Again, your chairman is something of an expert on this particular question.
We're working with an organization, the Canadian Association for Community Living, which has an awful lot of experience in connecting persons with developmental disabilities to jobs, which is why we felt confident in this additional $15-million investment over three years, again through a statutory grant that you find before you in these supplementary estimates.
Yes, I think the experience is very positive.
Let's be blunt. Employers continue to complain increasingly about skills and labour shortages in a growing number of regions and industries of the country. One reason we tightened up the temporary foreign worker program was to say to them that before they look abroad to fill their labour needs, they should look in their own communities at unemployed youth, recent immigrants, aboriginal folks in their region, and at persons with physical and mental disabilities.
There are a lot of great community organizations that are represented by the Canadian Association for Community Living who have years of experience in this. This is a little bit of a boost to them.
My point is that more and more employers realize that if they want to find workers, they have no choice but to make the accommodations necessary to help locally disabled folks get into the workforce. The anecdotal evidence is very strong that more employers are getting involved in this.
There are some real models out there. There are some local franchises, a majority of whose workforce in the service industry is made up of folks with developmental disabilities. These are typically people who bring a wonderfully uncynical attitude to work.