Human Resources Committee on March 19th, 2013

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you for that.

We'll now move to Mr. Sullivan.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Thank you to all of you for being here. It's yet another wonderful group of individuals who care deeply about their clients, as you call them, who are really just persons.

One of your topics was the need to reform financial supports. We've heard that from a number of other organizations that have been here, that persons who are on ODSP, and I imagine there are similar programs in every province, when faced with the prospect of a job that doesn't include benefits are faced with a terrible choice. Often they will choose not to take the job because there is no other mechanism to support their need for medical support.

The EI system also isn't very conducive to persons with disabilities, particularly people with episodic disabilities where a person with MS, for example—I'm not sure about the developmentally delayed individuals you're dealing with—has good times and bad, but the EI system does not take that into account.

I'm probably disagreeing with you on all these things. If you want to comment further, that would be great. I'm very pleased to hear of Corbrook's success with the education system. It's too bad there isn't any provincial support for that, but perhaps there can be federal support.

I'm also very intrigued by the app you've created and the ask, which is a pretty simple ask of the federal government, to allow that app to be present on the Service Canada website so employers can have access to accessibility training or accommodation training online. It's really simple.

Can you give us a little more detail?

[Deepak Soni]

The ask was to make that happen with funding from the federal government. Right now we're developing an innovative tool to put on the desktops of HR managers and hiring managers to guide them through the whole concept of how to work with a person with a developmental disability, how to support a person with a developmental disability, how to ask the questions. Right now we're in the preliminary stages of putting this tool together. We have Starwood Hotels piloting it for us, provincially.

I've heard from the business community that there's a strong need for awareness. A lot of times, the training is very generic. It's not specific. People are secluded in a classroom setting, and it's not at all engaging, so we came up with this idea of developing an innovative model that will be easy to access for managers. It will guide them through questions, scenarios, issues that they may face when hiring a person with a disability.

I'm pretty confident, after doing sort of a focus group of employers in Ontario, that there's a huge need. I know this will be a great success if we're able to expand it nationally. We're in an app-driven society now, and I think it's just the next step to have something on an iPhone or whatever to answer those questions. That's where we're going with this. Our first one is the actual model. It's going to be a desktop-based model. Then, if we're able to get support, we will be able to develop it into something nationally in an app-based format.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Would it be exportable to other forms of disabilities?

[Deepak Soni]

Yes. We've partnered with the Geneva Centre for Autism, Kerry's Place, Corbrook, and I'm the chair of the Ontario Job Opportunity Information Network, which is a group that lobbies the business community to hire people with disabilities. There are a number of disabilities that will be included as we grow this forward. That's the goal.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

I understand that your organization, the people you work with, are in many circumstances viewed as completely unemployable—

[Deepak Soni]

Yes.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

—but you in fact turn them around.

[Deepak Soni]

We have.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

I'm absolutely amazed that this is happening. Can you speak a little bit about the challenges, and how long that kind of thing takes from start to finish?

[Deepak Soni]

It depends on the individual, but one thing is for sure: people are extremely motivated and they're extremely geared towards getting that opportunity. It could take from four months to a year for some people, and for other people, it would be a lot less. It depends on the individual.

What we find really works is the concept of having the job developers and the job coaches working side by side at the place of employment, collaborating with the employer and the employee to help educate the employer and provide the confidence the individual needs while working. Our transition-to-work program is a large manufacturing-based environment. We run a workplace environment where people get the chance to get a simulated work environment. People are held accountable. The whole idea is to train folks. It's not the technical skills, but rather the softer skills that are so important, the transitional skills necessary to maintain a person's employment. We guide and coach folks as they go along. Some people coming into the work centre are there for three, four or five years and some are ready within a few months, and we know they'll be successful in moving on. It varies.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you for that response.

We'll now move to Mr. Daniel.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and my thanks to the witnesses for being here. I really appreciate it.

My first question is for Madam Haan. In your statement you said that cleaning up the system and appropriate education for employers is key to the transformation. Can you expand on that and say exactly what you mean?

[Maureen Haan]

Absolutely. There was a very good ad campaign by Viable Calgary that happened a little while ago, and the target audience was employers. It was saying to employers that having somebody with a disability in their organizations was a possibility. They had examples of smokers having to butt out at work. That's a change that we've made and we've evolved to. Viable Calgary is a great model for a large ad campaign like that.

The other thing we would like to mention is to engage employers on a one-on-one level. In Toronto there's an organization called JOIN. and they do that very well. They recognize employers and provide a standard that employers seek to achieve. I think taking that one step further and having the employers be accountable for that status will further the buy-in of the employers. There's nothing better than peer-to-peer encouragement through champions.

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

One of the other things that rests on my mind is that more than 80% of all the businesses in Canada are small to medium-sized. You've talked about people getting engaged and getting jobs primarily in the larger businesses. What are the opportunities you see to be able to educate smaller businesses? How can the government further encourage employers to provide opportunities for persons with disabilities, particularly in this huge market where more than 80% of our businesses are small to medium-sized, where the difference of one person has a huge impact on the business?

It's open to any of you.

Deepak?

[Deepak Soni]

In our experience I think it's working one-on-one with the small to medium-sized businesses. I think there's a myth among a lot of small businesses around the costs associated with hiring folks with disabilities. From our experience with the Centennial College program whereby we have grads who are doing their co-op experiences, 70% of these students are getting their experience with very small employers. I think that once you take the small steps and work one-to-one with the individual employers and they get a chance to work directly with the individual, they really understand it's not that difficult. Then you slowly start breaking down those myths.

As chair of JOIN, the Ontario Job Opportunity Information Network, I have also talked to the Minister of Community and Social Services around developing an ad campaign specifically targeted towards small to medium-sized employers to really highlight the myths around hiring people with disabilities. At more of a micro level, I think it's more about the one-to-one work you do with individual employers, and once the people get a chance to work with individuals it's pretty successful.

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

The other part of the question was what you think the Government of Canada can do to encourage these employers.

[Deepak Soni]

We've talked about marketing media. I think awareness campaigns have worked well. JOIN did a huge media campaign that was very successful in Ontario. We can keep hammering away with those things.

[Maureen Haan]

I would like to reiterate that CCRW really feels the need for a job accommodation fund that is accessible by small to medium-sized enterprises.

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

What exactly do you mean by that?

[Maureen Haan]

Currently we have wage subsidies. It could be taking some of those wage subsidies or job accommodation funding that comes with current funding contracts with the government and reallocating those so that small to medium-sized enterprises can actually apply for this funding directly.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you, Mr. Daniel.

Does anyone else wish to make a comment?

[Johanne Curodeau]

If I may, as a mother, the experience of my son, now that he's been working at Canadian Tire for almost six years, started small. It started in small businesses where he acquired the skills to be able to progress and eventually land a permanent job. It's baby steps, but if we stick together I think we'll get there. What these people have to offer is priceless in terms of the good to the overall community. It's certainly an asset for the companies, as has been our experience. I certainly hope that this committee will be able to open doors to our people who are so ready to be part of the whole workforce.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you very much for that intervention.

Mr. Cuzner, we'll conclude with you.

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

Thanks very much, Mr. Chair.

Maybe what I'll do is I'll ask my questions and then just let you guys finish it up, okay? You can bring us home.

Thanks very much for being here.

Mr. Soni, I wanted to ask you, because it sounds as if you have a pretty neat thing in place with the community colleges, are there sufficient resources there to help train the trainers, to teach the teachers? Is that money coming from the education system or from community services? It would be a provincial thing.

How about you just sit on that one for a second, and I'll get the other two questions in.

This is probably for someone down at this end of the table. You mentioned the growing recognition of the need for reform in supports like EI. Could you comment on some of the changes that have been made and where we should go? I agree with Mr. Sullivan. When you look at episodic conditions such as MS, how do we build that into the system? Could you comment on that?

My final question is on some of the results. On the wage subsidies, what kind of results are there and where can we go to find the measurement on that? What type of success are we having? Is there a place that we should be looking to see where that's being measured, such as job retention? I really like the comment about the job accommodation funding. I'm sure the government benches are paying attention. I saw them making notes.

We'll go back to Mr. Soni.