The instruments that are available for the federal government to shape labour market access and supports--the labour market agreements, the labour market development agreements, and the multilateral framework on labour market access for people with disabilities--have potential, but for them to live up to the promise of the convention is going to require stronger federal leadership. It's going to require the federal government recognizing that it's exercising its spending power through these instruments. We believe it can work in a more proactive way with provincial and territorial governments to establish a set of benchmarks for employment-related supports and services and labour market access for people with disabilities that we're not now seeing.
An example is the $200 million flowing through the multilateral framework agreement. As a designated fund it doesn't come anywhere near addressing the labour force exclusion of people with disabilities. Moreover, those dollars are funding the kinds of employment-related services of a very old model. We have dollars flowing through that instrument into sheltered workshops and life skills programs that are not really providing opportunities for people to get into the labour market.
There are some great examples and some good programs, but it has been the case for a long time that the federal government could take stronger leadership in that instrument and in negotiating some targets in both labour market agreements and labour market development agreements for labour market access for people with disabilities.