Human Resources Committee on Feb. 28th, 2013

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Chris Charlton]

Thank you very much.

I'm sorry, we're going to have to move on to the next round of questions.

Madame Boutin-Sweet.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you for being here, Mr. Haddad, ladies.

Ms. Krassioukova-Enns, I wanted to ask you a question that you had already started to answer.

Can you hear me?

[Olga Krassioukova-Enns]

Yes.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Please finish your answer.

I want to talk to you about social assistance programs that are, of course, in provincial jurisdiction. People on social assistance can get help depending on their physical or intellectual disability. But when they have a job, they can lose that social assistance. So there is no universality of support.

A little earlier, you mentioned minimum service standards from one end of the country to the other. You were just starting to answer that question, but you did not have a lot of time to do so. So please finish the answer.

[Olga Krassioukova-Enns]

I don't have all the data now to respond to your question. I'll try to give you the framework, and at a later time I can provide it.

The main challenge for people with disabilities is in the transition between being off work and going back to work. Very often people with disabilities are the last to be hired and the first to be fired. We know that this group of people will constantly be in transition.

They're not able to address the transition because when they go back to work, they lose their supports, and sometimes they can't be sure that it will be long-term work, that it will actually meet their requirements and their needs. There is a fear among people with disabilities that they will lose support when they go back to work, and then will have to start the whole process of waiting again.

This is the first issue. The whole system of income support has to be addressed together with providing employment opportunities and paying salaries. It should not be diminished immediately when a person starts a job. It should be built into ongoing support. That is one thing.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

How could the federal government help people facing problems like that?

[Olga Krassioukova-Enns]

I cannot say exactly, but I think in B.C. there was one particular demonstration project that was based on looking at longer term or prolonged income support for people with disabilities who had full-time jobs, to ensure that they would not be caught between the gaps, between the silos, when anything happened to their employment.

The federal government, again, should look at and do comparative studies of what worked. Look at how this could be incorporated systemically in provincial policy. See if the federal government will pioneer interprovincial standards for this.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Could employment insurance be part of the solution?

[Olga Krassioukova-Enns]

Sorry, I did not hear what you said.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Could employment insurance be used for that kind of thing?

[Olga Krassioukova-Enns]

Probably, but I don't know. I cannot answer that right now.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Ms. Fletcher Rattai, do you have an answer?

[Shelley Fletcher Rattai]

I do.... Well, I have a thought.

In order to run that through EI, people have to be eligible for EI. I can tell you that in our community, people are not eligible because they're not being employed at all. They don't work enough to qualify for EI.

I also want to say—and forgive me, we're People First, not the most politically savvy organization out there, so I don't know if this is cross-jurisdictional or not—that the number one factor for the people we represent to go to work is the loss of their health coverage. That's very real, and it's very scary for them. People will choose not to go to work because they can't afford to maintain their health.

We also have members who have chosen to go to work and have not been able to maintain their health. One of our founding members actually chose to go to work and died because he could not maintain his health.

This is very real for our members. This is very real for Canadians. Again, that's provincial, so I don't know if federally anything can be addressed around that issue, but I would say that this is among the top three barriers to the population we represent in terms of gaining employment in Canada.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Chris Charlton]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Daniel.

[Joe Daniel, Conservative, Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

And thank you, witnesses, for being here.

Congratulations, Mr. Haddad, for starting a business and being very successful at it. Even able-bodied people can't do that. I'm delighted to see that you've been very successful at doing that.

We did have witnesses at the last session who talked about employment among disabled people being at about 50%. That seems to be an average, but I think in certain disabilities, such as with folks who are blind, it's as low as 20% or 25%, from what I've heard from CNIB.

In addition to that, and talking from the business side, probably about 80% of all the businesses in Canada are small to medium-sized businesses, so employing a disabled person in a business that maybe has 10 to 20 people or something like that is a big burden, in the sense that they're not necessarily making huge amounts of money to be able to support something like that.

My question for all of you is, what do you think the Government of Canada can do to encourage employers to provide opportunities for persons with disabilities?

[Shane Haddad]

I think one thing they could do, for instance, is look at getting the mail out across Canada. Maybe the Government of Canada should look at it like the Olympics training for life. You train somebody in my field to work, they retire as a person working with a disability with the Government of Canada. But they always ask, “Do you qualify?” We always say don't look at our disabilities, look at what we can do. I know a lot of people who could deliver the mail. They know how to read and they have a driver's licence.

[Joe Daniel, Conservative, Don Valley East, ON]

Okay, that's in the public sector. What about the private sector, where you're trying to encourage small to medium-sized business to actually take on somebody with a disability? In a small to medium-sized company, and you've created one yourself, there is a tipping point in terms of how much effort you want to put into that, where hiring someone who is able-bodied....

Should the federal government be putting in some kind of legislation with regard to insisting that people actually take on people with disabilities in small or medium-sized companies? That's kind of the direction I was going in with that question. Does anybody else want to make comments on that?

[Olga Krassioukova-Enns]

One thing we have to remember is that the right thing to do is to hire, to provide opportunities for everybody. It is our responsibility to ensure that the work environment is inclusive. This is just a statement.

There are a couple of things, particularly for private business. Small and medium-sized enterprises are less equipped and they have fewer human and financial resources to accommodate, it's true. But at the same time there are numerous provincial mechanisms that they can tap into.

I'm familiar with some initiatives through, for example, the Chamber of Commerce, where they can access the best practices, or some partnerships with provincial governments where small and medium-sized enterprises can access best advice from human resources at the provincial level, because there is already capacity within the provincial government to deal with this issue, addressing training, addressing accommodations.

Again, they can leave this to be formulated more formally between provincial governments and the private sector to tap into the existing resources.

In Manitoba there is one particular successful example. It's a partnership between the provincial government and school divisions to ensure that young adults with disabilities have access to employment training, internships. This is an ongoing program. This addresses both sides. This provides young adults with disabilities with work experience, skills development, understanding how they are able to compete in a constantly changing open labour market. At the same time it provides them with direct links to private business opportunities. The companies are more responsive to the needs. They have more corporate responsibility in this case. It's successful.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Chris Charlton]

Thank you very much, Mr. Daniel.

Go ahead, Mr. Cuzner.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. You're doing a fine job in your DH role today.

Just so that you get a sense as to where I'm coming from with this particular study on this issue, I had a brother who was a year younger than me who had cerebral palsy. He died at age 39. My mother was a long-time advocate and activist for persons with disabilities.

Back in the days when my brother started mainstream school, they suggested that he go to what I think they referred to at the time as the retarded children's class. I remember the battles my mother had with the principals and school boards and how that sort of evolved. My brother was very high-functioning and had a wide circle of friends as he grew up. He opened up a little store and made some money, owned his own car, had a girlfriend, but didn't get married because he was too cheap. He was wise beyond his years.

So just understand that inclusion, access, and participation were ongoing discussions through our lives and in our household. My sister is the director of a workshop now. I watched my mother's opinion on total inclusion in the school system sort of evolve; the battles that she fought early on sort of evolved over time. Before she passed away, she wasn't as convinced at the end of the day if it was right for everybody. It's almost like an individual case by case thing.

I want to get back to Shelley's comments about the workshop experience. I can understand your comments to compartmentalize and put everybody over here because now we've looked after these guys and we don't have to worry about them anymore. But I know that some of the workshops—and I know one in particular which my sister is the director of—had good success in transitioning and helping support transition.

I'll make one more comment. I just want you guys to comment on the ability of these workshops, because it seems that you're very much opposed to workshops. Could you elaborate on your position on that.

The other thing that she's noticing now with some of the students coming out of mainstream schools, public schools, is that they all have teachers' assistants and they're not life hardened anymore. They're getting their noses wiped, and they're opening the doors and closing the doors sort of thing. I know the neighbours looked after hardening my brother, and his brothers and sisters looked after hardening him, getting him ready for the real world, and so the workshop has been doing.... They spend a lot of time just preparing them to make that transition, but they've had great success.

That was more of a rant on my part, a reflection on my part, I think, than anything, but would you elaborate on your position on the group homes?

[Shelley Fletcher Rattai]

Okay.

I live in a small rural community outside of Winnipeg. In my home town, we have a sheltered workshop. We also have very inclusive schools in my community. Parents will come to me in my community as their kids are starting school and ask what they need to have in place. I caution them on that aide thing. If your child doesn't need a full-time aide, don't ask for it because kids become very dependent on that. When kids transition out of school into the adult world, they hit a brick wall, absolutely.

We've done a great job with inclusive education and I agree with what you say. Inclusive education should be individualized. It should be what the child needs. Not everybody has to be in a classroom because that's the way we say it has to be now. That doesn't work for everybody. I think it needs to be done on an individualized basis.

Particularly in a rural community, and we hear this across the country, it's very difficult to find meaningful employment for people. In my community of 3,000 people, we have a lot of non-disabled people who leave our community because they can't find meaningful employment.

Our thoughts on a sheltered workshop are if people are being paid to do a job that their support staff are making a real wage at to support them to do the job, then so should they be paid for the job. If you're paying somebody and out of a 30-day month they're bringing home a paycheque for $38, I don't know why in this country we are not allowed to call that slave labour, because that's exactly what it is. Somebody is being paid to do a job that a factory worker is being paid minimum wage or better to do and yet, for some reason, it's okay for people with a disability to make less than $1 a day. That's what we're opposed to.

If people are going to day centres or day programs and they are learning skills—and I know at the one I worked at we did that, too.... For people who could, with some skilled training, become job ready and be employable, then, great, we were doing that, but there was a group of people there who I believe could work at video stores. We have people who somebody might see as unemployable, who I know would be the greatest employee because their attention to detail and tasks are beyond anything I've ever seen before.

Did you get where I'm going with that?

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Yes.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Chris Charlton]

Thank you very much. I'm sorry, your time is up.

Thank you very much to all three of our witnesses, Ms. Fletcher Rattai, Mr. Haddad, Ms. Krassioukova-Enns. It's been a pleasure having you here. We've really benefited from your testimony.

I'm going to suspend for a few minutes while you gather your things and the new witnesses take over your chairs. Thank you very much for being here.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Chris Charlton]

I'm going to call the meeting back to order.

I just want to let committee members know that Mr. Bach, the executive vice-president of the Canadian Association for Community Living, was supposed to be with us at the start of this hour. Unfortunately, his flight is delayed. What I propose to do is invite Mr. Beachell and Mr. Nikias to make opening comments. If Mr. Bach joins us, we'll just interrupt the questioning at that time and ask him to make a presentation as well.

First of all, gentlemen, welcome to the committee. I know that you were here for the last hour of our conversation.

Do you have a preference as to who goes first?

[Laurie Beachell, National Coordinator, Council of Canadians with Disabilities]

I'll start, if I can.