My name is Bob Wilson, Mr. Chair, and I'm representing Peter Nares, executive director of Social and Enterprise Development Innovations, or SEDI.
SEDI is a national charitable organization focused on assisting unemployed and lower-income Canadians to become self-sufficient through self-employment and assets and savings initiatives. Today we will present the need for what we believe is increased federal support for self-employment for Canadians with disabilities.
As the committee knows, labour market participation by people with disabilities is significantly lower than that by the mainstream population. Because the most effective federal government employment support programs are tied directly to people's attachment to the labour market and the EI system, many people with disabilities are ineligible and are therefore underserved.
Self-employment is an important part of the Canadian labour market, with almost one in every six people working for themselves. Similar to the situation in the mainstream, self-employment is increasingly becoming a choice of unemployed Canadians with disabilities.
For unemployed Canadians, federal government support for self-employment is provided primarily through the EI system. Self-employment has been shown to create self-sufficiency and therefore savings to that system.
The self-employment benefits program has led to a network of community-based business development agencies that have the capacity to provide self-employment instruction and business counselling to the mainstream. However, only about 4% of SEB participants are people with disabilities, and many agencies lack the more specific skills to serve them effectively.
While doing so is not for everyone, there are many people with disabilities who have the spirit of enterprise to start a small business. The pursuit of self-employment is also an employment option that provides flexibility and promotes meaningful skills development for people with disabilities.
There is growing recognition on the part of government, disability, and business development organizations that self-employment is a viable option for people with disabilities. Through federal and provincial funding, organizations like ours are developing innovative but somewhat isolated programs. For example, SEDI is developing a self-employment network for disability and business organizations serving people with disabilities and an accessibility website to inform small businesses in Ontario about the new disability legislation. Despite the important work of these initiatives and mainstream delivery networks, there is no concerted national, pan-Canadian plan to support people with disabilities who are pursuing self-employment.
In order to give people with disabilities the same access to support services as other Canadians have, we believe the committee and the federal government should take the following action. We recommend that the committee identify access to self-employment as a labour market opportunity for people with disabilities. We recommend that the federal government recognize that a lack of both national supports and a pan-Canadian plan for self-employment for people with disabilities are problems that the federal government should seek to address and provide a remedy for. Also, the committee could go as far as suggesting that self-employment for people with disabilities become a recognized and ongoing requirement of the programming provided under the federal-provincial labour market agreements.
In summary, the committee should recommend that the federal government begin consulting and working with community organizations that have experience in providing self-employment services to people with disabilities in order to identify best practices and develop a resource base for organizations working to increase access to self-employment by people with disabilities. The goal should be to establish a program that provides services similar to those under the self-employment benefit program but dedicated to people with disabilities who are pursuing self-employment.
We would like to thank you for this opportunity and your time.