Opening Doors to Persons with Disabilities
Ontario Disability Support Program Moves to Help Disabled Find Work
Aug 28, 2008
With the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act and improvements to the province’s Ontario Disability Support Program, Ontario can see an increased participation of persons with disabilities in the paid labour force. Amidst this optimism, however, policy makers in Ontario are warned to proceed with caution.
The Ontario Disability Support Program, or ODSP for short, is Ontario Government’s answer to the portion of its adult population that experiences a substantial disability that restricts them in important areas of daily living. ODSP was put into place as part of a series of social assistance reforms started by the Mike Harris government and passed in 1998. The intent of this program is to provide financial and other types of assistance to persons with disabilities and to differentiate them from people who are ready to engage in the paid labour force, but are unemployed.
One of the unique aspects of the ODSP program is that it does not require an applicant or recipient to prove they are permanently unemployable, unlike its predecessor program under the Family Benefits Act. In fact, a voluntary component of the ODSP program encourages recipients to work part-time or seek assistance with one of any number of contracted service providers that will assist them in job placement efforts.
In November 2006, the present Ontario Government passed a series of reforms that are geared to making it easier for any ODSP recipient to take on employment or start a small business. Earnings are now deducted at a rate of 50% of every dollar earned, as opposed to 75% as it had been in the past. Recipients can be rapidly reinstated to ODSP if their employment does not work out. Once a recipient is employed full-time, and their employer does not provide health benefits, the newly employed recipient can now keep their drug card even though they may no longer be receiving income support.
All of these changes and many others are moving in the right direction; however, members of the ODSP Action Coalition, a provincial coalition of legal clinics, legal professionals, community groups and ODSP recipients, recently published the results of a survey which included ODSP recipients, family members, community organizations and employment supports service providers. While pointing out that many of the November 2006 changes to the structure of income support played a positive role for recipients, a number of concerns were raised about other changes introduced in February 2006 to its Employment Supports Program.
Critics are concerned that the new fee for service model that only compensates an employment agency once it has successfully placed a recipient in a job for a period of thirteen weeks or more encourages many providers to rapidly place participants in “the first available job”, while failing to provide pre-employment vocational supports that many people with long-term disabilities require before re-entering the labour force. This encourages service providers to admit participants on the basis of economics, as opposed to needs and personal attributes.
For example, it was found that two groups of participants were particularly under-serviced: those requiring significant pre-employment supports and experiencing multiple barriers to the labour market, as well as surprisingly, those with advanced education and training who would be seeking jobs above the entry-level component, but just need employer accommodation and support. While the survey was informal in nature, it does mirror many of the concerns analysts are having about the restructuring of the labour market.
