I think it would be very useful for this committee to do a study on disability that recognizes the significant barriers and obstacles that people with disabilities face.
This is an initial discussion, so we don't want to tie ourselves down absolutely to one direction, but our concern is about the number of studies that have been done on obstacles. In terms of employment, access to education, or disability supports, we have a deep understanding of what the issues are and what the policy recommendations are. If we step back from the fact that we know what the issues are and we know what needs to be done, why aren't we seeing progress, and do we have a way of actually measuring progress? That, for us, is an important question to ask right now. At the federal level, do we have in place the mechanisms to actually measure progress, monitor progress, and report back to Canadians?
We think that aspect may be one of the key barriers to actually moving forward on the kinds of recommendations this committee has made before. Our sense is that it may be a government machinery question that needs to be addressed in the disability file. A study to seek proposals and hearings from parties about what government machinery would be appropriate to make the convention real in people's lives is the area that we haven't studied, and clearly the machinery we've got is inadequate.