I would like to answer the first question. That is, you talk about the stories and that you've heard them for many years. You have, but you haven't heard them from businesses. You've been hearing them from the sector. Business owners want to hear from business owners in a peer-to-peer fashion.
In the last 40 years the unemployment rate for people with disabilities hasn't changed. Percentage-wise, it's been at 47% to 50% since 1970. That hasn't changed. Yes, there have been a lot of reports done. Yes, there have been a lot of committees struck, but every single one of those was sector. This is the first time that the report has actually been business mandated and business driven. This is why the national strategy, when we do get it off the ground, will be business driven and business membership only. Business owners are going to listen to business owners.
I started a program four years ago called the “Rotary at work” program. I'm a Rotarian, and all I do is speak to other Rotarians about hiring people with disabilities. I speak to them as a business owner to a business owner. In the last four years we have found work for 189 people with disabilities—full-time, permanent, competitively paid, meaningful jobs.
Yes, in the past we were probably spinning our wheels. What we're seeing now is a lot more momentum by speaking from a business point of view. In fact, in Toronto, where I'm quite close to many of the community partners, the community partners come to me when they have a new business in town. They come to me as the business champion and say, “Mark, would you phone on our behalf? They'll listen to you. They won't listen to us.” That's exactly what we need to do going forward. You need business champions to step up and say, “Hey, I'm making money doing this. I'm not losing money. It's affecting my bottom line positively.” I think that's the difference now going forward.