Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee. My apologies for being late, but weather conspired against me and the airlines this morning.
First of all, thanks to the committee for initiating this study. We think it's a very important step and in a sense overdue, because we have felt the urgency of this issue. We appreciate the leadership of this committee in taking it on.
I'm executive vice-president of the Canadian Association for Community Living. We're a national association of people with intellectual disabilities and their families. We have 40,000 members, 300 local associations across the country, and 13 provincial–territorial associations. We work in close partnership with the Council of Canadians with Disabilities and also in very close partnership with People First of Canada, which presented earlier today.
I want to start by saying that CACL is fully supportive of the 10 broad messages and recommendations of the Council of Canadians with Disabilities. We've worked closely together over the last number of years to formulate a shared national disability agenda, so we're fully behind and supportive of those recommendations.
Today I want to bring some perspectives on people with intellectual disabilities in particular.
There are in broad terms about 500,000 working-age adults with intellectual disabilities. The usual trajectory for a person with an intellectual disability is to turn 19 and go on social assistance. That's the expectation and that's what happens for people. Generally, one-third of people on social assistance in provinces across the country are people with intellectual disabilities. We think it's time to end that trajectory.
Given Canada's labour force and labour productivity challenges, we think this is a huge untapped labour source. We were pleased to see the recommendations of the Panel on Labour Market Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities in their report, “Rethinking disAbility”, which recognizes the untapped pool. We're supportive of the broad directions of that panel. I want to come back to these in a few minutes.
So we have this group of people with intellectual disabilities. About 30% are in the labour force, but the vast majority spend their lives on social assistance. Why does that happen? I think we need to tackle the multiple sets of barriers that people with disabilities and people with intellectual disabilities face.
One is not getting access to education. Only about 50% of students with intellectual disabilities are fully included in education. They're not going on to post-secondary education and training, even though we have excellent examples of people with intellectual disabilities, even significant disabilities, participating in post-secondary education. Maybe they're not getting high-level academic and technical degrees, but they're getting the social capital that others who participate in post-secondary education are getting, and they're getting training and skills.
In demonstration initiatives in Alberta for post-secondary access—and these aren't special programs at universities or colleges, but are fully integrated into programs—80% of those adults with intellectual disabilities are leaving university and college to go on to a paid job.
So it can be done. Post-secondary education works for people generally. We know there are labour market challenges, but it works for people with intellectual disabilities as well.
There is certainly a lack of access to needed disability supports in the form of personal assistance and sometimes of technical aids and devices. I note in the terms of reference for the study by the committee the recognition that disability supports and services are the jurisdiction of provinces and territories. We fully recognize that, but we also recognize, and it's one of the key findings of the labour market panel, that employers lack effective community partnerships to enable people with disabilities to get into the labour market in their communities. I think that's one of the big pieces the federal government can focus on, and I think there's a mandate for the federal government to focus on it.
The number one strategic outcome in the planning and priorities framework for Human Resources and Skills Development Canada is a skilled, adaptable, and inclusive labour force and an efficient labour market. We applaud the government for stating that as its number one strategic outcome. We believe in it, and we take very seriously the qualifier of inclusive labour force in that strategic outcome. The federal government has said that it's one of our key outcomes. The strategies that CCD have laid out and the recommendations that we lay out in our brief can take us a significant way down that path.
Creating an inclusive labour force for people with disabilities has to happen at the community level. There need to be tools at the community level to address the barriers to school, to post-secondary training, to making sure that people get the individualized supports they need, and to making sure we've got effective transportation systems and that we're linking employers with people with disabilities. What makes that work is effective community capacity.
The problem is we have largely an outmoded service delivery system at the community level for people with intellectual and other disabilities. On the one hand, the labour market services delivery has taken a generic approach, and there isn't the specialization and skills within that generic HR services delivery at the community level to respond to the unique needs of people with disabilities, provide the referrals and the package of supports, and link people up to what they may need.
On the other hand, we have a designated disability employment service system that is largely outmoded. When it comes to people with intellectual disabilities, it's still largely day programs and sheltered workshops, despite the best efforts of some to try to transition out of that really outmoded system. That system basically provides a place for people who are on social assistance to go, to put the plastic on our earphones and things like that, and they're getting paid a couple of dollars a day to do it. We don't think this is the trajectory for people with intellectual disabilities and we think it can be changed. That's going to take the federal government really thinking about how it shapes and attaches some requirements to its investment tools, which are for labour market inclusion of people with disabilities. That's in the labour market agreements, and that's in the labour market agreements for persons with disabilities.
Our view, and this is cross-disabilities, is that there needs to be more proactive effort by the Government of Canada in negotiating those agreements. Right now, the $22 million that's flowing through the LMAPDs is largely going into this outmoded service delivery system. It's not having the impact it should have. The feds are not getting the bang for their buck, despite their number one strategic outcome saying we need an inclusive labour force. We're not going to get an inclusive labour force in this country unless the federal government is more proactive with the dollars that it has. We would really encourage leadership by the Government of Canada in the negotiations coming up to the renewal of those labour market development agreements.
The labour market agreements provide funds to provinces and territories to address the needs of those who are labour market disadvantaged. The bulk of those dollars are going into that generic system that doesn't have the capacity or the expertise to adequately serve people with intellectual or other disabilities. This is why we're very supportive of CCD's number one recommendation, to create a five-year strategic plan, establish a technical advisory committee, and figure out how to do this. At this point, quite frankly, our view is that the feds are wasting their money. It's not having the impact that it could have. We want to be part of the solution to make sure that the investment is resulting in an inclusive and effective labour market in this country.
We have a number of recommendations that are in our brief. Overall, we would recommend that the policy tools and investments by the Government of Canada be guided by what we would call an employment first policy framework. Employment has got to be the first option, the preferred option for people with disabilities. The 500,000 people with disabilities in this country, even with significant disabilities who are on social assistance, could benefit from a more proactive set of interventions. The brief lays out a number of specific recommendations, but we'll leave that for discussion.
Thank you.