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Nathalie D’Amours often spends time at job fairs explaining to prospective employers that they should not expect to receive a wage subsidy if they hire workers with disabilities.

“We’re looking for real employment opportunities for people with disabilities,” D’Amours said, describing the goals of AvenueNB, the organization she leads. AvenueNB is a coalition of 20 organizations that help people with disabilities find work.

“There’s a sense [that] disability is treated as a special case and charity. But we need to really move to normalize it as a diversity, equity and inclusion priority,” she said.

D’Amours is one of several workplace experts who says many workplaces need to do more to prioritize disability inclusion in discussions about diversity.

People with disabilities are often “lumped into” other diversity categories, says Naomi Fraser, a principal research associate at Social Research and Demonstration Corporation, a research organization.

Often, “there’s an overall lack of awareness coupled with stigma,” Fraser said.

Employers are not aware of how to support workers with disabilities. And workers may hesitate to say they have a disability for fear of how they will be treated, she says.

‘Not in the spotlight’

Canadians with disabilities are significantly less likely to be employed than individuals without disabilities.

In 2023, the employment rate for Canadians with disabilities was 47 per cent, versus 67 per cent for those without disabilities. For Canadians with severe disabilities, it was just 27 per cent.

Despite these statistics — and a years-long trend of companies prioritizing DEI initiatives — disability is often not a key part of workplace diversity efforts.

According to one 2020 report, some 90 per cent of global companies have diversity, equity and inclusion plans. But just four per cent of these consider disability as part of their plans.

There is no Canadian-specific data about disability in corporate diversity plans, says Sartaj Sarkaria, CEO of the Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion, a charity that helps workplaces, schools and communities become more inclusive.

“It is not in the spotlight enough in comparison to how many Canadians are affected by disability, whether directly or through family members or otherwise,” said Sarkaria. More than one-quarter of Canadians over the age of 15 report having a disability, according to the most recent Statistics Canada estimates.

Jeffrey Normore, director of digital operations at the Canadian Centre for Rehabilitation and Work, says many employers fear the cost of hiring workers with disabilities. They think accommodating workers with disabilities is expensive, and that workers with disabilities will be less productive.

But these fears are unfounded, he says.

In 2022, just 35 per cent of workers with disabilities requested some form of workplace accommodation, according to Statistics Canada data. The most requested accommodations were modified work hours or duties and working from home. The most commonly requested pieces of equipment were for ergonomic work stations and special chairs.

In terms of productivity, workers with disabilities typically perform as well as their colleagues without disabilities, Normore says.

“It’s not an ongoing cost to accommodate a worker with a disability,” he said.

Many employers are scared they will do or say the wrong thing and unintentionally offend a worker with a disability, says D’Amours.

“It’s just kind of that fear of not being exposed culturally to [how people with disabilities live], and you say the wrong things. You become nervous.”

This apprehension around disability may be understandable, she says. But the overall reluctance to discuss disability as a workplace diversity and inclusion issue needs to change.

“We’ve seen other equity deserving groups — women, First Nations, newcomers, LGBTQ — really move the needle in terms of getting [greater workplace representation]. But with disability, we haven’t moved the needle.”

Slow progress

There are some signs of progress, though.

The Statistics Canada data show the percentage of workers with disabilities with unmet workplace needs has dropped — from 40 per cent in 2017 to 35 per cent in 2022.

In particular, more employers now accommodate requests to work from home. In 2022, 80 per cent of such requests were accommodated, up from 70 per cent in 2017.

Normore says that most companies that work with the Canadian Centre on Rehabilitation and Work also now have accessibility plans. These plans give job-seekers with disabilities information about how to request accommodations or explain how a company includes people with disabilities.

“We’re heading in a good direction,” he said. He noted that organizations are more likely to have accessibility plans if they are covered by federal accessibility legislation or operate in provinces with provincial accessibility legislation.

He thinks it is important for governments to mandate employers learn about disabilities and develop plans to support workers who have them.

But he does not think employers should be required to hire a certain number, or quota, of people with disabilities.

“You can’t mandate or regulate that somebody changes how they think about disability. But you can mandate and regulate that they complete training or that they are developing their plans in consultations with organizations that support people with disabilities,” he said.

“Those perception shifts can happen so that — when they are looking to fill a skills gap in their organization — they are prepared and confident to bring in anyone, rather than having a hiring quota.”

At the Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion, Sarkaria says more companies focus on becoming accessible for customers and staff with disabilities. But companies do not regularly report on how many board members, for example, have disabilities.

But taking action — and not just reporting statistics — is what matters the most, she says.

“You can track, and that’s a starting point,” she said. “But it’s the action that you take after you track [that matters most].”

Universal design

Some industries are taking it upon themselves to learn how to support workers with disabilities.

SkillPlan, a national organization that provides workforce development for the construction industry, has been studying how to make classroom training for apprentices better suited for people with learning disabilities.

This is especially beneficial in an industry where at least 20 per cent of workers are estimated to have a learning disability.

Between 2021 and 2024, more than 1,400 apprentices and pre-apprentices in Canada attended SkillPlan courses. These courses were developed using “universal design for learning,” which means teachers incorporated best practices for supporting students with disabilities into all lessons. Teachers were also trained to recognize learning disabilities and support students who have them.

Nearly 80 per cent of the participating apprentices said universal design helped them learn.

“Inclusive design is just good design. Everybody benefits from thinking about accessibility and inclusion upfront,” said Fraser, at Social Research and Demonstration Corporation, which worked on the project.

Fraser hopes the positive outcomes of these classes inspire more efforts to include workers with disabilities.

“There is just so much potential for continued work in this space. But now it needs to continue to be scaled.”

In New Brunswick, AvenueNB is fostering workplace diversity by teaching employers about how to interact with people with disabilities.

Its online training program, ReThink Ability, covers topics such as not pushing a person’s wheelchair without permission, or realizing that some people who use white canes — the international symbol of blindness — still have some vision.

“What we’re facing is just a lack of awareness of what it takes to accommodate [someone with a disability],” D’Amours said.

“Sometimes it’s not as complicated and as expensive as one might think.”

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