National Defence committee  I wouldn't say nothing had happened. It was not going to the speed we needed it to happen. Processes are run to hire folks, and they can take months. They were not expedited, but once we realized that the wait times were too long to staff these, we created a team that would make

National Defence committee  I'm satisfied now that we have removed the main barriers and that we have given this the attention it requires to fill these positions expeditiously.

National Defence committee  In terms of that, it did take a while to get the staffing up to speed, and yes, the factors I mentioned before are the primary reasons. Internally, as well, we realized that because this was such a unique workforce, we needed to stand up a tiger team, to be part of the CMP, and g

National Defence committee  They are.

National Defence committee  I apologize, but I don't have that statistic. I track only the positions that are public servants. I don't know about the Calian contractor turnover.

National Defence committee  I have that. There are six positions required for psychologists. Two of those have been filled so there are four remaining. I have numbers only for psychologists, social workers, mental health nurses, addictions.... I don't have a number for psychiatrists. I have the psycholog

National Defence committee  Let me add that we have several programs in place on the civilian side to support and to look after ex-military folks who want to still stay working within the Department of National Defence. On the civilian side, we have available to them the employee assistance program or EAP.

National Defence committee  I wouldn't say there are any barriers, but we do have the Public Service Employment Act so we just have to follow that. They have to go through the process just as any other folks do. So that's not necessarily a barrier; it's just how we maintain fairness in our employment on the

National Defence committee  Absolutely, there have been some challenges in filling these positions. We'd identified a gap of 54 positions that needed to be filled and we've been working very hard to do that. One of the first challenges is our limited labour market availability of these professionals in Can

National Defence committee  I think our hardest—and it's largely probably due to the wage band issue—are psychologists and psychiatrists. Those are the two hardest areas.

National Defence committee  I am thankful to have the opportunity to appear before you once again in this committee and I am glad that I can provide you with some progress that we've made on those hires since the last time I appeared before this committee. In my previous speaking address on March 4, we sha

National Defence committee  Okay. Nevertheless, more work remains to be done. Since there will be a continued need for mental health professionals due to both future needs and to fill vacancies, National Defence is proactively working on a recruitment strategy. In addition to normal staffing processes and

National Defence committee  Mr. Chair and members of the committee, I'm very pleased to have the opportunity to appear before you today as you continue your important study on the care of ill and injured CAF personnel. In my position as director general of civilian human resources management operations wit

Status of Women committee  I think it means over, but I'll double-check with my colleague, Susan Harrison. I believe it means over our targeted allotments for EE, employment equity.

Status of Women committee  Sure. Thank you, Madam Chair. The strong stance we take against harassment is supported by many things within our organization. Our emphasis always is on prevention. We do extensive training on prevention with all of our employees, as well as our managers. Also, in order to do t