Report on Parliament: News about employment and housing
Canada’s Minister of Diversity, Inclusion and Persons with Disabilities, Kamal Khera, recently announced the launch of the Employment Strategy for Canadians with Disabilities. It aims to close the employment gap between persons with disabilities and those without by 2040.
Representing a key action of the Disability Inclusion Action Plan, it contains measures organized around three goals:
- Individuals. Help them find and maintain good jobs, advance in their careers or become entrepreneurs;
- Employers. Help them to diversify their workforces by creating inclusive and accessible workplaces; and
- Enablers. Increase the supply, capacity and reach of individuals and organizations that support disability inclusion and accessibility in employment.
This year marks the fifth anniversary of the Accessible Canada Act coming into force, considered as one of the most significant achievements for disability rights in Canada to date. Khera has allocated $6.5 million in funding under the Opportunities Fund for Persons with Disabilities that will go to seven organizations across Canada. They work with Indigenous, Black and racialized Canadians with disabilities to provide innovative and culturally relevant supports to help increase access to training and improve employment outcomes for members of these communities facing additional and unique barriers.
“The Employment Strategy is about fairness,” she said in a statement. “This is a plan with concrete actions aimed at strengthening our economy and communities so that all Canadians, regardless of their abilities, can succeed in the job market.”
Sameer Zuberi, the Liberal MP for Pierrefonds-Dollard, serves as the parliamentary secretary to the minister.
Mental health
Ya’ara Saks, Minister of Mental Health and Addictions and Associate Minister of Health, states that the government of Canada is committed to helping youth access the mental health care they need, where and when they need it. Last summer, she announced that $59 million was being provided to the Integrated Youth Services Network. This initiative will link together a web of provincial, territorial and Indigenous networks to create a learning health system, where research evidence, data and youths’ lived experiences are used to inform processes, policies and practices to improve services.
Housing
A new monitoring project put forward as a joint effort between the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) and the Office of the Federal Housing Advocate confirmed that people with disabilities are overrepresented in nearly all aspects of inadequate housing and homelessness.
A report from the CHRC entitled “The right to housing for people with dis- abilities: Monitoring framework” states that the situation is so serious that some people are turning to medical assistance in dying, because they cannot access the basic supports and services they need to live with dignity. Data shows that people with disabilities are: four times more likely to experience homelessness; more likely to become homeless due to violence; more likely to live in unaffordable housing; almost twice as likely to live in core housing need (housing that is unaffordable, in need of repair and with not enough space for the occupants); and often living in homes that do not have the physical aids they need.
Mike Cohen is manager, Marketing and Communications with the English Montreal School Board. He is an elected city council member for the city of Côte Saint-Luc, a veteran journalist and takes an avid interest in federal politics.
