time today to come and meet with us. You are a very, very important group, and I know I'm not the only one to think so. Ms. Bradshaw herself said that it is the people with disabilities who gained the least from the act. Of the four target groups, persons with disabilities are those who have seen the least progress under the Employment Equity Act. So your recommendations will certainly be taken into account by this committee. You can count on my support to defend your cause.

    Ms. Serradori, rather than talk about people with disabilities, you talk about people with functional limitations. I find that interesting. It is much more modern and therefore stops barriers from being put up. Those people already have enough barriers when it comes to finding employment. I think the committee will keep the term “functional limitations”. I think that is a much better term for people in need.

    That said, you mentioned that 70% of blind people are unemployed. That is serious, very serious. It is very difficult for a young person with functional difficulties to spend so many years trying to find a job. If you say that 70% of blind people do not get their foot in the door, there is a serious problem somewhere and it must be corrected.

    We all know that the adapted resources centre was closed on March 31st. The committee wrote to the minister and I have asked for the minister to appear before the committee. The matter is not closed, at least as far as I am concerned. Pressure is still being brought to bear so that the centre remains open, because it is required. It has been in existence more than 23 years and I know it is very helpful for businesses wanting to integrate disabled persons. Rest assured this committee has done a lot of work on that front and we will continue to do so.

    I would like each of you to tell me whether there is one specific recommendation you would like to make to the committee today that we should retain. Even if you have two that seem urgent, that you would like us to implement as quickly as possible, I would like you to tell us about them. Thank you.

  (1200)  

    The Chair: Ms. Girard.

    Ms. Myriam Girard: I will start, Madam Chair. We made just four recommendations, but if there's one we would pick, it would be a recommendation that encompasses the entire situation. In order for the situation of people with functional limitations to change, there must be a comprehensive strategy at the federal government level. That strategy could be the responsibility of Human Resources Development Canada, at the Labour Branch. It would be a comprehensive strategy whereby all parties would make a concerted effort to improve the lot of persons with functional limitations. That would be our wish.

[English]

    The Chair: Ms. Cutler.

    Ms. Fran Cutler: I would simply like to add that in order to provide a solution the government and this committee could encourage those who have success stories to share them. As long ago as the seventies, Revenue Canada, which is one of the leading departments in accommodating people with disabilities, hired four tax assessors who were blind into their tax assessment unit. What happened to overall productivity? It went up significantly. What happened to absenteeism overall as well as among those people? It went down significantly. The stories of the effect of people with disabilities on the fellow employees and on the workplace are legion in the public service. This would be a fairly powerful motivating tool, I would submit.

    The Chair: Ms. Steinberg.

    Ms. Wendy Steinberg: Thank you.

    Our recommendation would be that the Employment Equity Act should require organizations and government to establish barrier-free workplaces. This will not only continue to require the organization or government to provide accommodation, but it will also require proactive steps that will ultimately reduce the need for individual accommodation. In our view, the benefit of the barrier removal approach is that it's systemic, preventative, and does not force individuals to disclose the fact that they have a disability.

[Translation]

    The Chair: Ms. Serradori.

    Ms. Chloé Serradori: I always find it very difficult to choose. We have been involved in so many Parliamentary committees that we know it is always dangerous to make just one recommendation. In fact, the danger is that only that one recommendation will be retained. If I may, I would say that we feel that everything that was said here is a priority.

    Another thing is also very important, and we all talked about it. Of course, employment equity is great, but there are many people waiting who may never get a chance to have a job. So I would like you to consider all of the recommendations that were presented here. If the right to special accommodation is recognized, classification of impairments will be as well. Why are we talking about functional limitations? Because all functional limitations must be recognized. The definition will be changed. Self-identification will no longer be used. If you think of all the employment equity training that will be required, perhaps young people will be given a chance.

    Right now, we think about people with jobs, but don't forget young people. Mr. Malkowski told you what happens to deaf people. The future for people with functional limitations, just like our own future, depends on youth. Young people are still having problems getting special accommodation and training.

    So I hope all the recommendations we made will be retained. Thank you.

  (1205)  

[English]

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Mr. Malkowski.

    Mr. Gary Malkowski (Interpretation): We see two very important recommendations at this point. We strongly encourage that a strong, effective, enforceable Canadians with disabilities act be implemented. Our second recommendation is that we strongly recommend that the federal government and the federal and provincial ministers revisit the employability assistance for people with disabilities and revisit the concept, instead of loans and grants for persons with disabilities seeking post-secondary accommodation, and remove the double tax burden.

    I believe that this committee really has to talk with Paul Martin, the Minister of Finance, on this issue to remove that double tax burden on those accommodations. When I read that this was the case--a double tax burden on accommodations--I could not believe the audacity of the government to do that. What it does is it intimidates persons from using those funds for what they're meant for. So I strongly recommend my two comments.

    I just had a conversation with Carolyn Bennett, the chair of the subcommittee, and I said that I've brought this to their attention many times, but I've received no satisfactory response from the government.

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Mr. Tonks.

    Mr. Alan Tonks (York South--Weston, Lib.) Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to all the deputants for being here this morning.

    As a footnote, I'm pleased to see you all, but especially Gary Malkowski, who I knew from a former life when I was the chairman of Metropolitan Toronto and he was a member of the Ontario legislature. He would make deputations to the metropolitan council in those days on the same subject matter.

    To Gary, I'm glad to see that one of us has been successful. He's in his new role and I'm particularly glad to see him.

    To Ms. Serradori, with respect to the human rights charter, am I right to understand that the present wording is that employers have a “duty” to provide training and the ability to accommodate skills? Does the present human rights charter provide that wording that employers have the “duty” to provide training and the ability to accommodate skills? I didn't quite understand the point you made.

[Translation]

    Ms. Chloé Serradori: I do not think the Human Rights Commission would go that far. Under the act, there must be clear objectives by job type or group of job types; qualitative objectives to eliminate barriers, always by job type or group of job types; adjustment measures to temporarily reduce the gaps; control mechanisms to assess the results; and a tool to evaluate the results. That is contained in the Employment Equity Act.

    We think those elements are essential if there is to be consistency among the 476 organizations. We know there is a real shortage of human and financial resources. So the government must invest something so that the Canadian Human Rights Commission can do the work.

    As for the acquisition of skills and training, that is not included. If we really want people to be treated equally, not only must they possess the skills, but employers must also recognize their potential for acquiring skills. Otherwise there is discrimination and bias. For example, someone with an intellectual impairment might be able to do certain tasks and should be encouraged in that direction.

    If you have the means required, you can help that individual acquire skills.

  (1210)  

[English]

    Mr. Alan Tonks: Thanks for that answer.

    My question is to Mr. Malkowski. I'm glad he clarified the double taxation; that was a really interesting thing. I hadn't realized, but I could see how there would be an inequity there. Also, the issue concerning equal access to post-secondary education is something we should note very carefully.

    My question is with respect to something he said that gave me great concern. We were talking about barriers that are in place. He mentioned HRDC specifically. He also mentioned Labour Canada, and that there's an absence of guidelines on policies to accommodate deaf and hearing-impaired people. Could he just elaborate, particularly on the role of HRDC and the barriers he thinks are being placed there?

    Mr. Gary Malkowski (Interpretation): I believe the local HRDC offices need to have established for them a minimum accessibility standard for the offices themselves. Imagine a deaf or hard-of-hearing person entering an HRDC local office perhaps looking for some funds from the opportunities fund. Who is responsible for bringing the interpreter for them to interact with the personnel? Often the offices will have a TTY for the deaf person to use, but they're not set up so they have to ask for it. It's brought to them, but they don't know how to set up this TTY or get it hooked up.

    The attitude of the HRDC staff shines through when a deaf person approaches them seeking to take some sort of training course or program. And they're given an excuse, something to the effect, “We're very sorry, we can't enrol you in this program because we can't afford the interpreters for you while you're engaged in that program.”

    By way of example, you might have a seat in one of these programs that costs perhaps $5,000. Well, the interpretation cost or the accommodation could well exceed that. It could cost somewhere in the range of $15,000 to $20,000 during the course of that program. You can see HRDC's response would become very quickly, “Oh, we're sorry, we can't afford that”, because they might have a maximum cost or a cap of $10,000. Who supplements the interpreting costs?

    I believe the Canadian Hearing Society has a role to sensitize the HRDC staff in terms of their policy and approach to deaf persons. And it's important that the HRDC staff be familiar with the wide range of accommodations that are out there and that are necessary to accommodate persons with disabilities.

    I know by way of my own personal experience. I lost my SIN number. I entered an HRDC local office. I tried to explain that I thought I had to fill out some sort of form to retrieve my SIN number. They told me to go to another person, who in fact only told me to go to another person, and I went basically the whole course of the office. Then I was finally told, “Oh, do you know what, Mr. Malkowski? We're going to have to bring in an interpreter and that will take about two months.” And I said, “All I want is a form. I just want to fill out a form so I can get my SIN number.”

    Secondly, I said, “Listen, can I just have access to a TTY?” They showed me where it was. They certainly brought it to me on a table, but there was no AC adapter. It couldn't be used. It couldn't be plugged in, so it was useless. It was obvious the staff didn't know the basic functions of how a TTY works. So you can imagine, as a citizen, I spend my time and money to get to the office and I don't get the service.

    That's just me. What about deaf consumers who don't have employment? Can you imagine the incredible barriers that face them when they go in? That's what I'm talking about.

    That's what I mean when I talk about minimum accessibility standards. Perhaps a toll-free phone line, video conferencing capabilities, Internet access, referring them to some sort of local disabled agency to help them walk through basic fundamental accessibility issues...

    HRDC often contracts out to second and third parties; these ones are even worse. There are no standards for these contracted second and third parties.

  (1215)  

    Mr. Alan Tonks: I have a couple more questions, but I'll wait until the second round.

    The Chair: I don't think we're going to second-round this one. We have about 15 minutes left and we have three people who haven't spoken. We may have to do it this way.

    Mr. Alan Tonks: All right. Thank you.

    The Chair: So I'm going to encourage the three who haven't asked questions to help me get this over by our appointed time.

    I have Mr. Malhi, followed by Madame Folco, and then Ms. Bennett.

    Mr. Malhi.

    Mr. Gurbax Malhi (Bramalea--Gore--Malton--Springdale, Lib.): Thank you, Madam Chair.

    My question is to all the groups. I am facing this in my constituency almost every week when people with disabilities come to see me. Many of the persons with disabilities complain that it is too hard for many to qualify for the employment insurance or to qualify for any program financed by HRDC or employment insurance. From your experience, have you found anything like that?

    Ms. Elisabeth Ostiguy: I'd like to talk about a situation where there was a program in place that helped people with disabilities get placed. It was within HRDC and it no longer functions, but the concept applies to any situation involving people with disabilities.

    A person who was an accountant had a mental breakdown and could not continue to function in this capacity. Through this program in HRDC he was placed as an accounting clerk so he could continue to work. He brought to that position all the training and skills he had developed as an accountant, without having to deal with the pressures and responsibilities of being one.

    These types of programs help people with disabilities get back into the workplace, and unfortunately they are disappearing.

[Translation]

    Ms. Chloé Serradori: I'm sorry, I didn't quite understand the question. You are asking whether there are programs to help people with functional limitations to become more employable. Right now, there is a program called the Opportunities Fund, whereby people with functional limitations, sometimes serious ones, and those who are very far from the labour market can get help finding a job.

  (1220)  

[English]

    Mr. Gurbax Malhi: Also, when people with disabilities appear before us, they often talk about the changes in the definition of disability in the different categories. Do you have any suggestions about this?

    Ms. Elisabeth Ostiguy: One of the problems with identifying disabilities--and we've all addressed this in part in our comments earlier--is that when we take out the form the government uses to identify the disabled, there are categories on it that really limit your capacity to specifically address your disability. In the case of those with limitations due to a psychiatric disability, the form just says “other” and “please specify”. If I was a person who didn't want people to know I had a psychiatric disability, I would not specify it on the form. And there are no instructions with the form to give you an idea of what you can and cannot write in this category.

    In a conversation with Treasury Board, we were told that people didn't have to specify, but there's no place on the form that tells people this. In the way the question is posed, right away there's a problem of definition.

    We were asked to make recommendations. I have a real practical one. I'd love to see the guidelines on how to fill out the forms re-examined because they cause problems themselves.

    The guidelines on how to create a welcoming workplace contain some extremely condescending comments. When I read them through, I thought they sounded like they were giving instruction on how to deal with a simpleton rather than a person of average intelligence--and I'm a person in the industry who took away this impression after reading them. How do people who aren't acquainted with the problems firsthand deal with these instructions? If they are followed literally, we will create more stigmatization and bad attitudes.

    Ms. Wendy Steinberg: From our perspective, it's more important to identify the functional limitations your disability imposes on your ability to do the work rather than to actually get into the particulars around the disability itself. To us, that's secondary. What's primary is how you may feel disadvantaged in the workplace and what needs to be put in place to remedy this, rather than focusing on a specific diagnosis and assessment.

    The Chair: Oh, I didn't see your hand up.

    Mr. Garry Malkowski.

    Mr. Gary Malkowski (Interpretation): I want to answer your first question. I think we have to relate both the good and bad of HRDC.

    HRDC did fund the employment assistance strategies project from which local Canadian Hearing Society offices received funds to set up services, in terms of résumé writing, job searches, workshops, etc. The problem was there wasn't enough money to go the full extent for accommodation, accessibility, and training programs. In fact, it is probably the biggest of all barriers.

    I would encourage HRDC to think about it, in terms of strategy and the hiring of more highly skilled people. I believe the HRDC minister should call together a summit of sorts with provincial colleagues to revisit the issue in terms of employment accessibility. It's a huge barrier for employers, in terms of hiring disabled or deaf persons, when you talk about accommodation and employability.

  (1225)  

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Madam Folco.

[Translation]

    Ms. Raymonde Folco (Laval West, Lib.): The first thing I would like to say is how pleased I am to see how well organized the disabilities community is. The groups you represent here around this table are, I think, very well served by you, even if there are obviously differences of opinion on that, which is to be accepted.

    Secondly, my colleague asked a question earlier on the awareness in the workplace. That seems to be an important facet, but I would like to look at the other side of the coin, at the definition of impairment.

    Do you think that definition meets the needs of your members or of the clients you serve? I suppose the answer will be no, only partly. In that case, what factors would you like to see added to the definition in the act?

    The question is for anyone who wants to answer.

    Ms. Chloé Serradori: We do not think the definition is so bad because it does not reflect the medical stereotype. However, the situation could be improved by using the definition in the international classification of impairments, disabilities, and handicaps. Earlier on, we spoke about functional limitations. That term does not come from me or from Quebec. It is a classification that explains what is meant by impairment and disability. The handicap is really the result of the obstacles put in front of the person. Finally, it means that if our world had all the necessary accommodations, there would no longer be any handicaps. People would live with their limitations or impairments, but there would no longer be any handicaps, so on the one hand, it would be good to also use that definition because it provides factors and criteria for all sorts of functional limitations.

    Furthermore, there are a lot of Supreme Court rulings. Someone said earlier that it would be important to remember Eldridge and Mercier/Troilo, and all the positive effects of those definitions.

[English]

    The Chair: Gary Malkowski.

    Mr. Gary Malkowski (Interpretation): Before I answer that, perhaps you could help me understand the intent of your question, Madam.

    Do you believe a definition needs to be developed that limits the number of disabled persons, or broadens the category, perhaps with a distinction between the severely disabled and the mildly disabled? Are you looking for a definition that would be much more inclusive than that, and would provide a level playing field for anyone who was disabled? Before I answer, if wonder I could just get some clarification.

    The Chair: Can you also go through the chair?

[Translation]

    Ms. Raymonde Folco: Will you allow me to continue, Madam Chair?

  (1230)  

[English]

    The Chair: Yes.

[Translation]

    Ms. Raymonde Folco: I am asking you the question because you work in that field. You should be able to tell me whether the definition is too restrictive or not. I come from outside. I see the problems of those you serve from a perspective of wanting to help them through legislation, but I do not have any background knowledge as to the definition itself. That is why I am asking you the question.

[English]

    Mr. Gary Malkowski (Interpretation): I believe the definition of disability should avoid defining who needs accommodation. Just by way of an example, a deaf person might need a sign language interpreter, real-time captioning, or a TTY. Those are some of the accommodations that are needed. A deafened person, someone who lost their hearing after the fact, might need a real-time captioner, a speaker, or an amplified phone. A hard-of-hearing person might need an FM loop or system in a room to participate in a meeting. They all need different sorts of accommodation. If we were to define disability according to accommodation, you would be limiting the people who would be included in that group, and as a result, funds that could be attached to that accommodation.

    Instead of defining the people, we'd rather look at the system itself. How is the system functioning and being inclusive, helping anybody use the system, particularly persons with disabilities? We'd rather focus on global accommodation and how our tax dollars are being put to use and well spent, rather than being overly concerned with the definition.

[Translation]

    The Chair: Ms. Girard.

    Ms. Myriam Girard: I would like to say one word in closing. I want to support what Ms. Serradori said. Since the act is to be reviewed, it would be a good idea to update it in line with the international definition, which can also be found in recent Supreme Court jurisprudence. I think everyone is heading in the same direction.

[English]

    The Chair: We are quickly approaching the end, but I really want to allow Madam Bennett to ask some questions. Her subcommittee has done a great deal of work on this, and it would be grossly unfair not to give her the last opportunity.

    Ms. Carolyn Bennett (St. Paul's, Lib.): I would just like to follow up on Madam Folco's question on what we need to learn from Eldridge; what we need to learn about the need for accommodation; what we need to learn from a complaints-based system; and how we can actually move that into systemic change.

    What would we see in terms of the Employment Equity Act, a Canadians with disabilities act, or a built-up Human Rights Commission with the ability to go out, do audits, and find where there is and isn't accommodation and full citizenship?

    Maybe to begin with Mr. Malkowski, how does he feel we are doing on Eldridge? Is there something we can learn, in terms of taking what we know was extraordinarily difficult to implement, or seemed to be difficult, after that important Supreme Court ruling? How is it changing the lives of Canadians, or is it?

    Mr. Gary Malkowski (Interpretation): When the Supreme Court of Canada handed down the Eldridge decision in 1997, HRDC did not seem to be too keen on following up on that decision. They waited for other legal precedents to come forward before they would act upon it. It's funny. It strikes me as strange that they would wait for these to come down when they already have a precedent that has come through the Supreme Court of Canada.

    I believe the remedy to many of these things should stem from Treasury Board establishing policies in terms of accommodation, what's required across the board for the federal government to work within the parameters of the Eldridge decision and the policies they establish.

    As the system now stands, disabled persons have to fund their own lawyers, their own accommodation, if they want to challenge how the system operates, whereas the government has its hand in the pocket of the taxpayer and can fund its own lawyers, etc. We believe the federal government and departments should be proactive. We encourage all federal government departments to be proactive in that sense.

    The Canadian Human Rights Commission, by way of an example, seems to have established practical guidelines for employers. On the face of it, it looks like a great document, but it has no teeth. The federal government has lots of money for PR and always puts it on the table of the provincial government, telling them they're not doing enough.

    Really we don't want to be in a room with the federal and provincial governments arguing over these things. What we want to see is the federal government taking leadership. Let the other governments follow suit. In terms of the infrastructure project announced by the federal government, we believe that's a positive example of governments working together. These things can be remedied if governments work together.

  (1235)  

    Ms. Elisabeth Ostiguy: I'd just like to leave a thought with the committee. We define ourselves in definitions and in measurements, how many we have, what percentage more and what percentage less. It's a comfortable way to know whether or not we're doing a good job in making our society more equitable.

    I'd just like to leave this one thought. We need a little out-of-the-box thinking. We need to start moving toward a situation where we don't have to fight against double taxation, we don't have to fight about defining disabilities and limitations. We in fact could create an environment where all Canadians would have an equal chance to contribute to its society.

    I'll throw a challenge back to the committee to ask you for a little out-of-the-box thinking. Let's try to move away from just definitions and numbers and limitations.

    The Chair: Mr. Malkowski, we have just a very few seconds.

    Mr. Gary Malkowski (Interpretation): I would ask Carolyn, through the chair, to commit to us that she will ask the HRDC Minister in the House, as well as the Minister of Finance, first of all to remove the double taxation. Can that be raised, as well as introducing a strong and effective Canadians with disabilities act? If you do that, that will create a very powerful Employment Equity Act.

    Ms. Carolyn Bennett: We've had this conversation before. I think I will use the strategies of my choosing. Asking questions in the House is sometimes very good for some people. I think the work that the committee... It's very good for the opposition. We have worked in a completely non-partisan way on our disability committee, and we hope to keep working that way.

    The committee is divided on the Canadians with disabilities act, as you know, Gary. We have endeavoured, through the work of the committee, to figure out what is the best accountability framework to make sure we're moving forward. We will continue to do that, as soon as we finish the study on CPP disability. We have a lot on our plate, but I promise that when Madame Robillard and any other ministers are before our committee, we will raise those issues. We'll keep working on this file.

    The Chair: At this point I want to thank the four groups that have appeared before us today. All your submissions will be carefully considered, and all the information that you have given to us today will, as I say, be considered as we make recommendations.

    I'm going to suspend for about four minutes to allow this group of deputations to leave the table and for the next group to come through.

    Thank you.

  (1240)  

---

  (1246)  

    The Chair: We will resume the meeting.

    We have before us five associations that will make presentations. I will allow each of the organizations to introduce their own group. We will start with the Canadian Association for Community Living. We then have the Canadian Paraplegic Association, the Council of Canadians with Disabilities, the National Institute of Disability Management and Research, and the Neil Squire Foundation. We will start this round with the Canadian Association for Canadian Living.

    Mr. Bach, perhaps you might introduce your group.

    Mr. Michael Bach (Vice-President, Canadian Association for Community Living): Thank you very much.

    My name is Michael Bach, executive vice-president of the Canadian Association for Community Living. Our delegation today has three of us. I'd like to introduce Parteepan Rasaratnam and Jean-Claude Jalbert, who will make brief introductory statements. Then I will conclude with some statement.

    We'll start with Jean-Claude.

    Mr. Jean-Claude Jalbert (Board Member, Canadian Association for Community Living): I will do mine in French because it will be easier for me.

[Translation]

     It is great to have a job, but there are things that are not for everyone. People with a physical disability but strong skills have no problem, but people who have problems and also a lower skill level have more difficulty. It is more difficult for this latter group.

    Those who have been labelled with an intellectual disability find it very difficult to get a job because employees are afraid of them. The government needs to do something in terms of planning to help employees understand. People with intellectual disabilities will admittedly take more time to learn things, but once they have learned, you can be sure that they will not forget. And after two, five or six years, these people will not leave to find work elsewhere because they know there is no other job for them. So they will stay in the same workplace. These employees will make much more progress and will stay in their workplace.

    More money is needed so that employees can plan and understand about people with intellectual disabilities, since these people have rights like everyone else and the right to work like everyone else.

    I find that people with physical disabilities are one thing, but those that are limited have a lot of difficulty. That needs to change.

[English]

    Mr. Parteepan Rasaratnam (Self Advocate, Canadian Association for Canadian Living): Hello. My name is Parteepan Rasaratnam. I really want a job. I truly want a chance. Let's all help each other. Please give a chance to people with disability. It doesn't matter if people have disabilities, they can still work and be helpful. We can all work together. Please give me an opportunity to work and be a good Canadian. Maybe you may learn something from me. I need to be accepted and valued for who I am. I don't need to change who I am, but you need to change the way you treat people with disability.

    Mr. Michael Bach: Thank you, Jean-Claude and Parteepan.

    One of our jobs at CACL is to figure out why Jean-Claude and Parteepan don't have jobs currently, despite the skills and motivation and interest to do so.

    What I'd like to do for the remainder of the presentation, for just a couple of minutes, is draw out our conclusions from our analysis.

    The conclusions of the review so far are pretty clear when it comes to people with disabilities. Their participation is drastically below their so-called labour market availability. There's been a net loss of people with disabilities from the labour force, and for the most part workplaces haven't changed. Clearly, the Employment Equity Act isn't working for people with disabilities.

    Before I go much further, a lot of the numbers refer to people with disabilities generally. If you look at the picture for people with intellectual disabilities, the exclusion is pretty unmistakable. We're talking about fewer than 45% of people with intellectual disabilities working at paid jobs, 40% of working-age adults never having worked at a job or business, 40% having come below the poverty line, 70% needing help with daily activities. The reality is only 35% actually need accommodations in the workplace. There are some other factors at play.

  (1250)  

     The act makes employers in workplaces the exclusive focus. They on their own are not the source of labour force exclusion.

    The support needs and relationships with people with disabilities are simply not recognized or taken into account in the act. The only framework for meeting accommodation needs is the limit of undue hardship.

    Disability voluntary sector organizations are not considered partners. There's no effective employer, union, government, and disability VSO partnership to roll out an inclusive labour market strategy in this country. In fact, we're really missing two pieces of the strategy when we consider this act in isolation: an equity-based labour force strategy and a pan-Canadian disability support strategy. Without those pieces in place, this act cannot deliver on its goal.

    I want to spend a couple of minutes, if I may, outlining each of those six factors. I think we need to recognize that exclusive workplaces are the symptom of a problem, which is an exclusionary culture, a lack of supports, an absence of shared responsibility for accommodation, and no viable labour market partnerships. We have taken a structural problem, labour market equality, and made it exclusively the employer's problem. My goal is not to let employers off the hook. They're part of the problem. They're just not the whole problem. Thus, employment equity outside of a coordinated strategy that addresses broader support needs and embraces other partners is bound to fail.

    We need to really be clear about the support needs of working-age adults with disabilities. Of the 2.3 million working-age adults, 72% require supports and over 50% need more than they're currently getting. Many of the support needs of people with disabilities are beyond employers' capacities, including transportation, human support, and access to pre-employment education and training. This is well documented. These are the factors that are keeping people out of the labour market. As well, the majority must get personal supports primarily or exclusively through family members--spouses, parents, and siblings--which often threatens the labour market status of those family members as well, as the research clearly shows.

    In terms of accommodation, we should work on more explicit employer accommodation policies, but we will not be able to include people in workplaces if we don't have a shared responsibility approach to meeting support needs. Otherwise, the defence of undue hardship is invoked time and time again. Furthermore, reasonable accommodation cannot be the only approach to restructuring workplaces to make them more inclusive. It really relies on an individualist approach to what is inherently a structural problem.

    Disability organizations have not been recognized for the knowledge, support, linkage, and expertise they can bring to make this work. Linkages are needed between the individual's community, training and education providers, the labour market, and the workplace, and disability voluntary sector organizations can make this happen. They play a role in identifying individual goals and support needs; they broker access to support and labour market resources; they provide pure support and motivation, employer education and awareness, and on-the-job training and accommodation; they facilitate co-worker relationships; and they assist employers in meeting labour market demand by linking to supply.

    As a small anecdote, when I was working for the Roeher Institute, we did work for the Canadian Bankers Association, and in the process we interviewed disability voluntary sector organizations. What they told us is that the banks and other major corporations are looking to meet their demand at call centres, etc. Where do the high-paid headhunters go? They go to disability organizations, because they know they can access the labour market of people with disabilities. Disability organizations make the links. They don't get paid for it. In fact, they're expected to do it for free.

    Employers are the focus currently. Government is playing a support and funding provision role, but primarily in the public service, which explains why we're doing better in the public service than we are in the private federally regulated sector. The Treasury Board has guidelines. The public service has resources to make access work for people with disabilities, and we see the payoff. We see the difference if you compare the two.

    Unions are set up in the act to defend the status quo, and they're not recognized as potential leaders. Further, as I've said, in terms of equity-based labour market strategies and disability support strategies, we don't have a labour market strategy that links employment equity with an active labour market strategy, and there's no pan-Canadian federal-provincial-territorial disability support strategy, although there have been attempts to develop one for over three years.

    In summary, we need an employment equity strategy that recognizes those six key factors.

  (1255)  

    We have three very simple recommendations. The federal government could take leadership in the federally regulated sector. They could take leadership within the labour market to demonstrate and create a proactive employment equity strategy, establishing a partnership through the workplace equity programs. They could invest resources for workplace development, as in the public service, and they could fund disability voluntary sector organizations to play linkage roles. So as much as the labour market strategy is a federal-provincial-territorial issue, there is a federally regulated labour market, and the federal government can take some leadership and develop some models there.

    Secondly, as I've said, we need a coordinated labour market strategy that sees employment equity as one piece and doesn't rely on it to achieve a goal it never can.

    Thirdly, we need to move forward on a federal-provincial-territorial disability support strategy, as has been outlined for this committee in the past in the document Striking a New Balance.

    Thank you very much.

    The Chair: Thank you.

    We'll next hear from the Council of Canadians with Disabilities, Laurie Beachell.

    Mr. Laurie Beachell (National Coordinator, Council of Canadians with Disabilities): Thank you.

    I would heartily concur with the proposals and the comments from the Canadian Association for Community Living. Frankly, we've had employment equity legislation for 14 years now. The participation rates of persons with disabilities have not seen significant improvement, and in fact we are actually seeing a loss of jobs. There are more terminations than there are hires.

    Frankly, we felt the legislation was flawed when it was introduced, and it has not gotten much better. The title of our presentation is that employment equity has failed people with disabilities in Canada, and that is clearly evident from all the evidence that comes before you, in the annual report from the commission, and so on.

    I saw some puzzled faces earlier this morning from committee members as to why our community was not addressing itself so specifically to the legislation. It is because it has not worked, and because, frankly, we don't believe it is going to work without a much broader strategy in place, a strategy, as Michael mentioned, that looks at labour market participation.

    We did see a commitment in the throne speech to a labour market strategy to be developed for persons with disabilities. We've seen no action to date on that.

    The discussions at a federal-provincial level have been focused on using tax measures to offset the costs of disability, and so on. I would have to say, the federal government's abandonment of the labour market training sector and transfer of responsibility for labour market training to provincial jurisdiction has effectively left people with disabilities out of any labour market training, in that eligibility for labour market agreement funding is dependent upon being eligible for employment insurance. If you have not been in the labour market, if you have not had a job, you are not now eligible for training, because the accountability mechanism for those labour market agreements is the number of people that provincial governments move from employment assistance into the labour market.

    Frankly, not only has the employment equity legislation not been effective for our community, but the federal government's turning over responsibility of labour market agreements to the provinces, without any guarantee that the needs of those who are not EI-eligible will also be addressed, has meant that you have abandoned the whole area. We see this leading to a continued patchwork of programs at the provincial level that have no equity across this country.

    Basically what happens for people is that you have to now start to measure where you might get the best employment supports, which province would be best to live in, where you might receive the best income supports, where you might receive the best disability supports. You have to almost choose, province by province, where you want to live to meet your needs.

    If you want income, you might want to live in Alberta. If you want supports outside major urban centres, you'd probably want to live in Quebec. If you want disability support such as home support, you probably want to live in Manitoba. But the federal government's sphere of influence in all of these has become extremely limited.

    The buttons the federal government can push to impact upon this is our issue. Federal leadership was the issue that moved disability issues forward for the last 20 years. That federal leadership has been lost, and without a reassertion of some federal responsibility and accountability measures, we do not believe we are going to see substantive progress.

    Having said that, what can be done in the short term? Frankly, if we're going to make employment equity work, we have to find a way of making it enforceable. There is a need to find employers at the very senior level having a commitment to the process, and senior managers being held accountable as part of their performance review to meet certain standards around employment equity.

    The other factor the Canadian Association for Community Living mentioned is the interrelationship between employment programs, disability supports, and income programs. We presently have income support programs where individuals must define themselves as unemployable, in order to get the support, even though they could work part-time.

·  (1300)  

    We have a whole range of disincentives within our income support programs. We have an actual erosion of disability support programs across this country in very basic things like transportation, home support, offsetting drug costs, etc.

    We have a very changed labour market from what we had when we designed this legislation in the mid-1980s. We have a labour market where it is short-term contract employment with no benefits. For persons with disabilities, where the benefits are critical, the risk of a move from income support into employment is substantial if there are no benefits tied to the employment.

    I think there is a range of issues here. The Employment Equity Act has tried to address disability in some way, but frankly has been massively unsuccessful in addressing the needs of our community.

    I don't know if the committee has looked specifically at members within our community from the aboriginal community. I don't claim to represent them, but there are some. The incidence of disability among aboriginal Canadians is horrendous. The second group identified in all of the reports as not benefiting from employment equity are aboriginal people in Canada.

    Clearly, there is a need for special measures, a need for accommodation, and a need for initiatives within the government to address and offset the additional costs of disability.

    To us, it is rather disheartening to see that several programs, the employment equity positive measures program under Treasury Board, the Job Accommodation Network, etc., are all sunsetting. Control of the programs within the central agency may not be the best focus. We have not seen any efforts by Treasury Board or the Public Service Commission to make a transition of the programs into other departments. It would be our main concern.

    If it is not well served in a central agency, then how are we going to ensure line departments have, internal to the budget, dollars for accommodation to offset the costs related to hiring, recruiting, retention, etc.?

    I would leave it there. I would say that ultimately, unless we develop a broader labour market strategy to deal with the massive unemployment people with disabilities face, we are unlikely to be successful. We are likely to be here again, as we have been many times since 1988, saying the same things.

    Thank you.

·  (1305)  

    The Chair: Thank you.

    I would now move to the National Institute of Disability Management and Research, Mr. Payne.

    Mr. Brian Payne (Founding Co-Chair, National Institute of Disability Management and Research; National President, Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada): Thank you, Chair.

    My name is Brian Payne. I am the founding co-chair of the National Institute of Disability Management and Research, and also the national president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union, one of Canada's largest private sector unions.

    With me this afternoon is Mr. Viateur Camire, who is the human resource vice-president for Abitibi-Consolidated Inc. and also a member of our NIDMAR board.

    I want to tell you that I will do part of the presentation, then Mr. Camire will add to it. We'll eventually wrap up here, hopefully, on time.

    We're pleased to have the opportunity to present to you our views on some of the issues that are very significant to Canadians. Certainly disability in Canada's workplace and how our initiative in the workplace through NIDMAR has worked provides a significant interest and opportunity for disability in general. We'll say more about it.

    Our institute was founded as a joint labour-management and multi-stakeholder partnership back the early 1990s, with a mandate to do a better job of reintegrating workers with a disability back into the workplace to in fact develop cutting-edge approaches designed to reduce the socio-economic costs of disability to workers, employers, and society.

    Our mission and our activities are centred around three basic principles and the expected outcomes: to conduct our work in a collaborative way between employers and workers; to reduce the economic costs of disability to employers and society, while maintaining the employability of workers; and of course to build public awareness around the broader issues and challenges facing persons with disability to in effect shift the focus away from disability to ability.

    While we recognize the tremendous challenge persons with disability face when attempting to enter the workplace, our major focus today has been on the return to work of those who in fact suffer disabilities while employed. We're going to say more about it, and how we think the initiative is especially relevant for those with disabilities who are seeking employment.

    With that, I'll turn the mike over to Mr. Camire.

[Translation]

    Mr. Viateur Camire (Director and Vice-President, Human Resources, Abitibi-Consolidated Inc., National Institute of Disability Management and Research): Good afternoon.

    I would like to add to those comments by explaining why it is important to focus on getting people back into the workplace.

    To begin with, a company like Abitibi-Consolidated Inc. tries to reduce the costs associated with disabilities resulting from workplace accidents or other causes leading to short- or long-term disability. The economic side is certainly a constant concern for our companies.

    As a business, we also want to meet our obligations in the area of human rights and certainly to help our employees keep their job and maintain the dignity that comes from being employed.

    The report contains some statistics, indicating among other things that an average of 5% of the Canadian workforce receives long-term disability benefits. If we can reduce that by 20 to 30% through our rehabilitation efforts, we will have a higher proportion of people with disabilities, thereby making extremely important progress.

    In our report, we also mention certain facts about disability management, and I would like to raise some of these.

    Research carried out around the world has consistently shown that organizations with programs designed to manage disabilities are much more open and generally recruit people with disabilities at a much higher rate.

    In many organizations, in keeping with the example of health and safety programs, a joint commitment to help injured or disabled employees sets the stage for reconciling the social and administrative objectives of both employers and workers.

    The statistics also show a drop in the overall rate of hiring for people with disabilities. That has already been mentioned here today. If our workers lose their job connection with their employer, their chances of finding another job are slim to none, since the likelihood of working again after six months of disability leave are 50% . That drops to 20% after one year and 10% after two years.

    I want to come back now to the economic aspect. We also mention in our report that, in 1997, salary deductions totalled $11 billion. That amount is split fairly evenly between benefits for workplace accidents and short- and long-term disability benefits that do not result from workplace accidents.

    Before giving the floor to Brian once again, I would also like to mention that I am concerned, as an employer, by the fact that our population is aging. According to predictions, there will be a lack of skilled labour. Employees with disabilities represent an import pool of highly qualified workers with enormous potential. There is no doubt of that.

    Brian will now talk about certain concrete measures that our institute has initiated.

·  (1310)  

[English]

    Mr. Brian Payne: Thank you.

    In our brief we make the point very clearly that a successful approach to this issue in the workplace is based on a consensus of management, labour, and injured workers, an approach dedicated to putting the workers first. We provide some statistical examples and we list two of those.

    The first example I refer you to is from a paper mill on Vancouver Island, a fairly large facility, where in fact in 1996, immediately after implementing a consensus-based disability management program, we returned 38 people to work who had been off work for an average of 16 months. Think back to those statistics we just heard about the chances of returning to work after a long period of time. Many of these people had been off a long period of time. In the first year this resulted in savings to that employer of $1.5 million. This is very significant, and it's one example. There's another example listed there as well that I won't take the time to take you through.

    In order to achieve success and to continue to advance the interests of disabled workers and employees, our institute has taken several important initiatives. Some of those include significant educational activities, like creating a certificate program for disability managers, which is offered at several well-known universities and colleges across this country, and now also offered online. This program of course is designed to equip and train those who would manage a consensus-based program in the workplace to try to get successful outcomes.

    We've conducted dedicated workshops, again for stakeholders, unions, employers, and providers across the country. The institute was instrumental in developing the first occupational standards for disability management in the world, and also developed the first consensus-based code of practice for disability management in the world. It has also created a disability management audit tool for Canadian workplaces to use so they can in fact measure their performance both in social and economic terms.

    Before I turn it over to Mr. Camire to wrap up, I'd like to make the point that disabled workers are often skilled workers, as he has pointed out. This loss of skills is especially a concern on an ongoing basis, but it is also very much a concern when we're facing a skills shortage in our workplace.

    I have been personally involved with this issue for a long time, not just in my role with the institute, and I firmly believe that the more we can do to encourage workplaces in this country to return their disabled workers, the more in fact we will open up access to others.

    Mr. Camire.

[Translation]

    Mr. M. Viateur Camire: Our recommendations section contains four or five key recommendations to help the workplace develop and implement an active practice of disability management in the workplace. I would like to mention the first two recommendations specifically.

    The federal government, through Labour Canada, should promote and support the adoption and implementation of the Code of Practice on Managing Disability in the Workplace prepared by the International Labour Organization.

    It should also increase Labour Canada's resources to enable it to carry out research on disability management in the workplace and encourage cooperation between workers and employers in this area.

    The other recommendations also deal with increasing and improving disability management in the workplace.

    In closing, Brian and I would like to stress our firmly held belief, which is also supported by research, that effective rehabilitation management for our disabled employees will certainly offer, over the medium and long terms, more room for anyone with a disability. We believe that the workplace will be better adapted and more prepared in general to integrate people with disabilities into the workplace.

    Thank you.

·  (1315)  

[English]

    The Chair: We have been waiting for the representative from the Canadian Paraplegic Association, who has not arrived. We've made calls to the office and can't get anyone there, but we'll continue. We will encourage the association to submit a written submission.

    Our final presentation today from is Gary Birch of the Neil Squire Foundation.

    Gary, the clerk tells me you were originally scheduled to be here at eleven, and because of the large number we had then you agreed to come at 12:30. I want to thank you. I know that meant reordering your own personal schedule and we appreciate your having done that to be with us here today.

    Mr. Gary Birch (Executive Director, Neil Squire Foundation): Thank you very much for this opportunity. I am really looking forward to it. It is obviously a priority for me to be here.

     I am the executive director of the Neil Squire Foundation. We're a national not-for-profit society that works directly with persons with disabilities, primarily through education, technology, and career development.

    I want to acknowledge or concur with a number of my colleagues today who have talked about the importance of putting the comments today in context of a much larger picture, that being the strong need we have for a comprehensive labour market strategy that's going to address the full range of needs of people with disabilities, but I'm going to try to keep my comments today specific to the actual act.

    The key message that I'd like to leave you with today is that for employment equity legislation to work effectively, there must be mechanisms built in so that significant and highly specialized supports can be in place for both the employers and the employees with disabilities. In fact, as it states in section 2 of the act, by giving effect to the principle that employment equity means more than treating persons in the same way, it also requires special measures and the accommodation of differences. I believe you need to invest much more in these special measures and accommodations.

    So the question is, what exactly should we be investing in? Clearly, what we have now is not working. The situation, as I put in my notes, is grim. Other people have talked about that, so I won't go much further, other than to say that I think we all agree that this is unacceptable.

    In the majority of cases, in my experience, I've found employers expect people with disabilities to show up at their workplace ready to fit into rigidly defined job categories. In addition, despite innovative pre-employment skill development programs for people with disabilities, because they have been so significantly marginalized for such a long period of time, they will often require further investment at their work site to enable long-term successful employment.

    I'd like to cite two recent examples that I think illustrate that--and I've made up these names.

    Sam was interviewed recently and hired by an employer who was subject to the Employment Equity Act and who had made it very publicly clear he wanted to hire more people with disabilities. After one and a half days he was fired because he was “not fast enough”. Sam was devastated. Sam really desperately wants to work, and he was convinced that if he had just a little bit more time, he could have come up with a system that would have allowed him to do his work fast enough.

    Knowing both the individual and the requirements of the job, with some simple and appropriate accommodations, supports for both the employer and the employee, this could have been a very successful job situation.

    In another case, Bob applied for a job with another employer who was subject to the Employment Equity Act. This employer had created a very special mechanism to try to fast-track people with disabilities into their organization. Bob got an interview. A few days later he got a call back saying, well, we liked you very much, but you didn't have enough customer experience, service experience, and we were worried about the fact that you were slow getting up from your chair after the interview.

    We know this individual very well, and we also know very well the actual job that he was going after. Bob would have been a great candidate. The employer could have easily given him the customer service experience that he needed, and because this particular job required him to sit most of the time, the fact that it took him a while to get up from his seat, or was slow, was really not a barrier.

    Clearly this employer wasn't nearly as serious about hiring a person with a disability as their PR led you to believe, but I think it goes beyond that. I'll try to explain a bit more.

    So what is missing? In terms of the act, as I said before, investment in these measures needs to be done in a form of primarily comprehensive supports targeted at employers.

    So what do we need? I'm a strong believer that we need to include the traditional types of support--and when I say “traditional”, they're traditional in that I think they're better understood--such as job accommodation and assistive technology. But I think we have to go much deeper. We have to start to address biases and discomforts. I believe much of the problem lies with the fact that we forget that employers are people, and not nebulous corporations or organizations, and that these people cannot help but be significantly affected by their own experiences that have left them with their own biases and discomforts around people with disabilities. This discomfort is understandable, given the exposure and the underlying messages that we are bombarded with in society about people with disabilities.

·  (1320)  

    From a personal point of view, as an individual with a severe disability, I encounter and have to deal with these discomforts and biases on an everyday basis. Therefore, these programs must include a significant component dedicated to identifying the real underlying systemic barriers; that is, helping employers confront their real fears, concerns and misconceptions and showing them what can be done with some creativity and commitment to these individuals. For instance, I was interested to read that Human Rights Commission auditors are often told that workloads are too heavy for people with disabilities. This is a generalization that shows that employers often cannot see the very real abilities that these individuals bring to a job.

    This is not enough by itself. There also need to be long-term supports at the work site, that there is a third party on-site working to ensure all barriers and issues are appropriately dealt with. Typically, as both parties become more comfortable, the level of support can be weaned off. This will result in long-term, dedicated, productive employees.

    My recommendation, therefore, is to amend the act and accommodate the necessary regulations pursuant to the act to make it clear that both government and employers must invest and actively pursue special measures and accommodations, as I've outlined above.

    Turning to timeframe and implementation, the detailed design of this set of special measures would need to be developed within a year through a partnership led by non-government organizations and senior representatives of employers subject to the Employment Equity Act. Once the design is complete, the measures could be immediately delivered to a network of existing highly skilled NGOs provided with an appropriate allocation of financial resources.

    The target for implementation, I think, should be no later than January 1, 2003. I think we really need to hold firm to this deadline or another year will go by. People with disabilities can't wait any longer. Once this system is in place, I believe we'll be in a much better position to get employers to set bold hiring goals and then hold them firmly accountable. There would be no more excuses. Progress on this initiative should be reported back to this committee within two years.

    I thank you very much for this opportunity to speak to you this afternoon.

·  (1325)  

    The Chair: Thank you very much.

    We'll now go into our question and answer round and start with Mr. Elley. Given that we have four groups at the table, perhaps we'll take six minutes in order to leave time for everyone to respond.

    Mr. Reed Elley: Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

    I want to thank each one of you for coming today and speaking very frankly to us about some of your very real concerns about the lack of progress that is being made in this country. We've had legislation for a long time. It's very easy for us to pass legislation and say that takes care of it, then simply ignore it. We can't do that, obviously; we must not do that.

    I have lived for almost 30 years with people who are physically challenged. We have an 11-year-old daughter who's in a wheelchair. She's very physically challenged, but she's the one who challenges me mentally. She's much brighter than I am. So I interact with her on a daily basis.

    One of the problems I see is that we push people into employment opportunities--and we all want that to take place--but very often what has not taken place is a cultivation of the culture we push people into so the kinds of attitudinal changes that must accompany legislation don't happen. We can pass all the legislation we want up here. We can make all the regulations we want, that we hope are followed in the field, but unfortunately, unless there's real attitudinal change on the part of Canadians, our situation is not going to improve. You can have all the watchdogs you want, but at the ground level we must have attitudinal changes that make it easier for this to take place.

    Maybe in the frankness of your observations you could share with us some of the things that you see working, where there are attitudinal changes and why that takes place, and some of the barriers to that taking place.

    Mr. Michael Bach: I concur completely. This is a broader cultural problem, which is why our sense is that the tools aren't in the act to address that cultural problem. If you look at the attitude research, what changes attitudes? Not social marketing. Social marketing can do a little piece of it. So yes, we should have the federal government promote and fund media campaigns that bring valuing images of people with disabilities to the Canadian public. But what really makes changes, if you look at the research, is that someone comes face to face with somebody. They get to know them. They're in a relationship to them.

    The implications of this for employment equity are that people have to be in the workplace. They actually have to be there, if people are going to get to know them and change their attitudes. They're not going to change their attitudes through.... Some employer awareness-raising about their responsibilities under human rights codes will be part of it. But unless we do some other pieces that are going to get people into the workplace, it's not going to change. And as I think many of us here have said, those pieces to get them into the workplace lie outside of this act when it comes to people with disabilities.

    Unless we can take some leadership, as has been suggested, I think, by everyone here, to get some of the other support pieces in place--provisions that lie beyond the realm of this act--either into this act or in a coordinated strategy, we won't get people in the workplace and attitudes will not change. We can't deal with it as a theoretical issue. People have to encounter people face to face.

    The Chair: Mr. Beachell, Mr. Birch, and Mr. Payne, we'll just go one after another.

    Mr. Laurie Beachell: Very quickly, the act frankly only requires employers to report on the makeup of their labour force. It is not an act with any enforcement that requires them to do anything. The commission has had limited resources to be able to do this.

    I agree with Michael's analysis that it is the relationship that creates the change. How we get there is.... At times in fantasizing about what might move things forward, I've wondered about the fact that champions have carried issues forward and brought them to public attention and built support and that we need champions at the federal level who are going to carry that forward.

    The Prime Minister has championed Canadian business abroad. He has taken Team Canada around the world to market Canadian businesses. Maybe it's time for the Prime Minister to have a Team Canada and take those same business leaders to task and get commitment from them to move on ensuring that their labour force is inclusive and to bring them forward for some public commitment so that we have a number of champions moving this forward.

    I don't believe the legislative framework that we have will do what we want. It is jurisdictional issues that are creating problems as well in huge areas, when you look at disability supports, income supports, labour market supports, etc., and how we bring those together in a coordinated way. Our dream is much more than an Employment Equity Act. Our dream is around a labour market strategy.

·  (1330)  

    The Chair: Mr. Birch.

    Mr. Gary Birch: Speaking specifically to changing attitudes, I think we need to get the senior decision-makers in these organizations involved in--I'm not sure what the right word for it is--training where, facilitated by people with disabilities and perhaps others with expertise in this area, they actually have a chance to confront their real fears and biases and work through them. Because I think until you get that out of the way, it's going to continue to come back and clog their thinking and their judgment around how to be treated.

    Clearly once you get people in the workforce who have disabilities, that will help them to start to see the abilities rather than the person with the disability. I think there are models for where you can engage people to really take a look at those issues and help them work through it. I think once you start that and work at the highest levels, then it will start to trickle down. At least that's my best thinking so far.

    The Chair: Mr. Payne.

    Mr. Brian Payne: Thank you. I'll try not to be too long-winded.

    I spent 25 years of my life as a full-time union officer and representative, a big part of that time trying to negotiate better benefits for people with disabilities, in effect to really keep them out of the workplace. A little over a decade ago, of course, realizing that was not the right model, I put some of my experiences to work in a slightly different way.

    As we started to put together what would eventually be the National Institute, we talked about a Team Canada venture. We in fact studied the world's best practices. I personally, along with representatives of the federal government and others, was in some of the world's premier economies, like Germany, where for decades they've done a much different job of dealing with disability than we have in this country. I looked at those issues and I looked at what we weren't doing, quite frankly. We need some watchdogs in the system. There's no question about that. I don't believe we can live without watchdogs.

    But what we've discovered through our initiative is that... There's the old saying that the proof is in the pudding. We have shown over and over again that in spite of previous biases that are firmly held and businesses that are concerned about trying to get more done with fewer people, by reintegrating and accommodating people with disabilities, not only can it be done practically and effectively and on and on, but there are huge dollar savings involved.

    We refer to the dollars. I have to tell you, from the union's perspective, that's sometimes the last thing on our list in dealing with this issue. But we refer to them sometimes because it's just so significant. There is such a short-sighted view taken by Canadian business on this issue that it is incredible. It is tens of billions of dollars being wasted because somebody's afraid to step up and tackle this issue and spend a few hours to do some decent accommodation.

    We're talking about paper mills and sawmills and heavy industry here, where a lot of our members work. We've looked at those practices in German steel factories and places in Australia and others. Around the world, in most of what I'll call robust economies, they're doing a much different and much better job than we are. We are just not on the playing field on this. We have employers in this country who are pulling their hair out over their costs of benefits on the one hand and refusing to look at the short- and long-term cost issues here. We have modern-day technologies with post-war thoughts around this issue.

    We have declining participation rates. There's absolutely something wrong in this picture. It's not just the social thing, which is very important. It is a huge economic issue that is being totally disregarded in our economy, and someone needs to kick-start it.

·  (1335)  

    The Chair: Mr. Tonks.

    Mr. Alan Tonks: Thank you, Madam Chairman.

    I'm going to apologize in advance because I have to go another meeting, but I do thank you all for being here. The deputations, both of the previous deputants and yourselves, have been very insightful, and we thank you.

    When we talk about a comprehensive skills development strategy and we talk about a consensus model and the marriage between employers, employees, unions, corporate organizations, and so on, it's difficult enough to make that model work in a skills requirement area without even looking beyond that in terms of how we can mainstream those who are not part of the job market. I notice that you all talk about a comprehensive skills development strategy. The ingredients are all known, and I think the idea of having a Team Canada to do this is really exciting.

    Probably Michael and Jean-Claude and Parteepan can relate to this, maybe with a little bit of back-up. We have found that the most creative and the most successful programs are community based. We have an HRDC job inventory. You can surf the website and get a feel for how it's constructed. We're supposed to know how to do it in terms of including everybody.

    Is there truly a best available, innovative system at the community base that you've experienced that would help you to match the qualities of the individuals with the job description and that you can know, in advance or from experience, is really going to work? Does that exist? If it does, tell us about it. If it doesn't, as part of this Team Canada approach, how could we develop that?

    Mr. Michael Bach: There's no question it exists. It exists in communities across the country, but it's practice, it's local practice, and I think one of our biggest challenges in this country is moving from practice to policy. One of the other challenges is that the organizations that were doing this in a serious way through the 1980s and into the 1990s have been, as a result of the shifts to the CHST at the same time that we saw devolution and cutbacks, underfunded and are folding up shop.

    So it can be done. There are countless best practice models documents of how this works where you bring employers, the community sector, and government support together with local and regional HRCs to make it work. But we have not moved from practice to policy in this country. We have not taken the knowledge that we have and figured out how to sustain those organizations, because we actually think of those organizations simply as advocates. They're a special interest group trying to get a little bit more of the pie. The consequence of taking that attitude toward these organizations is that we're folding them up and we're actually losing the knowledge.

    The knowledge to do this does not actually lie with employers. It lies in the community. But that knowledge is not funded or valued or recognized.

    Mr. Jean-Claude Jalbert: I agree with Michael.

    I'm from a small town. I'm from Grand Falls, New Brunswick. We have a population of 10,000 people. I can tell you of some projects that we have. For example, we have projects that put people in the workplace and they work maybe 30 hours a week or somewhere around 20 hours a week. It took a long time, but after the employees got to know these persons with a claims disability I had a contact with them and they assured me it's working. We have three with disabilities working there. Every time we see each other and say hi, good morning, how are you, everybody seems to be happy.

    I'll give you an example. I tried to find work for ages and ages. I'm 45 years old. I'm not going to stay home and do nothing. I'm involved with CACL and five other associations. Before I started to get involved and get busy, my blood pressure was high. I was taking 600 milligrams of pills for blood pressure a day. Now I'm involved, I'm busy, and the community is saving money, because now I only take 20 milligrams a day. When you stay home and do nothing it's how you get sick, and your health isn't good because you're always thinking, what am I going to do today, watch TV? I saw that last week. I saw that the week before. It's important that the government give money to the employment and business people to get people with a disability involved.

    One person cannot do it all, but if we're all working together, we can accomplish miracles.

    A voice: Hear, hear.

·  (1340)  

    Mr. Michael Bach: Parteepan, did you have anything to add?

    Mr. Parteepan Rasaratnam: People won't accept me because I have a disability, and it doesn't matter if I have a disability, because different people have disabilities and we have to accept that.

    People with disabilities need a chance to work. If you turn them down, they're not going to have the opportunity to work. And it's not good, because they might think they don't want it. I want the opportunity to work. I have been looking, and I'm not getting anywhere. I really want to work. I need a chance to work, please.

    Thank you.

    Mr. Laurie Beachell: Michael mentioned the Canada health and social transfer. What community organizations, particularly on the community service and social assistance side, predicted as we moved to block funding with no standards or strings attached on reporting was that the cuts would be most severely felt at the community service level, that the investments may continue within health and education to some extent, but the piece that would be most severely damaged was at the community service side. And that's clear.

    At the local level, those organizations that do have the expertise to work with employers, to work with labour union organizations, are now stressed to the point where they cannot meet anywhere near the demand.

    We have seen, as well, huge cuts from the federal level to organizations. In the case of disability, we were told in 1996 we would be defunded by the federal government. We fought back. The government created the Andy Scott task force, travelled across the country, and a new program was created. There hasn't been a dollar increase in that program since 1996. All of the organizations are still working at 1996 dollars, with the fact that air fares have gone from... Opportunities to meet have risen astronomically in their cost.

    So the voluntary sector is under huge pressure at the present time, and unless there is a reinvestment in the voluntary sector, you are going to lose one of the most valuable leadership resources at the local community level. You are in danger of losing that presently.

    Mr. Gary Birch: I just want to echo those comments, the fact that the expertise does lie, I believe, in these non-government organizations that work with and are made up of people with disabilities.

    Speaking to a specific aspect of your question, we work, I think, very innovatively with people with disabilities, helping them to figure out what they need to do in terms of their steps toward getting back into the workforce. You talked about how we match them with employers. We do our utmost to get them ready.

    Those two examples I gave are very good. These were individuals who should have been able to go into those places and do well. But the employers were not ready to take them on, not willing to go the extra mile. That's why I think we have to break down those barriers. We need to do the side we work on, preparing people as best we can to go into those places. But if the employers aren't willing to really make it work, then we have a big problem.

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Madame Guay.

·  (1345)  

[Translation]

    Ms. Monique Guay: I want to thank you for coming before the committee today. I am finding this meeting difficult. We are, of course, talking about people with disabilities and hearing incredible stories... I have seen these things everywhere and heard all sorts of comments. It is not easy, but there are also some success stories.

    Last Sunday, I presided at the opening of a bakery in my riding. This bakery is a job creation project and is run by people with disabilities. They are the ones working there, doing the baking and everything else. There is only one person who is not disabled in the team, and that person is there to ensure that people are doing work that is suited to them and that there are no workplace dangers, et cetera, but the workplace belongs to these workers with disabilities. It is theirs and they are proud of it. It is so important for them to be proud of earning their living, to be able to make ends meet and afford an apartment. These are small things in life that we often take for granted, but they do not.

    So good progress is already being made, but there is so much left to do. Even the Labour Minister, Ms. Bradshaw, said that, of the four target groups, people with disabilities were the one group where no progress had been made.

    Unions have come before us here. You know that the act applies to businesses with at least 100 employees, and these are often unionized workplaces. Perhaps you could give us your opinion on what the unions told us. They said that they were not allowed to play a real role in implementing the act and that they would be prepared to ensure that the act was implemented in companies. I would like to have your opinion on that. It would not be expensive. In many cases, the unions already have resources in place, if we are talking about the FTQ or the CSN. If it is not already being done, would it not be possible to involve them in these issues?

    I really like your idea of having a Team Canada, Mr. Beachell. That would wake up a lot of people.

    Go ahead, the floor is yours.

    Mr. M. Viateur Camire: I would like to make a comment about union involvement. The question has been raised. We are certainly very open in our company to union participation. Union representatives in the workplace are already involved in many cases in what we call employee assistance program committees that serve employees in the units, but we feel that there is social involvement by union representatives regarding not only workplace issues but also difficulties experienced by employees outside the workplace. Through health and safety committees, union representatives are continually involved with employer representatives in the rehabilitation of employees on leave as a result of workplace accidents.

    In his presentation, Mr. Payne told us about the research programs that the institute had initiated. Many of these are development programs aimed at both employer representatives and employee or union representatives. The aim is to train them to identify workplace rehabilitation practices.

    In our workplace, there is a great deal of openness to having union representatives participate in various ways.

    Ms. Monique Guay: When a disabled person comes to a company like Abitibi-Consolidated, which is not a small operation, if he or she is uncomfortable or feels the need to communicate with someone who can represent his or her interests, the union is well placed to do that.

    Mr. M. Viateur Camire: Absolutely. Union representatives have a good understanding of the workplace and are therefore in a position to identify possible opportunities for workers with disabilities.

    The main constraint we have seen over the past six or seven years has been massive layoffs, for various reasons, including the introduction of new technologies in logging operations, sawmills and pulp-and-paper mills. There have been huge layoffs of employees.

    When we have waiting lists of 50, 75 or 100 employees, the employer and the union are certainly focused on giving first priority to employees who have already been in the workplace when jobs come up.

    I would like to add a comment before other people jump in. I really enjoyed hearing the cultural aspect mentioned a few minutes ago. What is happening in our company is that when someone comes back to work that practically everyone thought was not going to come back, we can see the impact. When someone has tried to get back to work and it has finally been possible to do so, that person is very pleased to be back on the job. It has a snowball effect in the workplace. It creates a positive atmosphere and shows that it can be done. It encourages other employees not only to come back, but also to look at various possibilities.

·  (1350)  

[English]

    The Chair: Monsieur Payne.

    Mr. Brian Payne: In our submission and in my comments we referred to our model as a consensus-based model. There are two ways of dealing with this issue in the workplace. One is typically called a claims management model, where employers try to reduce costs. The other is where the parties collaborate on a consensus-based model, putting the interests of the injured or disabled worker first. If there are cost savings, then all the better.

    For me and for our union, we're involved in all kinds of industries and in all kinds of scraps with lots of employers, some of whom we also run successful disability management programs with. We set out to ensure that these programs for injured workers and for disabled workers are seen in the same kind of light as a well-run employee and family assistance program, so the individual does not feel that by identifying their disability or by coming back to work or participating in a program they're going to get their benefits cut off. They have to believe that this is about successful reintegration and not about limiting their claim. There has to be incredible trust and credibility around it.

    Before we ever started to really take this to the workplace we spent a lot of time discussing these issues and looking at the best practices that I alluded to in other places. Where we do that, it's almost indisputable across the land that a well-run employee assistance program, and they're now called family assistance programs as well, produces incredibly successful outcomes for the employee and also huge dollar savings for most employers. They will admit that. So we really need to get our minds into that kind of space when we tackle this problem. It's the person with the disability who is first. The result is going to be huge savings inside the workplace, and quite frankly outside the workplace.

    I just want to make that point.

    The Chair: Mr. Beachell.

    Mr. Laurie Beachell: One of the problems of the reduced dollars to the voluntary organizations, as well, at the local level is the fact that the partnerships we have had in the past with labour and with employers and with other equity groups simply do not function in the same way. When I think back to the early days of discussion around employment equity, there was a real partnership among the disabled community and women's organizations and visible minority groups and aboriginal people around this discussion. Those discussions simply do not happen any longer. As dollars have become tighter, organizations have become much more insular and much more focused internally on their own need. The broader discussion between employers, the labour movement, equity groups, etc., simply is not occurring, as it did in the late 1980s. I think unless the voluntary sector is resourced, it will not occur.

    The Chair: Madame Folco.

[Translation]

    Ms. Raymonde Folco: [Editor's Note: Inaudible] ...a little further the question that Ms. Guay just asked about the unions, but I will perhaps turn to something else.

    Where employment equity is concerned, of course, we all support the moral aspect, but you have also raised the economic aspect. It seems to me that this is an important element when it comes to—I hesitate to use this word, but I will anyway—selling equity programs and improving them for people with disabilities.

    Do you have any statistics? I think that it was the group that appeared before you that said that 75% of people with disabilities are not working, are without a job. There is no doubt that this has repercussions for the economy. If these people do not have jobs, they do not become real consumers. Moreover, they are “living off the rest of society”, as most people would think of it.

    I would like to know whether you can provide us with anything on the economic aspect. What can we give the minister in the way of recommendations to push this economic aspect? You know as well as I do, if not better, that we are living in a society where money talks. It seems to me that the economic perspective has not been sufficiently explored, and I would certainly encourage those who will be helping us write our report to pick up on this point and focus on it.

    In the few seconds remaining, do you have anything to add about the economic aspect of job losses and about this segment of the population that is not working?

·  (1355)  

[English]

    Mr. Brian Payne: Well, it must have been another presenter who talked about the 75% number. It wasn't me. But we presented some statistics in our brief around the costs, and as I pointed out, we continue to raise those, not because that's the union's first priority, but because it is such a huge cost just in the direct side that we can measure in some industries. It's billions and billions and billions of dollars. We continue to raise it, because we're trying to get the attention, because, to use your words, money talks.

    There is a huge cost underlying all of this that people want to ignore. I can understand why. On the one hand, some people, some businesses, think this is complicated so we shouldn't go near it, blah, blah, blah. But at the same time, there's such an economic impact, not just for those businesses, of course, but for society in general. On the unemployed side of it, people with disabilities are not working, but there are also the additional costs and effects spun off from the workplace into society, because they're not there. This is huge dollars.

    There are all kinds of statistics available. I didn't bring them with me today, but certainly our organization has access to a lot of that, not just for our economy in Canada, but for other places as well. It's huge dollars. That's why we keep mentioning it, why we keep trying to tell major employers and major governments around this country that you need to get brave and get your hands around this issue, because there's a huge cost to the current workplace; there's a huge cost to people who are being left out now. There are lots of those stats, Madam. We should use them to the extent we need to to help make the point and move forward, because it is very significant.

    Ms. Raymonde Folco: If you have more of those kinds of arguments, you could send them to the chair.

    Mr. Brian Payne: Certainly we can prepare some additional materials and forward them from our resource. There's no question about that. I'll make sure that happens. Thank you.

    The Chair: Mr. Birch.

    Mr. Gary Birch: We've had experience in pre-employment work, working with individuals to help them get ready for the workforce and then watching them move into the workforce. We've tracked these individuals for well over ten years. Just on a very simple economic analysis, we've been able to show a huge payback to government. That's why I used the word “investment” in my talk today. They have to make an investment, but the payback is huge. I think one of the troubles is that the payback is over a long term, so it's harder for people to see that making the investment now will give them a payback quickly. But in the long term, it gives them a huge payback. I think it can be as high as ten to one.

    And that's just with those who are able to move all the way--I don't like the words I have chosen--into full-time, long-term employment. They alone will pay back that investment by government many times over. That's why this investment in the voluntary sector, in the various supports and accommodations, and all the things we talked about today has a tremendous economic benefit. I think that needs to be part of the argument.

    I also think there's a need for more research. I don't want to slow down the taking action part of this, but I think if we had better research that could document the actual economic benefit, that would be very useful as well. There is one particular area that I think we have always underestimated--and I think one of the speakers here alluded to this. We've always seen a tremendous improvement in the health and well-being of individuals who take part in the workforce. That saves our health care huge amounts of money. I don't think we can even start to measure that.

¸  (1400)  

    The Chair: Okay. I want to thank all of our presenters today. We've heard some excellent information.

    Mr. Payne, we'll be looking forward to receiving the information you indicated you would pass on. Excellent.

    To members of the committee, I thank you. It is now two o'clock, and we are called to the House, so I adjourn the meeting.

    Thank you.