Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you so much to the witnesses for being here today.
I have a sister who has a disability. The challenges that I feel she faced as an adult were in housing, mobility—she was in a wheelchair—and then the opportunity for employment.
As far as housing is concerned, our government has spent $13.1 billion on housing in Canada and $1.7 billion for 605,000 units. It's a big challenge. There's a great need there, but we definitely have started and have worked with the provinces to fund housing on a greater scale than there was before. Also, in our economic action plan we allocated $2 billion for housing.
That is the first area.
It's hard to talk about employment opportunities without linking the rest of this. Mobility is one issue which, as I said, my sister had. She was fortunate enough to have the Easter Seal bus come to pick her up and take her to work. I'm not too sure what they have in other provinces.
I want to talk a little about accessibility, the ability to get to the job, and then once you're at the job.... There were certain things she needed in the washroom for mobility, and there are other needs in the workplace.
The question I want to talk about now is what funding there is for those types of things, to help the employer and then also help the employee. Not everyone can jump on a bus. Even if it is wheelchair accessible, there are other issues.
I would like to throw this issue out to you.