I'm going to have to skip through a whole bunch of stuff here. Maybe I'll move on. It's fairly long, although we call it a brief. Let me go to the heart of the matter.
The federal government has a variety of programs and supports for persons with disabilities: the labour market agreements with the provinces that provide about $500 million in transfer payments, the opportunities fund. There is skills link, which is a program that supports youth and about 17% of the participants in skills link are youth with disabilities.
I have six recommendations here: that the federal, provincial, and municipal governments encourage the hiring, retention, and promotion of persons with disabilities across all sectors of the Canadian economy, including the disability supports or accommodation required to enable Canadians with disabilities to be successful in the workforce; that the federal government strengthen support for post-secondary study through the Canada student loans program, particularly the Canada student grants and other measures such as repayment assistance for persons with disabilities to ensure that more Canadians with disabilities are able to access post-secondary education; and that programs like skills link be enhanced to support more youth with disabilities.
There are two more: that federal government should continue to work with provincial and territorial partners to ensure that financial aid programs are delivered in concert to best support the post-secondary studies of students with disabilities; and finally, to reiterate a recommendation of the Council of Canadians With Disabilities to the HUMA committee last year, that:
...there should be a specific strategic investment or investments for youth with disabilities—that is, persons 18 to 30 years old—to support the transition from school to work so they don't become permanently detached from the labour market.