I'm happy to begin.
Actually, yes, we did work in consultation with experts from the OECD on our research. As a part of our research we examined efforts that a number of other jurisdictions have made toward a capacity-focused paradigm shift.
I would say that the most successful example that we are familiar with as of this time is in Australia. In the summer of 2006, Australia introduced a job capacity assessment, which was an effort to assess people not on the basis of how disabled they are or how much they're unable to work, but instead to look at how much they are able to do. This program is still fairly new, but in an evaluation that was done by Australia's Department of Human Services, along with Centrelink, which is the Australian agency that handles the disability support provision, the first 100 referrals were examined. At the time of referral to the job capacity assessment, over 80% of the recipients were on income support exclusively, with no work earnings whatsoever. After the first 12 months, that figure was reduced to only around 30% of the participants who did not have any income from work.
Additionally, around 70% of the clients had earnings. Some of them were no longer even receiving disability benefits, due to their employment.
We really feel that this is one innovative model that could be examined by Canada. It does show promise in increasing the labour market attachment of people with mental illness and reducing the dependence upon the disability income support system by that population.