Human Resources Committee on April 23rd, 2013

[Lise St-Denis, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

My question is for Ms. Quillin or Mr. Lucas.

Does the attitude of employers with regard to the integration of disabled people in society vary from province to province? My understanding is that your organization is present in all provinces.

[Judy Quillin]

I don't know that I could comment fairly on that. I don't see any attitudinal differences from province to province. I think all our communities are open, and we don't have more employers per se who are more interested in one area than the other. So I would say no.

[Lise St-Denis, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Okay.

Thanks.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Certainly we've heard that issue of funding and going year to year and that poses some problems, but on the other hand, those who might want to get in on providing a service also want to have that opportunity.

Thank you for your valuable suggestions and sharing your thoughts and insights in this area. We appreciate that very much.

I might mention to our committee that our next panel of witnesses will be the last panel, so keep that in mind. There's one more panel and then the next committee meeting will be with respect to drafting instructions with this study, completing our report, and dealing with some other matters. The deadline for witnesses for the next study will be this Thursday, so keep that in mind. We may discuss it a little further.

Do you want to make a comment now, Ms. Charlton?

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Chair, I'd like a clarification. At the next meeting, we're not doing this report. We're finishing up the last report, right?

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Yes, and we're giving drafting instructions on this report.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

All right. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Okay. So once again, witnesses, thank you very much for attending the committee.

We'll suspend for a few minutes for the next panel.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Order.

Before we get started, I want to repeat my earlier comments that the next meeting won't be with respect to panels or witnesses. We will conclude the apprenticeship report and drafting instructions with respect to this report. We have a Centennial Flame motion to deal with. As well, it is the deadline for submission of names of witnesses for our next study. Keep that in mind if you haven't submitted them yet to the clerk. She would appreciate it if you could submit them.

To our panel, you are our last panel before we issue drafting instructions with respect to our report. Thank you for coming before our committee and in some cases sharing personal experiences. We appreciate that.

Welcome to Alex Masek from the Boys and Girls Club of Ottawa; Meenu Sikand, who will be sharing some personal experiences; and Linda Soulliere, from the Coalition for Persons with Disabilities. We're looking forward to hearing from you.

We'll start with you, Mr. Masek. Go ahead.

[Alex Masek, Senior Youth Worker, Boys and Girls Club of Ottawa]

My name is Alex Masek. I'm 22. I was born in Ottawa and raised in the Overbrook and Vanier area. I was born with one arm, a below-the-elbow amputee.

I work at the Boys and Girls Club of Ottawa. I've been working there for four years. I coach kids. I run a youth council. I do speaking for the Boys and Girls Club.

Other than that, in terms of my past jobs, I worked at the Rideau cinema, a movie theatre downtown. I helped people with their tickets, served food, and opened and closed the building.

I also worked at Food Basics as a cashier. In terms of my experience as a cashier at Food Basics, with my disability, standing in one spot is hard because of the weight on each one of my arms. Working nine-hour shifts standing in the same place is really uncomfortable. I brought it up with them, and asked them if I could do things differently to feel better, to make my job input a lot better, and to benefit everyone else. I was basically told to suck it up and do the job, so I quit. I went to the Boys and Girls Club, where I got to be the role model I wanted to be, to show the kids who they are, to bring out the skills in them to be exactly who they want to be, to help them become the person they want to be.

What I love about the job is that I can show them that I may have a disability, but I can do this and I can do that. They really look up to me. Half the time people don't see me with a disability because it's so natural for me. I think places need that kind of thing, especially when you're working with kids. Kids love to see that you may have a disability but it doesn't stop you.

I find that every organization, whether it works with kids or other individuals, should have someone representing those who have disabilities so that they can have the knowledge and the experience to see that it doesn't matter if a person has a disability, the person can still get the job done or do it a certain way.

I plan on going to school in September for child and youth studies, and later on take my skills to group homes to deal with kids with behaviour issues and possibly kids with disabilities just so that I can get the information out there and help them become the person they want to be.

Regardless of the disability, you can be the person you want to be.

That is basically everything I wanted to say. Thank you for listening.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you very much for taking the time to come before this committee to share some of your personal experience, sir.

We'll now hear from Ms. Sikand.

[Meenu Sikand, As an Individual]

Thank you.

My name is Meenu Sikand, and I have 25 years of work experience which includes paid employment in the private, public, non-profit, and academic sectors. Currently I'm serving as the chair for the Independent Living Centre in Toronto, and I also work for the Region of Peel.

Today's remarks reflect both my lived experiences and my volunteer work with the independent living movement in Canada. This consultation also attests to the fact that Canadians with disabilities and their high unemployment rates are gaining visibility in the Canadian political and policy agenda. Through the chair, I applaud this initiative—it's long overdue—and thank the committee for the opportunity to share my pragmatic perspectives on how to improve the employment situation of Canadians with disabilities.

My experience and my opinion is that any employment agreement is a mutually agreed upon contract between an employer and an employee. I strongly believe that employers have a responsibility; they need to create a barrier and discrimination-free workplace, so people with disabilities can work. I also strongly believe that no employer can afford to hire an employee who cannot guarantee to show up to work each day on time, appropriately dressed, and provide the flexibility to stay late or arrive early if the employer needs them. This is the reality of today's business, so employees have a responsibility to get to the workplace, and I can tell you that most Canadians with disabilities cannot guarantee that simple, basic requirement to find a job.

Without the creation of more freedom of transportation mobility for Canadians with disabilities, they will continue to face high unemployment rates. Canadian employers experiencing labour shortages will be unable to utilize this untapped pool who are able and willing to work.

According to a recent study of the 800,000 Canadians with disabilities who are looking for work, 340,000 have a post-secondary degree or diploma. They are knowledgeable; they have qualifications. Unfortunately, many of them are still unemployed, so we know there is a problem.

You have heard from many witnesses, so I'm not going to talk about the problems.

Speaking as the chair of CILT, an organization run by and for people with disabilities, I'd like to make three recommendations today for your consideration. I believe that implementation of these recommendations will assist all adults who are aging with a disability, as well as those who are aging into a disability. That's another workforce issue which you need to pay attention to and deal with if you want to keep the Canadian economy going.

A key barrier is the inability of Canadians to access the disability support services they need.

The second key barrier is a lack of the accessible transportation they need to get to their employer's workplace. When I say accessible transportation I mean a transportation system that is reliable, flexible, affordable, and is available when it's needed spontaneously—because I talked to you about the employers' need of having a flexible workforce. Let's change the transportation system.

Adequate access to required disability support creates a level playing field for job seekers with a disability. That is a must requirement in order to be employed these days, and allows them to enter into an employment contract the employers are looking for.

My first recommendation is to enable job seekers with a disability to access all Canada-wide employment opportunities by providing direct funds to hire their personal attendant, or other disability services they need, and allow them to manage these support services as self-managers within any Canadian community of their choice. I'll give you some examples that will showcase to you that this is not the case right now.

For example, if a person is needing attendant care and is relying on accessible transportation services, they're pretty much tied to the local community where they live because accessible transportation is provided within a certain jurisdiction, so they cannot do the cross-boundary jobs. The boundaries for jurisdictions are very, very small. It's a small county, or in the case where I live, it's whether you can travel within Peel or whether you can travel within Toronto or York, so there are very, very limited opportunities. Then your disability services are also tied either to your residence or to the province where you live.

I am very lucky to be part of a program called direct funding. It's available in Ontario. That allows me to access funds so that I can hire employees who will allow me to get up in the morning, get to work, and stay late if it's needed. It's a very successful program, but again, it's available within the province of Ontario. Even though it's successful, only 700 people have access to this program. That tells you the limitation of even the successful programs. Given its limitation, it gives people control, portability, and flexibility over their attendant services.

What I'm proposing is to look at ways to make it a federal program or a program delivered consistently throughout the provinces so that people like me have access to all Canadian jobs, not just a job available in Peel, or worse, just in Toronto. We know economies keep changing from one province to another. Alberta is looking for employees. Ontarians are looking to find work, but we cannot move. My family cannot move because they're tied to me, who needs attendant services, and my funding is only within Ontario. Two years ago my husband was laid off, and as a family we were stuck in Ontario. He could not access opportunities available in Saskatchewan, Alberta, or other provinces where the economy is booming. There are a lot of disincentives and there are a lot of barriers that we're talking about.

My second recommendation is to remove financial disincentives or inequality for working Canadians with disabilities or those who wish to work, to provide a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for money that Canadians with disabilities spend on modifying a personal vehicle to make it accessible, or for the money spent on hiring an accessible vehicle for those who don't drive themselves.

Lack of accessible transportation is another significant employment disadvantage that persons with disabilities who are seeking to secure employment in a competitive job market face. To overcome this employment disadvantage and to remain gainfully employed, some individuals with disabilities may buy personal vehicles and make them accessible; however, it is often very expensive to convert a regular vehicle into an accessible vehicle. Basic modifications to adapt a van for a driver using a wheelchair can cost from $10,000 to $45,000, in addition to the purchase of the vehicle itself.

The government does not offer any financial grants to employed individuals with disabilities who are able to drive or be driven in an accessible personal vehicle, even though they may not have the resources to pay for modifications. For many people with disabilities, their net income after paying taxes and such expenditures really create inequality as well as a disincentive to work.

Again, you have to look at today's reality. Employers are not necessarily all in one downtown core. The employment situation is available all across different regions, different localities. If people with disabilities cannot walk to work, cannot go to work, or make the meetings, how do you expect them to be employed? No employer should be forced to hire that group, so you are creating a disincentive.

Some people who can be independent through accessible vehicles are doubly penalized. If the time permits, I can explain that to you later.

I'm also asking you to create a special stand-alone category to hire caregivers specifically trained to assist adults with disabilities through a foreign-trained caregiver worker category, because again, finding caregivers who can take directions for people with disabilities is very difficult in today's market.

As my one last comment I'm asking you as a federal government to take leadership in coordinating that interprovincial role where people with disabilities have access to direct funds and the ability to take funds with them where the employment is.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you for that.

Ms. Soulliere, go ahead.

[Linda Soulliere, Executive Director, Peel Halton Dufferin, Coalition for Persons with Disabilities]

I would like to thank you for the opportunity to speak today and address this important topic. There are three areas I hope to cover.

First, I'm going to give you a short background on the Coalition for Persons with Disabilities and our experience in assisting persons with disabilities to find meaningful employment. Then I'm going to let you know what programs work for our client group, and finally, what gaps we see in service, and what isn't working so well.

The coalition was founded in 1985, and since 1990 has successfully operated Employment Access, a full-service employment service for persons with disabilities. In the initial 16 years, we were funded by several programs under Service Canada, until the labour market agreement downloaded employment services to the province, and I have an opinion about that. At that time, we became an on-hold disability service, where we still remain. As an on-hold service, we don't have access to targeted wage subsidies or client support funding unless we approach a mainstream service and beg them to help us.

We work with cross-disabilities and clients who would mostly benefit from these supports. I think the province had a vision of mainstreaming persons with disabilities but is now finding that the lack of expertise in the area of disabilities and accommodation by mainstream services is problematic.

During the transformation to Employment Ontario, I attended a managers conference, and there was someone from the province who stated, and she clarified this was to be off the record, “Client supports should be spent on those deemed most in need but also deemed most likely to succeed.” I tried to clarify who makes the judgment on who is most likely to succeed, as the majority of our clients would never be voted as most likely to succeed in a competitive market, but with the right supports and accommodations, they can indeed be successful. Over 50% of the clients we work with do move on to employment, and many others who are not fully employed go back to school or volunteer in our community.

Over the years, we have used many of the programs offered by Service Canada to try to fill gaps for our clients. We process opportunities fund skills applications for clients who are not eligible for second career, wage subsidies for clients who are opportunities fund eligible, and we have successfully held the skills link contract and several community coordinator projects. We have just completed two employer appreciation events—one is still in the process—through funding from Service Canada.

I see a considerable gap between the funding available for our clients with disabilities under opportunities skills applications and those who are eligible for the provincial second career application. The cap is 7,000 for opportunities and 28,000 for second career, which limits the kind of secondary education that many clients with disabilities can pursue.

With respect to youth programs, skills link programs are designed for youth, and as such, they are pretty effective but don't take into account the realities of dealing with multi-barriered youth with disabilities. Most of the young people who come to us have been refused entry into a mainstream service as not being likely to succeed and too hard to serve.

In one group of 15 young people were the following disabilities: albinism and low vision; visual impairment; limited literacy and numeracy; autism; Asperger's; Tourette's; learning disability, non-verbal; attention deficit disorder and ADHD; schizophrenia; schizoaffective disorder; bipolar; and depression. Some clients were single parents or in conflict with the law.

Of the 15 who started in this group, 14 completed the program and one had to drop out due to a mental health crisis. Seven started work experience immediately. Later, others went on to work experience. Six finished that group, employed full-time, and three returned to school. The remaining participants are still receiving service with our jobs team. Every client who participated left with valuable skills and experience and a lot more job ready than when they started.

We've been told by Service Canada that in order to boost our results, we need to be more selective—again there's that phrase—and pick only clients we feel will be successful.

This is what many services do in order to meet targets, and clients who have more barriers simply fall through the cracks. Every person who has a desire to work has a right to service. We do not discriminate based on the severity of the barriers. Many of our clients are discriminated against simply because of their inability to speak and be understood. Oftentimes it is the hiring processes themselves that prevent them from realizing their goals.

Online applications for even minimum wage positions are difficult and lengthy, and many clients are just overwhelmed by them. Telephone interviews are often difficult for many of our more non-verbal clients. We need to spend more on educating employers around accommodations and the overall accessibility of their hiring standards. We need to have more resources and time to spend on working on some of the essential soft skills that ultimately increase the chances for success.

Now I'm going to talk a little bit about the gaps in service.

One area where there are very limited services available is for autistic youth exiting high school. We have just completed a two-year trial in the high schools, serving as a resource to guidance counsellors from I believe it was 26 different high schools. We served as a resource to guidance counsellors, co-op teachers, parents, and students in assisting to develop a strategy for students with disabilities.

Perhaps the answer to this—and what we found in trying to bring business on to the co-ops—is to develop more social enterprise that can offer an inclusive and safe environment and build capacity toward competitive employment. Business and funding could partner and fill the gap and provide resources for parents who are afraid of what will happen to their children when they can no longer attend school.

Another valuable resource, the practice firm concept, was originally funded by the Province of Ontario. We operated the only one that was entirely dedicated to persons with disabilities. There are over 6,000 practice firms in operation around the world, and while other provinces in Canada continue to fund these valuable services, Ontario has closed all its practice firms.

The practice firm gave practical work applications to our clients who had never worked and allowed them to develop the skills and confidence to be successful. It allowed them to expand their knowledge of our digital environment and current office equipment and software programs, and develop employability skills that employers could look for. The decision to no longer fund these programs has created yet another gap for our clients.

For many persons with disabilities, the reality is that they have either not worked for a long time or have never worked. The wage subsidy is one tool that assists us in marketing our clients and opening the door, but unless we take time to develop essential skills, it won't keep the client employed.

One of the issues facing our youth is not just finding a job, but finding a career and something meaningful. A social enterprise that is based on green energy, on solar installation, on technology would be exciting and rewarding for many of our youth who deserve more than to think they will only be able to get minimum wage jobs.

Am I running out of time yet?

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

You are at your time limit. If you could conclude, that would be great.

[Linda Soulliere]

Employers for the most part still work under a certain stigma. We need to continue to hold events like the one we did, the inspiring partnerships event, where we had 289 employers attend. Since then we've gotten marvellous feedback. They want us to help them to change their hiring processes to be more inclusive. We need to hold similar events in communities everywhere; in fact, create a road show where you would go from community to community bringing employers together and giving them inspiration. We need to open the conversation with them.

The one area I want to wrap up with is program administration. We use a lot of the Service Canada programs. The most difficult part of administration is the short duration of contracts and having to renew every year or every six months. The contract periods never coincide with our year end or with our staff contracting periods. Sometimes we have 42 weeks; sometimes we have 38 weeks. There's always a gap between finishing one project and getting renewed for another project. It's hard to retain experienced staff.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

I appreciate that comment and we have heard that issue from time to time.

We'll move to Ms. Charlton.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thank you very much.

Alex and Meenu, let me say at the front end, thank you so much for sharing your lived experience. Your personal experiences and those of other witnesses who have come here to do that have certainly enriched our study and made it much more real to us.

Linda, I really appreciate your take, particularly on your last comment—I'd love to explore that further—with respect to the difficulty of dealing with contracts and contract extension and the onerous paperwork. Let me start somewhere else, though.

We've heard from a number of people that wage subsidies are helpful at the front end, to bring people with disabilities into the workplace. I think there are lots of other barriers to recruitment as well, frankly, including how we advertise, how we do outreach, what kind of accommodations are in place.

Leaving the recruitment piece aside for the moment, I want to talk about retention, because what you told us, Alex, isn't that you had trouble getting in the door. You had a job at Food Basics. The problem was—the way you described it, or the way I heard it—there was an employer who was absolutely not willing to make any kind of accommodation to hang on to an employee who was obviously doing his job. You weren't being let go; you left on your own volition.

Linda, you talked about the importance of skills development, about ongoing training so that once you're in the door, you will continue to succeed and grow towards a career as opposed to just a job.

I wonder if all three of you could expand on that a bit. I think we've heard lots whereby you offer employers some money up front, and they bring people in the door, but it becomes a revolving door. Programs end and then people leave the jobs and we haven't really done anything to increase the participation by people with disabilities in the workplace.

I don't know who wants to start.

[Linda Soulliere]

I could start. For our service we do offer wage subsidies, but we also offer post-hiring support. We do have somebody who goes in to the employers and deals with whatever issues arise around accommodations as the employment moves forward. I think without having that post-hiring support we wouldn't have such success in long-term matches.

But you're right. Employers do use the wage subsidy and you have to be able to see if there's a sincere effort to maintain the client.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

In your experience, are there people who use the wage subsidy over and over again, basically for the same position?

[Linda Soulliere]

We have seen that. At that point we will no longer use that employer because we see him as just trying to benefit from the wage subsidy and not having a sincere interest. Most employers are pretty good. We do end up with a lot of clients being retained further on.

The problem when it comes to youth is, because of their total lack of experience, it's not so much a wage subsidy but work experience that they need, with no guarantee of permanent commitment. We just want to see how they work. We want to see if they have the skills they need, and they need to be placed with an employer. The targets for employed after wage subsidy and after work experience are the same, so there's no difference. The work experience is really important to young people.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thanks.

Alex.

[Alex Masek]

I have a question for you. How many people would you know who live off disability? You don't have to answer that. It may be the case that they start out young and they go for a job and then they don't receive support the way they need it or they don't use their best skills to benefit the company so they end up leaving, quitting their jobs, finding the easy way out. Disability is there to help them.

We need more support for youth with disabilities so that they have the motivation to excel, to continue to move up in their lives and be more successful. You would need a lot more help for the people who are starting jobs, rather than people who might be working for a while.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Ms. Sikand, if you have a response, I think time will be up, but go ahead.

[Meenu Sikand]

Legislation plays an important role in making sure that employers have accommodation policies in place and they follow them through. In Ontario we have the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, and that is...the employment standards are trying to take away that practice....

But I agree with Alex that those work experiences are very important. Even when I said to attach disability services to individuals, they should not be stopped by just saying their place of residence, because those support services could be given at the place of work.

Also, if youth are managing their own services, I can tell you from experience that you develop skills because you are employers of your own services and you are managing your own services. The coping skills, the negotiating skills, and the purchasing skills that you develop are invaluable softer skills that will allow you to become more self-sufficient in negotiating with employers on accommodation.

Then, if it is needed that you have to file a human rights complaint in Ontario, go for it, but before that, there are a lot of steps. WIth respect to self-confidence in youth and in others, you can bring it about through some of the programs and initiatives we have highlighted.