Thank you.
Just as an additional fact to add to the brief we presented to you, according to the Government of Canada's own report in the year 2005, 80% of all the money spent on disability was spent on income support. We would maintain that this is unnecessary. With the appropriate interventions, that amount can be lessened and more people can become taxpayers.
To conclude today, I'll just tell you a very brief story relating to our first point on the need for awareness of ability. When I was 18, in grade 12, as a young kid with a congenital visual impairment, which means that I have about 10% of usual vision--and I think that 20:20 vision has to be superfluous, because I feel I'm doing fine--I went to our local St. Thomas, Ontario, public library and applied to be a page. They interviewed me, and they were very thoughtful and tried to be sensitive and said, “I'm sorry, dear, but we just don't feel you're going to be able to do this. We need people to put the books away in order, and we don't think you're going to be able to do this.” They hired somebody else. Lucky for me, that somebody else didn't work out. So they called me back in, and they said they would hire me, but I would be on probation.
It was my first paying job outside of babysitting. I in fact did very well at it. I learned all kinds of things. I learned to keep trying. I learned to accommodate myself. My job accommodation was to drag the stool around with me so I could climb up to look at the top shelf to get it in order. The other one was to remain agile so I could lie down on the floor and get the bottom shelf in order. I did fine. I learned all kinds of things there that everybody needs to learn in order to develop a good work ethic, and I was able to do it because I was given a chance.
The awareness of people's abilities in the disability community by employers is really lacking. People don't know how to accommodate. People don't know what to do. So we end up with this pool of qualified people, because the educational attainment of people with disabilities is starting to near the norm, but the unemployment rate is still horrendously high. There is no other sector in which we would put up with that.
I will conclude by saying that if we can do the three things we have suggested in our brief--increase awareness of ability, increase the capacity within the labour market sector to provide accommodation, and focus on youth and make sure youth get the kinds of experience they need--if we can do those things through labour market agreements with the provinces, we'll really see some gains or, might I suggest, a diminishing of that 80% of money spent in this country on simple income support.
If we have more time, we'll say more things, Chairman Allison, but I suspect that we're at the end of our seven minutes.