Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak on this motion. I congratulate the member for Brant for putting it forward. There are a lot of points to be considered. I know he has done a lot of work in the disability community, so he is probably the proper one to be putting forward this motion based upon his experience in that area.
As our critic indicated, Liberals will support the motion. However, beyond the motion itself, we want it to be a call to action for the Government of Canada.
The report that came out is entitled “Rethinking Disability in the Private Sector”, and the subtext reads “We all have abilities, some are just more apparent than others”.
That is, I think, a remarkable statement. Everybody has talents that we do not see.
I can remember that during my time in the farm movement, when I used to stay in people's homes night after night, I would always find that people had a second talent that was not visible. One farmer whose place I stayed at was an expert in lead glass. He shipped it all over the world. I never knew that until I happened to stay at his house.
When we see people with disabilities, we do not often see that inner ability and talent. Whether they have a mental disability or a physical disability, given the opportunity, those inner abilities and those talents will come out.
There are a couple of things that should be mentioned about that report.
Number one is that there is a business case for employing people with disabilities. It states that there are 795,000 working-age Canadians in that category and that 340,000 of them have post-secondary education.
We hear in this House and we hear in our communities all the time that there is a shortage of skilled workers, a shortage of all kinds of workers, and although we are looking at the business sector being involved in this area, there is a real opportunity to give people with disabilities an incentive so that they have a better quality of life for themselves and can take pride in the work they do.
The other side of the coin is that they can be productive in a job and in the Canadian economy. That potential is pretty good when we look at 795,000 people, with 340,000 of them having a post-secondary education.
The report states clearly that there are myths and misconceptions in the business community about the costs and risks associated with hiring people with disabilities. It claims there are no costs at all in half the cases—I am going from the study—to accommodate a person with disabilities, but that on average the cost is $500. That is a pretty small down payment to get a loyal and engaged employee, as the report talks about.
I have seen people with disabilities in my riding. I know people who, if they could get a job and have the atmosphere and the technology they need to do a job in a productive way, would turn out to be the most faithful and loyal employees any employer could have, as they would appreciate the employer working with them so that they could have the opportunity to work with that employer.
The report, “Rethinking Disability in the Private Sector”, provides a good basis, a good foundation for moving forward.
The motion itself has five sections, and due to time I will concentrate on the last one. It says:
(e) strengthening efforts to identify existing innovative approaches to increasing the employment of persons with disabilities occurring in communities across Canada and ensuring that programs have the flexibility to help replicate such approaches.
There is so much we can do with new technologies. Investments have to be made in many areas to assist the people in the disability community, not only in terms of getting to work but also in terms of having the technology at work to be able to do whatever it is they may be doing.
How do we make this technology work for people with disabilities? I think we have all seen examples. I know one of the bankers I have dealt with was legally blind, but he was still a banker doing productive work every day. He had a computer program that would either talk to him or adjust the print so he could see it.
Just imagine how many people in North America would be helped by technology that assists people who are legally blind. It would help them to be gainfully employed and to be productive in their lives.
I am sure there are other technologies out there that could assist people with other kinds of disabilities. As MPs we go out into the schools, to high school classrooms and others. There is one thing that always amazes me in those classrooms, and that is the personnel who work with the people with disabilities, as well as how the education system, at least in the schools I have been in, utilizes technologies to assist young people with either a mental or a physical disability to learn and to gain their education.
It may take extra personnel, but the technology is improving all the time for these people so that they can gain their education.
The problem is that sometimes that effort, in terms of helping those people with disabilities, stops when they graduate from the school system.
I think the last point in the motion by the member for Brant really goes to that point, that more effort needs to be made to find a way to transfer that technology and to encourage the business sector to utilize that technology so that these people can be productive in their lives.
Let me close with a quote from the title of the report: “We All Have Abilities, Some Are Just More Apparent Than Others”.
This motion gives us the opportunity to work with people to find those abilities that are not so apparent on the surface, and to utilize the technologies so that those people can add to our economy, assist the business community and find a quality of life in their own livelihoods. This motion could give us that opportunity.