As a single parent who lives with disability, perhaps I can also address this on a personal as well as professional level.
Thank you for your comments, first of all. I'm really grateful to hear your comments. As a community of persons with disabilities, we feel the government has left us. I'll be very frank with you. I guess that's partly a response also to Jean-Claude's comments. But we do feel deserted. As a single mother who lives with disability, who has re-entered the workforce, there are really key issues that I, as well other people, face. The first is, again, that workplace being ready to accommodate the woman who needs to re-enter for education purposes, but also the person with disabilities and what that means.
The number one question I kept receiving from the employer was “You're not going to sue me, right, if this doesn't work out?” So right away we know there's an education problem. First of all, I think they think we're America and you can actually make money by suing people. Right away, I tell them this isn't Law and Order. But what I do want to say is that we understand that we need that education piece in place. I say--locally, it's a Maritime thing--the fish stinks from the head. It means nothing but it means everything: if we do not educate at the top, whether it's our federal government leaders or our business leaders, then that information will simply come down.
I've been to two different banks. One company owns them, but the culture in each of those banks is determined by the manager. One manager did not want certain things to happen, whether it was tellers that sit down because they have lower back issues or a different disability. The next bank, same ownership, absolutely had every teller in chairs. So it's a culture; there's a culture that we have to educate. And we can even go back to your comment of what we might do to change this. We do exactly some of the recommendations that you've heard today, recommendations such as having a commitment to developing a working committee in which we bring together different levels of government and business to begin the consultation of developing and mapping out an employability strategy that includes all the players. We do that because we have to start at the top.
We also recommit to our communities of individuals, at this table and beyond, who feel the federal government has left the building. They checked out of the hotel; the room is empty; we can't find them. That is a feeling that really exists among individuals, as well as agencies such as ours.
We know we're doing the work we can do with very little money, but if we do not educate the employer and the co-worker, who may not understand why this person was brought in at level two, who in the government office was level one, for reasons perhaps to do with their disability or other issues and there's a resentment.... Managers own that as well. We must start at the top. We must educate our government in the language and the action around integration of all minority groups, and that language and that integration and that education must come down, much like the fish starts at the head.
For that, I think your comments are on the money, and we're so grateful to hear them from you. We want you to know that we believe that through consultation, bringing in all these key parties, we can change a mindset and a way of thinking that has to change. We can also recommit to the community who genuinely feels that the federal government has pulled out.