The project aims to develop a list of leading companies that have introduced inclusive practices and welcomed their jobs for people with disabilities. The list is shared with employment service providers in .C. to improve access to the labour market for people with disabilities. In Budget 2013, the government announced that it will “expand the Opportunity Fund with current funding of $40 million per year from 2015/16 to provide more demand-driven training solutions for people with disabilities.” 33 The Charter is designed to protect Canadians from discrimination and improve their access to equal opportunities for employment, pre-employment services and appropriate accommodations. In the case of persons with disabilities, such opportunities cannot be denied because of a disability, as this would constitute discrimination. In 2010-11, last year for which data are available, 20,613 scholarships were awarded to students with permanent disabilities for a prize of 38.6 million euros. 36 Enabling Accessibility Fund was created to support projects to eliminate accessibility, improve accessibility and enable people with disabilities to participate fully in their communities across Canada34. and people with disabilities, in order to create new accessibility rules for areas under their federal jurisdiction. The SRDC project focuses on the most frequently cited employment standards in the consultations, which have characterized the development of Canada`s recently passed Accessibility Act as the most important to improve accessibility. The objective of the project is to provide information that will be used to develop work standards for people with disabilities in the workplace, that will focus specifically on recruitment and conservation practices, and that will identify, select and implement compliance and enforcement measures under the CSA`s new accessibility framework. The project includes partnerships with national disability organizations, including Neil Squire Society, Magnet - The Discover Ability Network and the Autism-Intellectual Disability National Resource and Exchange (AIDE), to involve 8 to 10 federal employers in the project`s research activities across Canada.
To maximize its human potential, Canada will likely need to look at groups that are currently under-represented in the labour force. Persons with disabilities are a potentially important source of domestic work that could offset some of the demographic pressure of Canada`s aging labour market and address projected labour and labour shortages.
