Para athletes share employment successes and challenges

OTTAWA – If there is one thing Mac Marcoux, a Para alpine skiing Paralympic champion, probably learned as a high-performance athlete, it is to never give up and to capitalize on your opportunities.

The 27-year-old visually impaired Marcoux is currently the Coordinator, Athlete Engagement for the Canadian Paralympic Committee, his first foray into the administrative world since he capped a wildly successful career after the 2022 Paralympic Winter Games.

October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month, and for Marcoux it is a time to acknowledge the importance of ensuring accessibility in workplaces and the inclusion of persons with disabilities in the Canadian workforce.

Despite his skills as a builder, Marcoux’s hopes to land employment in manual labour proved more challenging than expected.

The personable Marcoux couldn’t have found a better launching pad than his current role with CPC. It involves direct communication with other athletes.

‘’I’ve been having a blast,’’ he said. ‘’It’s been a revelation to share similarities and differences from my career with other athletes.’’

As for the trades, it is still a work in progress for employers to feel confident with people with a disability.

‘’It’s not as much as a vision impaired person can’t do those jobs, it’s more the apprehension surrounding hiring somebody with a disability, especially in the more blue-collar markets,’’ Marcoux said.

Dominic Frappier

Like Marcoux, Dominic Frappier is filled with positivity.

A football and track and field athlete for the Université de Sherbrooke Vert et Or team, he had just graduated in kinesiology when he broke his neck diving into a lake which left him tetraplegic.

That didn’t stop him from pursuing his goal to work in sports administration. He is currently Coordinator, Paralympic Performance & Services with CPC.

“I never back away from a challenge, every day for me is a challenge so that’s an advantage for me,” said Frappier, injured in 2019. ‘’Being an athlete, adversity doesn’t scare me, and I always look for the positive behind each situation.’’

Frappier was determined to find a job that matched his skills and his knowledge.

‘’Basically I met as many people as I could and applied for jobs on my own.”

Frappier mentioned that the shift to work from home has been a positive outcome from the pandemic for people with a disability.

‘’When you’re handicapped one of the toughest aspects of working is the travel to the office,’’ he said. ‘’Transportation can be difficult and sometimes the office is not fully accessible. Your home is completely adaptive.’’

Rob Shaw

Originally from North Bay, Ont., two-time Paralympian wheelchair tennis player Dr. Rob Shaw currently works in Kelowna, B.C. for Mitacs, a leading industry-research collaboration with UBC and SCI British Columbia that implements new evaluation tools to monitor the impact of peer support services for persons with spinal cord injury.

Shaw says employers need to broaden their horizons when it comes to hiring people with a disability.

‘’People with a disability can provide some unique insights to your organization,’’ said Shaw, who has a PhD in Health and Exercise Sciences at the University of British Columbia.

‘’There is also evidence that hiring someone with a disability stimulates workers’ performance. The financial barriers such as changing structures to your building are not real either.

‘’Give them a chance, give them an opportunity to see what they can do for your company, just like any other applicant.

‘’All we want is to be treated as equal.’’

Leanne Taylor

Winnipeg’s Leanne Taylor capped a super season at the 2024 Paralympic Games with a bronze medal in the women’s Para triathlon wheelchair division.

Taylor’s situation is different from Shaw, Frappier and Marcoux as she was already working with her current employer before her bike accident in 2018, which left her paraplegic. She works at Medicure as a compliance officer.

‘’It’s a challenge for anybody with a disability to go into an interview and they have this aspect that an employer is concerned with,’’ she said.

‘’This is what this month is about: helping employers realize that disabilities don’t decide what a person’s able to do in the workplace.’’