Disabling Barriers, Enabling Practices

An illuminating national workplace equity symposium on disability will be offered from January 25 to 27, 1998, in Ottawa, Ontario.

The symposium, entitled "Disabling Barriers, Enabling Practices: Ways of Enhancing Workplace Equity and Effectiveness," is being

organized in partnership with private and public sector employers, labour and not-for-profit organizations.

This symposium is a must for all employers governed by the federal Employment Equity Act (EEA), as well as all stakeholders who have an interest in promoting the elimination of employment barriers for persons with disabilities and dispelling the myths about what these persons can or cannot do.

Studies indicate that most persons with disabilities want to work but may require accommodation in the workplace to allow them to be as productive as persons without disabilities. Studies also show that the disadvantages experienced by people with

disabilities are not as much the direct consequences of their functional limitations than they are the result of disabling environments --including discriminatory attitudes that are

nurtured by ignorance and misconception about persons with disabilities.

The symposium panel presentations will focus on both the legal and the socio-economic dimensions of accommodation -- that is,

employers obligations to accommodate under the EEA, and the various social and economic factors that should be considered when formulating accommodation policies and integrating the principles of these policies into a business plan and in the overall management of human resources.

The symposium will also include concurrent workshops in which participants will tackle specific practical matters of accommodation. Workshop topics will include, for example, how to identify barriers to the employment, retention and promotion of persons with disabilities, how to design an accommodation policy, how to plan and manage human resources, taking into account accommodation issues, and how to establish and foster strategic partnerships with employee representatives and disability/employment-focused NGOs to ensure an effective and efficient integration of persons with disabilities in the work force.

Among the keynote speakers are:

- The Honourable Lawrence MacAulay, Minister of Labour;

- The Honourable Marcel Mass‚, President of the Treasury Board of Canada (to be confirmed);

- Mel Cappe, Deputy Minister of Labour;

- Patrick Watson, journalist and author, and Chairperson of the Canadian Abilities Foundation;

- Lise Thibeault, Lieutenant Governor of Qu‚bec, and former President of the Office des personnes handicap‚es du Qu‚bec;

- Michelle Falardeau-Ramsay, Chief Commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission;

- Kay Stanley, Assistant Deputy Minister, Treasury Board of Canada;

- Joan Westland, Executive Director, Canadian Council on Rehabilitation and Work (CCRW); and

- David Lepofsky, C.M., LL.B., LL.M., Counsel in the Crown Law Office (Criminal) of Ontario’s Ministry of the Attorney General.

The symposium will be held at Ottawa’s Chƒteau Laurier Hotel. For further information, you may contact:

Abdou Saouab or Marie Laporte-Stark

Human Resources Development Canada - Labour

Strategic Policy & Partnerships

165, rue Hotel de Ville

Place du Portage, Phase II, 7th Floor

Hull, Quebec K1A 0J2

Tel.: (819) 953-7494 or 994-0165

Fax: (819) 994-5264

E-mail: [email protected]