Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Sean Whiltshire, and I work at Avalon Employment. We're an employment service that helps individuals with development disabilities find permanent, long-term, non-subsidized paid work in the community. I make it very clear that these individuals are valued employees in our province and right across our country.
I think you have a great challenge as a committee, but we also have a great many assets we need to build on. One of them is the model for collaboration that we've used here in our province in relation to employment.
For the last twenty years, Newfoundland and Labrador has often been considered the unemployment capital of our country. We're here to tell you that inclusion, community development, and the employability of people with disabilities is foremost on our radar, and we've responded. Now we're going to give you guys an opportunity to take what we define here as a huge success and translate it to other parts of our country.
Poverty reduction starts with inclusion. Inclusion starts with a job and economic freedom. You cannot be free if you're poor. We have to remove the disincentives to work. We have the support programs that are inclusive of all Canadians in all regions of our country, whether they be urban or rural. Is it not better to support an individual with a disability in employment than to term them unemployable, as has happened in the past, disallowing that person from ever gaining full citizenship? We have this going on in our country everywhere, and we need to have programs that make sure people are included.
In our province, we have a unique partnership. Service Canada is a representative of the Government of Canada. Our provincial Department of Human Resources, Labour and Employment and the leadership provided by the Community Living organization have found a way to work within national frameworks and policies that address local labour market issues through local labour market development agreements, because in our province our LMDA is co-managed.
We have the real solutions to local problems, but we use national programs to solve them. That's unique, because very often we hear that there is conflict between provincial and federal government programs. We've taken those conflicts and turned them into assets, and we've allowed people to take their rightful place in the Canadian economy.
Employers see individuals with disabilities as valuable employees and with many skills. People with disabilities are not working not because they can't, but because somebody out there believes they can't—somebody like a parent, a teacher, an employer, or government.
“Leadership” is too often a word that we throw around. Real leadership is about stepping up to the plate and not waiting for the solution to be handed to you, about actually working and challenging government and the community to find the solution that works in their community, accessing all avenues and, may I say, actively operating as a true partner.
One of the concerns that has been present in our province and in our country is what role the non-profit sector plays. We play a role of making sure there are checks and balances in place, of ensuring that there's inclusion, of ensuring that there's transparency, and of ensuring that there's equality.
You guys have travelled across this country for many years as a standing committee, talking about human resources issues. I'm here to tell you today that we've found a partial solution to the social issue of inclusion and equality and the economic issue of shrinking demographics and changing population. Employment, and employment for individuals, is our answer.
Governments across our country are instituting programs and policies that will attract workers to their areas. We see these programs as valuable, but we also have to remember, as my learned colleague said, that we have a population in waiting. Ten to fifteen percent of our population has a disability, and that inclusion in the workforce is something we have never counted. When we consider the skills and talents that are misused because they're not in our Canadian economy, we should be ashamed. Ten to fifteen percent of our population never gets the opportunity to go to work.
For my organization, your work on this committee and the partnership between Service Canada, the provincial and local governments, and the Association for Community Living translates into real jobs: 693 this year provincially, but for my organization alone it will be 63,000 hours of paid employment in this geographic area. Those are real jobs. Those are services that you have had here this week and at this hotel. Some have been provided by an individual with a disability. You may not have noticed, but isn't that the point?
We know we are succeeding because individuals with disabilities have told us so. They want to take their rightful place as contributing members of the Canadian economy.
And finally, employment equity is our society's answer to 100 years of systemic discrimination. People with disabilities did not exclude themselves from our society; we excluded them. It is high time that we took a best practice from the far reaches of our country, our province of Newfoundland and Labrador, and allow you to see some real success. We understand the challenges, but we know that we've been here to meet them before, and we will be again in the future.
Thank you.