OTTAWA — Advocates are raising concerns that upcoming federal budget cuts and expected job losses in the public service will jeopardize programs intended to hire and promote people with disabilities.

“(Diversity, equity and inclusion) is often an add-on, right? It’s never a core, no matter how hard we try. So usually it’s the first to be cut when times are tough,” said Rabia Khedr, the national director of Disability Without Poverty.

Khedr said people with disabilities often have to overcome significant barriers to get hired. “They have to prove themselves, they have to be a hundred times better than the able-bodied person to shift the hiring manager’s attitudes,” she said.

Linda Simpson is the director and founder of Performance Plus Rehabilitative Care in Ottawa. Her organization prov

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