Thank you very much.
Good morning. My name is Maureen Haan. I am the President and CEO of CCRW. I want to thank you very much, first of all, for having me here and for giving me the opportunity to provide some supplemental information related to the employability of Canadians with episodic disabilities that I've witnessed over my last six years with CCRW and over 25 years of direct involvement in the disability community.
First I'll talk a bit about CCRW.
We are the only national charitable organization with the sole mission of employment for persons with disabilities. With a history of 40-plus years, CCRW has been successfully promoting the employment of jobseekers with disabilities across Canada, as evidenced by the 73% success rate seen in our 2016-17 funding year.
CCRW has successfully connected and dually focused on jobseekers with disabilities and employers to ensure local hiring needs are met. With eight successful program models across 15 Canadian communities, CCRW has implemented a range of successful employment programs, thereby shifting the unemployment rate needle away from the charity model towards the business case model for hiring a person with a disability. For the last six years, I have been proud to serve as the president and CEO, and I strive every day to further our mission of promoting and supporting the meaningful and equitable employment of people with disabilities.
As successful as we have been, it has not been without challenge. Oftentimes we are asked how we define “disability”. As you know, there are multiple definitions that can conflict with each other and often lead jobseekers with disabilities to wonder whether they have a disability and whether they count—that is, can they access employment services and are they eligible for additional supports, whether it be for income or otherwise?
Finding the answers can be arduous, as programs often use differing definitions and criteria to determine eligibility. Episodic disabilities pose unique challenges by their definition. For example, an illness that has sporadic and intermittent symptoms that fluctuate with little warning can create a disability for the individual during the flare-up. With an aging population, we see an increase in the number of Canadians who are living with visible and invisible episodic disabilities, including MS, arthritis, cancer, HIV/AIDS, diabetes and some forms of mental illness.
One key distinction that I want to highlight is the notion of unpredictability. An episodic disability is marked by fluctuating and unpredictable periods and degrees of wellness and disability. In addition, these periods of wellness and disability are often experienced differently by individuals even with the same medical diagnosis, making it almost impossible to form generalizations across disability type.
An employee’s unpredictable labour force participation can consequently pose challenges for employers and work colleagues alike. At best, this fluctuation often leaves employers unsure as to how to accommodate; at worst, it can leave them questioning the authenticity of an employee’s disability. We have heard many stories at CCRW from clients with episodic disabilities who, while they were at work, experienced co-workers who were unsupportive and even jealous of the accommodations received. Having a nationally accepted definition of “disability” that includes episodic disabilities would provide common ground for employees with intermittent work capacity and their co-workers and supervisors to have an open and honest conversation without fear of reprisal or stigma.
Policies to date have historically focused on static forms of disability that, relatively speaking, make it easy to develop, monitor and evaluate policy and changes over time. With episodic disabilities, though, evaluation becomes significantly more complicated and poses challenges for stakeholders of varying forms, including community agencies tasked with developing and providing employment programs and services to this underserved population.
Program eligibility issues can further complicate matters and raise issues of subjectivity and fairness regarding who gets to access services, by whom, and under what conditions. Who decides whether a person's disability qualifies them to access such services?
As the severity of a person's episodic disability symptoms is likely to fluctuate, a person must become adept at advocating and at navigating social service systems and programs, which will likely exacerbate symptoms related to stress and anxiety.
For example, worries around losing access to subsidized housing or access to drug plans during periods of wellness become heightened. For this reason, episodic disabilities must be recognized within the larger definition of disability and accounted for when designing resulting programs and services, including income support program eligibility.
At present, definitions and criteria used by provincially based income support programs differ widely and often leave people with episodic disabilities unsure of whether they qualify for benefits. On a federal level, “temporary” is often used to describe employment insurance eligibility, whereas “severe and prolonged” phrasing is used when describing CPPD, Canada pension plan disability, and it should be noted that both of these programs have a return-to-work or a vocational rehabilitation component in the services. The question then remains of where people with episodic disabilities fit in. Their symptoms are often temporary yet chronic, and can be severe and prolonged over a lifetime. With the real shift in disabilities as historically labelled, people with episodic disabilities often fear having supports clawed back with little or no warning, or ineligibility being determined prematurely and unfairly.
Accounting for the ever-changing nature of episodic disabilities is important when designing income support programs as well as return-to-work or vocational rehabilitation programs, to ensure that people are encouraged to remain engaged in the workforce, thus creating a win-win situation benefiting everyone.
Expanding and accounting for those with episodic disabilities within the legal definition will ensure fairness and equality with regard to accessing services and implementing policies, and will ultimately produce a positive outcome for all.
I thank you very much for your time and look forward to your questions.