Thank you, Mr. Chair.
One of the other speakers spoke about the choices that people with scarce resources have to make and choices about which kids go to school—ones with disabilities, and maybe boys instead of girls—and that challenge.
The other challenge I want to talk about in terms of poverty, which is kind of the subject of this committee overall.... One aspect of poverty is a lack of understanding and awareness of the challenges that different groups face and seeing them as part of a neurodiverse paradigm, rather than as disabilities, something that's sort of backward, or a gap and so forth.
I think the response is education, and it is overall, even in this country.... My son has a learning disability. In grade 6, I remember the teacher saying to me that I really should not be putting him into the college preparation programs because he wasn't going to succeed. I think it's education that changes that mindset in Canada, as well as in developing countries, and that's an aspect of poverty we need to address. He's in his second year of his grad school in international affairs now, and he did the college programs.
I think that aspect is really critical for us to see this not as something that's special, or as special needs on the side, but as people who have the same capabilities as everybody else but need some level of support to succeed in society.