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IDEA-Government of Canada Collaboration

Improving the recruitment, retention, and advancement of employees with disabilities in the Public Service of Canada and beyond.

By conducting research and knowledge mobilization activities and applying the “Nothing Without Us” principle, the IDEA team will provide advice and recommendations to help recruit, retain and advance employees with disabilities across the Public Service of Canada.

Promising practices and evidence-informed resources and tools developed as part of this collaboration will be shared widely, including with not-for-profit and private sector organizations, scholars, and other interested stakeholders.

Project 1 – Access to adaptive equipment and services

Goal: Deliver prompt, effective, and consistent adaptive computer technologies and related accommodation services across the federal public service.

Description: IDEA will provide to Shared Services Canada a cost-benefits analysis of expanding their Accessibility, Accommodation and Adaptive Computer Technology’s Lending Library program across the public service so that all federal employees can quickly and easily access the resources they need.

Project 2 – Human resources specialists with accessibility expertise

Goal: Enhance access to human resources specialists with accessibility expertise for federal departments and agencies.

Description: IDEA will provide to Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) options on how federal departments and agencies could improve access to human resources specialists with accessibility expertise using PSPC’s mandatory methods of supply.

Project 3 – Equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility training

Goal: Enhance content and delivery of equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility training to help accelerate culture change and foster a more accessible and disability-inclusive federal public service.

Description: IDEA will provide advice to the Canada School of Public Service to strengthen their current equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility learning offerings.

Project 4 – Employment benefits packages

Goal: Provide more employment options for persons with disabilities thanks to better formulated employment benefits packages.

Description: IDEA will provide advice to the Office for Disability Issues in Employment and Social Development Canada on the role of employment benefits packages as barriers and facilitators to employment for persons with disabilities. 

Background on the IDEA-Government of Canada collaboration

The Government of Canada has set a goal for the federal public service to become the most accessible and inclusive in the world by 2040. As part of this goal, the public service has committed to recruit 5,000 net new persons with disabilities by 2025.

The federal public service has worked diligently to identify, prevent and remove barriers faced by persons with disabilities since the launch of Nothing Without Us: An Accessibility Strategy for the Public Service of Canada in 2019. While progress has been made, significant barriers remain.

The Government of Canada has partnered with IDEA to work with internal and external partners for solutions that will succeed within the public service, given the complex realities faced by an employer of immense size, with competing legislative frameworks and varying hierarchical structures. IDEA will bring its expertise and unique perspective to the immediate challenge of hiring 5,000 net new persons with disabilities, and to improving the overall ability of the federal public service to continue to hire, retain and advance employees with disabilities in the years to come.

In the medium and longer term, the intent of the collaboration is to help advance the broader change required to achieve a barrier-free Canada and improve the representation of persons with diverse disabilities in the Canadian workforce.

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