Thank you.
In addition to being at the Institute for Work and Health, I'm a co-director at the Centre for Research on Work Disability Policy. I'm also an associate professor at the Department of Economics at McMaster University.
We've heard from the others here about the definition of episodic disability. There's no widely accepted definition that's easily operationalized. This is one of the things we found in our research: It can vary on a daily basis, on a weekly basis and over longer periods of time. Sometimes it really has a lot to do with the context. In this case, the context is the work environment and how accommodating it is. The key message we get from our stakeholders is that one size doesn't fit all. It's really important that the work environment be flexible and be tailored to meet the needs of different people with diverse types of episodic disabilities.
In my field research, one of the pieces we've been doing is a project for the Mental Health Commission of Canada on accommodation best practices for people from what they describe as “the aspiring workforce”, people with serious mental health conditions. What we found was that depending on the work culture and the quality of the work relationship, it may be very risky for workers from the aspiring workforce to disclose a need for workplace accommodations, particularly if the disability is stigmatized. In the case of mental health, it often is. They often rely on the supports available to all employees, such as flexible hours, the location of work and various kinds of leave. These are what we describe sometimes as universal supports that don't require disclosure of the individual to their supervisor or manager. Employers, including the public sector, can often provide universal supports as a way for people to self-accommodate.
Currently I'm developing, with the CSA Group, a Canadian standard for work disability management systems. What we find is that in general, employers lack the skills on how to accommodate workers with disabilities. They find it even more challenging to address invisible and episodic disabilities. There's really a need for skilling up employer abilities, and the standard is one way of doing that.
They often have fear, ignorance and an inability to see past irrelevant characteristics to focus on the talent and skills of the worker. We're building up disability confidence and creating a culture of inclusivity as a key aspect of the standard we're developing.
It's challenging for employers to deal with the multiplicity of programs as well. That's a really big problem with them. There are many programs that provide supports, but they're not very flexible and they're often not very conducive to supporting episodic disabilities.
I'm also undertaking a pan-Canadian partnership strategy on disability and work in Canada. Maureen is part of that. We recently had a two-day conference, yesterday and the day before, held here in Ottawa. Its launch pad is a UN convention and the federal legislation, Bill C-81.
We framed it around four pillars that we think are important for a pan-Canadian strategy.
The first of the four pillars is the strategy about disability confidence, much like our standard, which is focused on that as well.
The second of the four pillars is about comprehensive supports. One of the things that's really important is changes to existing income-support programs that might enable people with episodic disabilities to exit and re-enter the labour force as their work capacity fluctuates. It's really important to think about some of the definitions that restrict that ability to easily enter and exit, and to seek the supports when you need them.
Much of the policy arena on labour and disability supports, as you may know, is at the provincial level. That really limits the capacity at the federal level to make changes, but there are some efforts through the transfer payments from ESDC's opportunities fund. Possibly there's some way for those transfer funds to put more emphasis on employment supports for persons with disabilities.
Thank you.