TABLE OF CORRESPONDENCES BETWEEN POINTS MADE TO AUTHORITIES BY MR. CHISHOLM AND SUBSEQUENT EVENTS

Links to References 1 to 6 in the table below are at the bottom of this page.

Problem area indicated -or – Recommendation made	Where	Subsequent events
True size and character of the unemployment problem - about 5 million people unemployed in real terms	Reference 1	For Ottawa, R.M.O.C. Chair Bob Chiarelli and others commissioned a study to define it more accurately. Report, Ottawa s Hidden Workforce, released by The Ottawa Partnership (TOP) in Fall 1998. The report found that there were about 145,0000 real-term unemployed within the Ottawa C.M.A. which had a population of about 1.0 million. Of these 145,000 only 38,800 were officially Unemployed according to the standard Labour Force Survey classification.
Need to create new jobs in numbers to match actual size of problem; need to emphasise export-related jobs. About 1 in every 5 such jobs would need to be export-related.	Reference 1	Following release of Ottawa s Hidden Workforce, Bob Chiarelli issued challenge to local business to create 145,000 jobs. In addition, he and others commissioned ICF Consulting to study Ottawa’s economy and make recommendations for how to make it grow and how to manage that growth. Report, Choosing a Future: a New Economic Vision for Ottawa, released in Fall 2000. One of the findings was that about 26% of all jobs were with Economic Generators - companies whose products and services were export-related
Better access to re-training for people unemployed but not eligible for federal U.I. benefits	Reference 1	Creation of Partners for Jobs program in the R.M.O.C. / City of Ottawa to get social assistance recipients off welfare and into paid work
Non-coordination or poor coordination of federal and provincial social programs in Ontario and throughout Canada	Reference 1	Bob Chiarelli commissioned the Caledon Institute to report in more depth. Their report, Survival of the Fittest Employment Policy, was released in April 2000. Solutions for the problems that it reported - and as seen by the author - depend, among other things, on fundamental changes in the organisation of social program delivery at all levels of government and on actual availability of jobs in the numbers required to match the numbers of real-term unemployed.
Ineligibility of most real-term unemployed people for U.I. benefits – in particular, people never able to get insurable employment of any kind	Reference 1	This is a federal government responsibility. Some reduction in overall benefits as of July 1, 1996. However, Reach-Back program, introduced at the same time, extended by 3 years (beyond normal expiration of U.I. benefits) the period in which U.I. exhaustees could still access federal re-training programs such as ON-SITE. This change, whilst positive, does not benefit the self-employed or people never able to get insurable employment.
Ditto	Reference 2	Introduction of Reach-Back program (see above) as of July 1, 1996. This was accompanied by re-naming the former Unemployment Insurance Act to theEmployment Insurance Act”. There were many other changes in addition.
Ditto plus some other issues	Reference 3	Reference 4. – Reply from The Honourable Lloyd Axworthy who was federal Minister of Human Resources Development at the time( March 1994). Since then there have been certain improvements but much remains to be done.
A company can go bankrupt and throw someone out of work before they have the minimum number of weeks of insurable employment before being entitled to U.I. benefits. Benefits will still not be allowed.	Reference 1	This is a federal government responsibility. Still no change in the rules to account for this scenario.
No means for self-employed people to contribute voluntarily to U.I. fund / establish eligibility for benefits. Same problem for individuals forced to work as sub-contractors, for employers wanting nothing to do with government paperwork.	Reference 1	This is a federal government responsibility. Still no change in the rules to account for this scenario.
Non-availability of provincially-funded re-training programs to U.I. beneficiaries, or vice-versa; non-availability of provincially-funded re-training programs to persons categorised as ineligible for provincial social benefits.	Reference 1	This is a provincial government responsibility. Still no change in the rules to account for this scenario.
Failure by the media to report the true numbers of real-term unemployed.	Reference 1	The responsibility is split between the federal government and the media. Government statistics, on the one hand, only explicitly show the number of official unemployed. On the other hand, media reports often deal at length with social problems, relating to the homeless and social assistance recipients (for example), but without any admission concerning the possibility that they got into that position as a result of real-term unemployment and without any admission that they might have been categorised as Not in the Labour Force as a means of obscuring the cause of their problem. Therefore there has been and still is persistent failure by the media to report and analyse the situation correctly. One of the few exceptions to this has been the reference to Ottawa s idden Workforce at the time of its release, by the Ottawa Citizen, in fall 1998.
Mis-leading reports in the media about people who are categorised by Stats Can etc. as ..given up looking for work, ..dropped out of the labour force..,..discouraged workers	Reference 1	No improvement in the situation, with the sole exception of the reference to Ottawa’s Hidden Workforce, at the time of its release, by the Ottawa Citizen, in fall 1998. This was the first and so far only admission in the media concerning the true numbers of jobs required to cure real-term unemployment (145,000 more jobs needed in the Ottawa C.M.A. which has population of about 1.0 million).
Difficulties faced by immigrants in getting work	Reference 1	In Ottawa, Talentworks program set up in 2001. The Partners for Jobs program in Ottawa has been part of this since about December 2001. Other than this, no material improvement in the country generally.
Non-recognition of placements by Ottawa’s Partners for Jobs of people in paid employment, as counting towards the Ontario workfare placement numbers	Reference 5	See also Reference 6. The Ontario government changed the rules, as if in response to the author’s advice to Ottawa s Partners for Jobs team; as a result, the Ontario government recognised that the rules change was in fact protecting their own interests - i.e. that paid employment meant more tax revenue for them, as well as being in the interests of people trying to get off social assistance. Simultaneously, the Ontario government offered the City of Ottawa a bonus cheque which eventually turned out to be $4.1 million – for exceeding the workfare placement target. See Reference 7

Reference 1: Written presentation to Bob Chiarelli in July 1995 when he was still an Ontario M.P.P., in Ottawa

Reference 2: Presentation to the federal Standing Committee on Human Resources Development, during the Phase 1 Public Consultations in March 1994. (by Robert T. Chisholm)

Reference 3: Written presentation to the Honourable Lloyd Axworthy, who was Minister of Human Resources Development, at about the same time. (by Robert T. Chisholm)

Reference 4: Reply from Mr. Axworthy

Reference 5: E-mail to Partners for Jobs team July 13^th 2000

Reference 6: Ottawa Citizen article, March 30^th 2001

Reference 7: Ottawa Citizen article, December 11, 2002

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