Disabling Unemployment

Now this is truly incredible. Canada's employment equity laws insist that the public service reflects society at large. Government must undertake to give employment to four designated groups in proportion to their representative share of the population. Thus far three of the equity groups, representing women, visible minorities and aboriginals have been successfully integrated into the public service, reflective of their numbers in society and the general workforce.

But, alas, those with disabilities remain under-represented. Utterly reprehensible. If government cannot accommodate the specialized needs of the disabled, giving them work space and meaningful employment, then how insist that those with disabilities in the general workforce be accommodated? The example must be set, and what other venue more suitable than public service?

Except for the fact that the disabled community does not appear to be stumbling over one another in their anxiety to be considered for available jobs. The aboriginal segment was so enthusiastically applied to that government had to undertake measures to ensure that those who claimed to be of native extraction were truly what they claimed to be, and this eliminated quite a few false applications.

It's a little more difficult to claim disability and not be able to prove it at first sight. Of course there are all manner of disabilities and some may not be as readily identifiable without guidance, as others. Still, applications for employment set aside for those with disabilities are woefully inadequate to the purpose at hand, we learn.

The President of the Public Service Commission bemoans the low recruitment rate of the disabled. She is concerned that unless the trend to fewer applications from the disabled is halted and reversed, the public service will face a problem. Too few disabled workers, not at all reflective of the broader Canadian population.

"We are concerned that the continued low rate of external appointments will have negative consequences for their representation in the public service over the long term", she warned the Senate Committee on human rights. Despite that the proportion of federal disabled workers within the bureaucracy remains higher than that in the general labour force.

At a time when the public service is being cut back because government is attempting to address the problem of deficit-and-debt, it mightn't be a bad idea to open employment to those who qualify professionally, and who are currently unemployed as a result of the lingering recession effects impacting Canada's jobs market.

Government departments, we are informed, must remain vigilant when filling jobs under the pressures related to fiscal restraint and spending cuts; fair and open opportunities must be seen, to be believed. "In a time of fiscal restraint, those values will be as important as ever. There continues to be high interest in public service jobs, but it will be for fewer jobs."

If they cannot be filled by the disabled because there is waning interest in that community, well for heaven's sake, stop whining about it, and give the work that still has to be performed to those within society who are disabled only by the fact that they remain unemployed.