National Defence committee  Right on. Outside of that system, I don't know; we'll get back to you with the data. But the answer to the question that was raised here is important; I think this is fundamental. The question was posed by a member of the committee who said “I don't think any employer would hire

National Defence committee  I believe the phenomenon, if you want to call it that, happens across and in any sector to ensure you have the best people for the job that's available.

National Defence committee  We'll get the data to the committee, but I'm just kind of hypothesizing here. My sense is the number right now is higher than it was in the past, given that we've never had such a demand for class B folks. This is the challenge: operational tempo, the baby boomers kind of moving

National Defence committee  All those Treasury Board policies.

National Defence committee  There's a potential danger in calling class Bs “contracts” and taking the Treasury Board contracting policy and applying it. It doesn't fit. But in speaking to that, I think all the principles still are very sound, and at the end of it all, we are expected to ensure that we're op

National Defence committee  Yes, you could leave the position vacant. That's the first thing you could do. The second thing—

National Defence committee  Technically, you could. The other thing you could do is take somebody who is actually in the area and make them take the position and be the “acting director”, or whatever it would be. But you could hire somebody, send out a three-year.... In essence, it's hiring people for wor

National Defence committee  No, it won't.

National Defence committee  Monsieur le président, I will just answer different parts of the question. First, it comes back to the definition of the words “continuing full-time service”, because if you look at continuing full-time service, I come back to my explanations regarding people who occupy perma

National Defence committee  I would agree. Going back to the first part of the question, when you look for parliamentarians, the key is to look for people with expertise. You're all chosen by Canadians for your expertise and knowledge. I would take the same application and apply it to hiring folks for cla

National Defence committee  Thank you for that question. What does happen--and it's tied into the previous question--is that in the course of the Treasury Board regulations, you have to take a break. You'll hear folks who are in class B service say they are on their break period. During that point in time

National Defence committee  The short answer is yes, they would. Especially someone in senior ranks would, because senior ranks, especially here in Ottawa, are very visible, very prominent. They would be, and it would be brought to the attention of those who would be hiring them. At all rank levels, gaming

National Defence committee  I think committee members should be comfortable on two accounts. One, the current structures, policy, and process machinery in place is in place to ensure it is fair and that there is effective oversight. And we are even more confident that we are moving to something even better,

National Defence committee  Agreed.

National Defence committee  Thanks for that great question. We actually had three pilots ongoing. The first was a medical pilot, with a trial in B.C. We wanted to reduce the number of medical doctors and physicians needed in the recruiting system. We ran a pilot, and it was successful. We paid a number of