Each Task Force member brought to the table his or her own diverse experiences and learned from the experiences of the others. Nineteen experts were invited to work with us in specific areas and we would like thank all those who contributed so much expertise to our discussions. (They are listed in Appendix A.)

The establishment of our Task Force provided the opportunity to discover how little is known about the specific situation of the groups in our society that are most disadvantaged when confronted with making a transition into employment. During the course of our work, the CLFDB commissioned four research reports that provide important information about the situations faced by women, aboriginal peoples, people with disabilities, and members of visible minorities making transitions. (They are available from the CLFDB and are listed in Appendix B.)

We adopted a holistic approach to our task and examined all of the elements involved in the transition process: labour market information, income support and other support services, education, training, counselling, prior learning assessment, and labour market practices. As a result of lengthy and often difficult discussions, we developed what we believe is a model for a coherent Canadian system of transition into employment. We emphasize the issue of coherence because each of the elements in our model was considered on its own and as a symbiotic part of the whole system. Each element reinforces the others and means that certain issues appear in more than one section, and certain recommendations depend on recommendations made in other sections.

We did not directly address the financial implications of our recommendations, not because we do not think they are important but because no relevant cost evaluation can be made without factoring in the savings that would be gained from getting rid of a transition system that does not work and replacing it with a coherent system.

The first chapter of this report presents the conceptual framework used as our starting point. The second describes the Canadian environment within which transitions occur and the third describes each constituency's views on how transitions work today. In the last chapter, we examine in detail each of the elements that form a coherent transition system and make 71 recommendations arrived at by consensus. The number of recommendations reflects the complexity of our task.