Human Resources committee  [Inaudible—Editor] an annual plan to the Government of Canada to set out where they plan on spending the money we send to them, and it has to be within the five priority areas. We do have a pretty good sense of where that money goes. Plus, we get an expenditure account where we actually look at where the money has gone.

Human Resources committee  The issue of youth is so consistent across all the research we have studied. We know that integrating people early on in the labour market while they are still in high school, be it persons with disabilities or Canadians in general, has huge benefits later on but especially for persons with disabilities or youth with barriers to employment.

Human Resources committee  LMDAs are a separate transfer, an EI part II transfer. They are supported out of the EI account, and no, there is no dedicated funding or dedicated pot for persons with disabilities. There are just the general eligibility criteria for clients.

Human Resources committee  No, there are no targets within the agreements. The LMAPDs, labour market agreements for persons with disabilities, give a lot of flexibility to the provinces. The provinces get their share of funding, and the idea is that they decide where they would like to invest their funding for persons with disabilities.

Human Resources committee  I'm not aware of that. We're talking about 300 different programs. It's one of those transfers that cut across several departments. It cuts across several responsible ministers, so with regard to targets, I'm not aware that there are—

Human Resources committee  Absolutely. Of course, there are the indicators that the provinces report on publicly. They have their annual reports that they have to publish for their citizens, so it depends on what they like to report to their citizens or what they think is important for their citizens to know about regarding how they spend their funding.

Human Resources committee  There have been stakeholder consultations with employers. What is very much confirmed in the panel report is the idea that workplace accommodation is very expensive. We know that it is not. The majority of workplace accommodation costs range between $500 and $700. It's small amounts.

Human Resources committee  Yes, labour market agreements for persons with disabilities are distinct from labour market agreements. The labour market agreements for persons with disabilities are the ones dedicated to the transfer to the provinces for persons with disabilities. Labour market agreements, they do support under-represented groups.

Human Resources committee  From the program perspective, we do have certain criteria, but when it comes to disability, it's the person self-identifying as having a disability.

Human Resources committee  I see great potential. Again, I'm talking from the program policy area. We're sort of the thinkers. We always look ahead in terms of how we can make our programs better and more efficient and more effective. Certainly, everything we've heard now confirms the idea that we need to get employers a lot more engaged.

Human Resources committee  I can start from the program policy perspective in terms of the importance of employers. I was mentioning that employer awareness activities are very important. It came out in 2008, and was confirmed again by the panel, that employer awareness is very important. In budget 2012, additional funding was provided to the opportunities fund.

Human Resources committee  Yes, they are public.

Human Resources committee  The opportunities fund is a very specific fund. The clientele of the opportunities fund is persons with disabilities who have very little or next to no labour market attachment. When we are talking about episodic disabilities, absolutely they are part of the group of clientele of persons with disabilities who require certain interventions to get them into the labour market.

Human Resources committee  No, you're not wrong. The opportunities fund does have an employer awareness component in it. We actually added that after the 2008 evaluation. One of the shortcomings that came out was that, first of all, the awareness of the program wasn't great, but then also the awareness of the abilities of persons with disabilities wasn't well known, so there was an employer awareness component added to the terms and conditions of the program just because of that fact.

Human Resources committee  To obtain what? Sorry, but I'm having trouble hearing you.