Labour Market Agreements for Persons with Disabilities (LMAPD)

General Information

Human Resources Development Canada

Partners include all provinces.

April 1998

Five-year bilateral agreements to March 2003.

http://www.hrdc-drhc.gc.ca/hrib/sdd-dds/menu/home.shtml

EAPD's objective is to provide funding for provincial programs and services that help working age adults with disabilities prepare for, find, and keep employment.

Under bilateral agreements, the Government of Canada contributes 50% of the eligible costs incurred by the provinces for programs/services funded under EAPD up to the amount of the maximum federal allocation identified in each bilateral agreement. Canada has allocated $193 million to this initiative.

EAPD implementation includes development of, and discussion with provinces on: Guidelines for Determining Eligibility for Cost Sharing; joint federal-provincial work on accountability including data definitions; data collection issues; development of the annual report template; and evaluation options. NHQ and the Regions work closely together.

EAPD represents a fiscal transfer to provinces for programs and services that they provide to enhance the employability of people with disabilities. Provinces are responsible for the design and delivery of programming, while the federal government works with provinces to determine eligibility of programming for funding and on accountability issues, including joint planning and information sharing, results reporting and evaluation.

The EAPD annual report is the public reporting mechanism and it will describe the respective roles and responsibilities of federal and provincial governments.

There are a number of initiatives to clarify roles and contributions such as Disability WebLinks and In Unison 2000. Since 1996, when the First Ministers identified persons with disabilities as a collective priority for social policy renewal, there has been growing recognition that this is a shared responsibility, as evidenced in the 1999 report by the disability community, "A National Strategy for Persons with Disabilities: The Community Definition".

The public Website referenced above also reflects the roles of both levels of government.

Resources

Funding is based on equal contributions from the province and the Government of Canada. In each year of the five-year agreements, the Government of Canada will contribute 50% of the eligible costs incurred by provinces for programs/services funded under EAPD up to the amount of the maximum federal allocation identified in each bilateral agreement. The maximum total federal input to the initiative is $193 million per year.

As outlined in the bilateral agreements, Canada provides monthly advances on account of the maximum federal contribution to the Provinces for each year of the Agreement, based on financial projections received from the Provinces. The Provinces update these projections on July 15, October 15, December 15, and February 15 during each year of the Agreement. Within 365 calendar days after the end of each of the fiscal years of the Agreement, the Province is to provide an annual statement of eligible expenditures for programs and services certified by the Provincial Auditor or a designated auditor acceptable to the Parties.

Expenditures will be reported on in provincial EAPD annual reports as well as in a national annual report, the first of which will report on fiscal year 1999-2000 and is expected to be available in 2002. (Quebec's first annual reporting year is 2000-01).

Annual reports will be available in hard copy as well as on the website of the Office for Disability Issues, EAPD: http://www.hrdc-drhc.gc.ca/hrib/sdd-dds/odi/content/eapd.shtml Provinces may make their provincial annual reports available on their own provincial sites.

The Government of Canada has signed bilateral agreements with all provinces under which it provides funding for a range of provincial programs and services related to employment for people with disabilities. Other outputs include joint (federal/provincial) planning documents, annual reports, and evaluation reports. The key outcome commitment is to help people with disabilities prepare for, attain and retain employment. EAPD emphasizes accountability and federal/provincial governments jointly developed the results indicators.

The four results indicators common to all bilateral agreements include:

1. Number of people actively participating in programs and services.
2. Number of people successfully completing programs and services.
3. Number of people employed as a result of a program participation.
4. Number of people sustained in employment in the case of vocational crisis.

Federal and Provincial governments are working on data collection issues so that all provinces will have the capacity to report on these indicators in EAPD annual reports.

The Multilateral Framework on EAPD outlined the criteria to be used as the primary indicators and provinces negotiated which indicators would be included in their bilateral agreements. The 4 indicators common to all bilateral agreements are listed above.

At this time societal indicators are under development at the federal interdepartmental level.

A federal/provincial evaluation group oversees the evaluation component of EAPD.

Based on an Evaluability Assessment and the interests and evaluation capacity of the provinces, evaluation activities to be undertaken in 2001-2002 include Promising Practices and bilateral activities such as case studies. Provinces are choosing the activities in which they will participate.

The federal government held national consultations with the community of people with disabilities during the developmental stages of EAPD; provinces have consulted with people with disabilities during EAPD's implementation period; accountability to the public will be via EAPD annual reports and evaluation reports.

Agreements require provinces to provide annual statements of provincial eligible expenditures for programs and services. These statements include the federal and provincial contributions for those expenditures and shall be certified by the Provincial Auditor or a designated auditor acceptable to both parties. EAPD was the subject of two Auditor General's Reports in 1999.

As indicated above, evaluation activities for 2001-2002 include Promising Practices, where provinces will identify and assess up to 15 best practices per year over three years. The bilateral agreements commit the provinces to sharing and making public their evaluation findings.

Information on outputs is publicized via news releases, Internet Web-sites, provincial documentation and publications about EAPD funded programs and services. It will also be included in annual reports.

EAPD results will be reported on in annual reports; evaluation outcomes will also be public documents.

The federal government held national consultations with the community of people with disabilities during the developmental stages of EAPD. Provinces, often in conjunction with HRDC regional officials, have consulted with people with disabilities during EAPD's implementation period. Accountability to the public will be via EAPD annual reports and evaluation reports.

Provinces report at federal/provincial meetings on their consultations with the community. In terms of reporting to the public, the EAPD annual reports will include information on consultations.

Programs are provincially designed and developed, thus provinces are responsible for the eligibility criteria for their programs and for making them publicly available.

Service commitments too are provincial obligations. It is also a provincial responsibility to publicly communicate service commitments.

These are provincial responsibilities.

Agreements require provinces to ensure that people with disabilities have access to independent dispute resolution procedures for appeals with respect to eligibility for employability assistance under EAPD. This is a provincial operational responsibility.

Provinces are also obliged by their bilateral agreements to make people with disabilities aware of the dispute resolution mechanism.

This is a provincial operational responsibility.

The EAPD agreements specifically require that the programs supported by federal funding under the Agreements be in accordance with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (and therefore would necessarily respect the mobility protections contained in the Charter).