Video: Mark Wafer speaking at an EmployABILITY event
NDEAM Excerpts
MARK WAFER (owner of 7 Tim Hortons’ Franchises)
My wife Valerie and I own seven Tim Hortons’ franchises. Fifteen years ago we hired Clint Sparling, our first employee with an intellectual disability, and he is still with us! After that success, we have hired more than fifty people with disabilities.
I understand many of the myths that people with disabilities face when trying to find work. I was born partly deaf and faced my share of barriers to employment. Canada spends over 3 billion dollars to have people with disabilities stay at home. The truth is that 16% of the Canadian population is disabled—the equivalent of the entire populations of Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan—and 70% of those are unemployed. People with disabilities want to work. Many employers think people with disabilities are going to get hurt on the job or not work diligently. This is simply not true. As employers we have never had a WSIB claim on any of our disabled employees, and while the average tenure for most of my employees is 1.3 years, it is seven years for my employees with a disability. Educating employers on those benefits is the most important thing that we can do.