Bill C-27 (Historical)

Veterans Hiring Act

An Act to amend the Public Service Employment Act (enhancing hiring opportunities for certain serving and former members of the Canadian Forces)

This enactment amends the Public Service Employment Act to provide increased access to hiring opportunities in the public service for certain serving and former members of the Canadian Forces and to establish a right of appointment, in priority to all other persons, for certain members of the Canadian Forces who are released for medical reasons that the Minister of Veterans Affairs determines are attributable to service.

Veterans Hiring Act

[Sylvain Chicoine, NDP, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question. I will first answer the question he asked at the very end, and then I will come back to his other comments.

This definitely can help veterans but, as I mentioned, not in the short term or the medium term. With all the cuts made in the past few years, and those still to come, I find it hard to see how we can help veterans in the short term, since the public service has been gutted.

Of course there will be new hiring processes in the medium to long term. At that time, veterans will indeed be able to rely on the hiring priority to find a job in the public service. Furthermore, being aware of the hiring priority, they can find a new career and perhaps even learn new skills before the five-year deadline.

The parliamentary secretary spoke about the Auditor General's report. Unfortunately, we are looking at it through rose-coloured glasses, as it is a damning report for the government with respect to several issues concerning veterans. In particular, it mentions wait times that are far too long because about 1,000 positions have been cut at Veterans Affairs Canada in recent years. Consequently, the processing of veterans' cases takes much too long, and veterans do not receive the services to which they are entitled in a timely manner.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I find it interesting that the member from the Conservative Party would stand and challenge the member from the NDP who just spoke and suggest that he was politicizing this debate by talking about how little may have been done and then would do the very same thing himself by highlighting one very tiny pebble of congratulations the Auditor General may have extended to the government, among a mountain of criticism about the failure of the government to properly and in a timely way provide mental health services to the most needy veterans, those suffering from mental health conditions. Let us put this in perspective.

Having said that, I had the opportunity to be at Wainwright for four or five days and then on the HMCS St. John's for four or five days, and I can say that our service men and women, both at Wainwright in the military and in the navy on the HMCS St. John's, have incredible skills that could be translated into the private sector.

One of the things I asked the government to do was invest in a proper skills translator, instead of just offering people jobs that really do not exist, because of the hiring freeze, and find ways to identify people's skills and move them into the private sector. However, it did not want to do that. It is just another incident that suggests that this is all window dressing.

I am wondering if the hon. member can comment on that.

[Sylvain Chicoine, NDP, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question and for the work he does on the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs. He is a huge asset to that committee. When this bill was being studied, he proposed several amendments that were rejected out of hand.

My colleague is correct. The government is all smoke and mirrors when it comes to veterans affairs. For months, it repeated that it had invested $5 billion to help veterans since it came to power, even though that was untrue. It was $4 billion, since $1 billion was diverted and returned to the treasury. We could have used some of that money to hire staff to help veterans or military members who are struggling with service-related mental health problems.

The National Defence and Canadian Forces Ombudsman mentioned many times in previous reports that about 100 medical employees were needed to help people struggling with mental health problems. However, as we are seeing today, the government simply said that it would accept the recommendations in the report, but then it turned a blind eye to the issue. The government simply looks the other way and avoids the problems.

The government has shown in many ways that it has no regard for the mental health of veterans and it is not interested in helping them deal with this issue . The Auditor General's report today made it very clear that the way this government treats veterans is absolutely disgusting.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for the outstanding work he has done on this issue and as part of the committee.

In drafting this bill, the government did not consider putting the entitlement period on hold while the veteran is going through the appeal process.

What kinds of problems will that pose for our veterans?

[Sylvain Chicoine, NDP, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for her very relevant question. The entitlement period is one of the many issues with this bill.

Some military personnel who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder are not immediately recognized as having a service-related injury. They are not granted the right release status when they return to civilian life. Sometimes, they have to launch an appeal with the veterans board so that their injuries are recognized as being directly related to their service.

When it take veterans two or three years to obtain that decision from the board, in very rare cases, they can go back to see the national defence minister, who can amend the reason for release. If it takes three or four years for the reason for release to be changed, there is only one year, maybe two, left in the priority hiring period. That can cause problems. The veteran is at a disadvantage because his or her entitlement period is shorter than that of veterans whose injuries were immediately recognized upon release.

It is shameful that there was absolutely no desire to change that in committee. These people will have only one year or two to take advantage of their priority job placement in the public service, if they need it.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, with the consent of the House, I would like to share my time with the member for Random—Burin—St. George's.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

Does the hon. member have consent?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, one of the most substantial efforts we can make on behalf of our veterans is to help them find a career when they are released, medically or voluntarily, from the Canadian Forces. This bill might do this, though even if it does, I am afraid it likely will not be enough.

This bill amends the Public Service Employment Act to increase access to hiring opportunities in the public service for certain serving and former members of the Canadian Armed Forces. Furthermore, and perhaps more notably, this legislation would establish a right of appointment and priority over all other persons for certain members of the Canadian Forces who were released for medical reasons that were attributable to service. If members of the Canadian Armed Forces were released due to service-related injuries or illness, their priority in the public service hiring would move from fourth to first. Access to internal postings of the public service and priority over all others for external postings would be extended to Canadian Armed Forces members and veterans who had served at least three years and were honourably released.

It is one thing to have priority for jobs in the public service, but it would remain contingent on possessing the skills that match any number of the public service jobs that exist. It would rely on there being positions available in the first place.

There is nothing in this bill that offers any form of skills translation or upgrading. Also, with the freeze on hiring, what jobs are Conservatives proposing these veterans fill? With 50,000 fewer jobs and a freeze on new hiring not many jobs are really available to recently or medically released veterans.

Officials from Veterans Affairs Canada noted that where issues arise, they involve certain groups of veterans: younger veterans, those with fewer years of service, those in the lower ranks, and those medically or involuntarily released.

The unemployment rate for veterans is more or less the same as the general Canadian unemployment rate, about 8%. That said, the unemployment rate for medically released veterans is much higher, at approximately 15%.

Beyond potential incapacity, there is the additional hurdle of seriously injured veterans who may be unlikely to find employment in line with their initial goals. Injury dashes a lot of those dreams. It is a long and often endless road from recovery to rehabilitation, and finally, to employment. This bill neither shortens this road nor hastens the completion of their efforts.

The government cannot look a wounded soldier in the eye and point to this bill as an example of what a good job they are doing if, when that man or woman is ready to re-enter the workplace, that person is then told that there is no vacancy, that a hiring freeze is in place, and that the time in the Canadian Armed Forces really did not prepare him or her for a career in the public service.

Realistically, this bill is anathema to Conservatives. They do not believe that the government has any role in veterans' affairs, career transition, or rehabilitation. First and foremost, Conservatives have cut hundreds of millions of dollars from Veterans Affairs Canada, $1 billion really, tying the hands of the department when it comes to delivering the benefits and supports veterans rely on.

Now add the egregious closure of nine regional Veterans Affairs offices, often in more remote places, like Brandon, Manitoba, and Sydney, Nova Scotia, and Cape Breton, making it more difficult for veterans to access these benefits and services in their communities. It is unconscionable that veterans, some of them seniors, might have to drive hours outside of their communities to receive face-to-face help.

Conservatives have claimed that veterans can still attend nearby Service Canada centres for services, but front-line staff at Service Canada are not trained to specifically help veterans, and caseworkers are currently burdened with a 40-to-1 caseload ratio.

The government would like Canadians to think they are doing a great job with veterans hiring. They spent millions of dollars advertising the career transition services in prime time playoff slots. I say millions, because among the only new spending in this year's Veterans Affairs estimates is $4 million for advertising, a new and exclusive line item. I say millions, because despite my requests to the minister, his political staff, and his departmental officials, I cannot get an answer as to how much money they are spending on their advertising, precisely.

Had the minister accepted the committee's invitation to testify on this bill, I might have asked him how many veterans currently have access to priority hiring, how many more will have access with the changes made, and how many positions are in fact available to these veterans.

I might also have asked him about concerns expressed by the Veterans Ombudsman, Guy Parent, who, early on, questioned the adjudication of a releasing Canadian Armed Forces member's file to determine if the medical release was service-related.

This will be important in determining whether the member has a statutory or a regulatory priority, or, in effect, whether the priority will be for internal or external postings. This is unclear in the legislation, and I fear it has become a little more complicated since the amendments proposed by the government at committee. Initially the legislation held that the priority for appointment over all others was given to:

... a person who was released from the Canadian Forces for medical reasons that are attributable to service, who belongs to a class determined by the Commission and who meets the requirements established by the Commission.

Upon amendment, the section I quoted changes the priority to be given to:

a person who was released from the Canadian Forces for medical reasons that the Minister of Veterans Affairs determines are attributable to service

We know who adjudicates the files now, but I cannot believe that leaving it to the discretion to the minister was the sort of clarity the ombudsman was looking for. We must remember that this is a government that continually insists that it will not release soldiers before they are ready, but has repeatedly and abruptly ended the careers of injured soldiers who have asked to be kept on.

Finally, I would have asked the minister why his legislation would impose a five-year limit for priority hiring. For starters, the government is not hiring right now. Anyone who applies once this legislation goes into effect is racing against the clock for the government to lift its hiring freeze.

More importantly, the government is putting a five-year time limit on rehabilitation and then on finding a job, which does not take into account potential relapses of injuries at a later date or a later manifestation of an injury that may not be present immediately upon release. I am reliably informed that many still have an avenue to benefits, but no opportunity for employment. It is important that they be eligible to be employed, notwithstanding that they have access to the other regulatory benefits and at a time surpassing the five-year limit.

We are always responsible for those who were so willing to make sacrifices on our behalf, yet somehow the government feels that it has a limited responsibility for these brave men and women's unlimited liability.

The minister would have us believe that veterans, if healthy, will just move on to a career in security or policing, but that is not true. There are veterans like Sergeant Bjarne Nielsen, who wants to be a financial planner, or Corporal Mark Fuchko, who wants to be a lawyer. They do not need a government that dangles weak and ineffective legislation before them in place of real, effective action.

We all just returned from Remembrance Day ceremonies in our ridings a few weeks back. Thousands of celebrations were held across the country, celebrations made perhaps more meaningful by the sacrifice of two brave members of the Canadian Armed Forces here in Canada at a time when they never would have expected to face threats or danger. We have all just returned from looking into the faces of generations of Canadians who served this country with honour, dignity, and professionalism.

To our veterans we owe a sacred obligation. When they and their families agreed to make sacrifices for the well-being of Canada and Canadians, we committed to their well-being and the well-being of their families, and in that commitment lies the necessity to take care of them no matter what.

I truly hope that this legislation will create positions for veterans. Even if it helps one veteran, we should and must support it. The Liberal Party will support it. However, members should not be mistaken: this is a weak, inefficient, and disappointing bill put forward by a minister and a government that have confirmed time after time that they would rather look good than do anything meaningful to help our servicemen and women and their families.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, the member said he is going to support the bill, but then spoke on a range of other issues.

He spoke again about the closure of the veterans service offices, which were administrative points of contact but provided no benefits or actual programs to veterans.

In my area of Ontario, the Durham region, there are about 500,000 people, and we have never had one of those veterans affairs offices. The majority of the work done for our veterans has been done by the Legion's veterans service officers, who report in through their district officer right to Veterans Affairs Canada.

I would like to ask that member how veterans in the wider Guelph area have been served over the last several decades. Have they had a veterans affairs office in their community, or have they, for 50 years or so, used veterans service officers from the Legion?

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have to speak on behalf of all Canadians and not just those who are in Guelph.

Yes, the member is quite right that veterans have used the services of Legion members in Guelph, but I have also been to Brandon and talked to veterans there who are completely discouraged by the closure of the veterans office in Brandon. They now have to drive for hours to Winnipeg. We are talking about older veterans. We are talking about veterans who need immediate access to the workers who had expert knowledge of what services were available when they were with Veterans Affairs Canada in those veterans offices.

Now a lot of them have to go to Service Canada and see people who are, frankly, not qualified to answer the questions that veterans ask. This is the experience not just of people in Brandon, but of people on Cape Breton Island and around seven other veterans offices across this country that have been closed.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I did hear the member and I did read the bill.

I would like to ask him a question about the five-year period that veterans are given to find a job. Veterans who want to get training and go to university need four years if they begin their studies the moment they put their names on the list for a job. However, if a program requires a master's degree—the federal public service wants skilled workers with suitable training—is that five-year period not too short?

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member from the official opposition for that question. That is exactly the point that was raised by the NDP and the Liberals at committee: the window is not broad enough to capture those people who may wish to retrain. Interestingly, no part of the bill actually provides for the retraining to qualify for a job that may be available. The question was asked and debated, but it was refused by the government.

As well, that is not to mention those people whose service injuries may manifest themselves at a time after one might otherwise qualify to find a job within the scope of this legislation. We asked for an amendment to remove the restriction of five years, but because the current government is all hat and no cattle, it was “No, sorry.”

Not one amendment was accepted. It happens all the time, and time after time. Every single time a good idea is presented, even when we are supporting the bill, it is rejected by the Conservative government.

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in support of a measure that would provide support for the brave men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces and Canadian veterans, to whom we owe so much. My concern is that while Bill C-27 may provide support for a small number of service members and veterans, it would not do nearly enough.

Bill C-27 is designed to amend the Public Service Employment Act to provide increased access to hiring opportunities in the public service for certain current and former members of the Canadian Armed Forces. In Random—Burin—St. George's, over 700 men and women are serving in all branches of the military, and it is those young men and women and the repercussions of the experiences they have that I think about whenever we talk about veterans or going to war.

The proposed legislation in Bill C-27 would ensure priority is given to Canadian Armed Forces members who are released because of service-related illness or injury, and would extend eligibility to reservists and Canadian Rangers.

Bill C-27 would also provide increased access to internal public service postings for eligible members and veterans and increase their period of eligibility. This all sounds very good. We can all agree these changes are indeed positive steps.

However, what they are not is a substitute for a real plan to ease the transition of service members and veterans into civilian employment. The government can and must do more to assist veterans in finding work following their military service. Unfortunately, nothing in Bill C-27 actually ensures that veterans will get jobs.

We know that helping veterans find jobs is a crucial step in their return to civilian life and well-being upon release from the military. Under normal circumstances, placing injured veterans at the head of the civil service hiring line and increasing access for veterans of the Canadian Armed Forces would be considered a valuable commitment and something to be applauded. In this instance, however, the promise is being made by a government that has already cut 20,000 public service jobs and is on track to cut 30,000 more.

Regrettably, Bill C-27 appears poised to have little impact on the day-to-day lives of the majority of Canadian veterans. In the words of Jerry Kovacs, a director with Canadian Veterans Advocacy, “In theory, it's a good bill. ... Initiatives to hire veterans are good initiatives. [But] if there are no jobs, how can there be any priority hiring? So it's kind of a hollow promise."

After years of cuts and hiring freezes, there are fewer civil service jobs for veterans to fill than ever before. Bill C-27 would do nothing for veterans who may be too ill or too injured to work.

In his recent report, Guy Parent, the Veterans Ombudsman, stated that “Severely impaired Veterans can face a lifetime of loss of employment and career progression opportunities.” Simply put, even injured veterans who are already entitled to government assistance are not receiving it. The Veterans Ombudsman's report indicated that nearly half of the country's most severely disabled ex-soldiers are not receiving a government allowance intended to compensate them for their physical and mental wounds. The ombudsman also concluded that many of those who are receiving the permanent impairment allowance are only being awarded the lowest grade of the benefit, which is the minimum amount.

The federal government also has an obligation to assist injured and ill veterans to find jobs when they are released from the Canadian Armed Forces, but Bill C-27 should not replace the government's responsibility to help injured CAF members stay in the forces when that is their wish.

Furthermore, there is a genuine concern that soldiers may hide health problems so that they will not lose their income. The Conservative government must do everything it can to ensure Canadian Armed Forces personnel suffering from physical and mental injuries need not fear being set adrift and having to keep their wounds secret in order to qualify for their pensions.

Recently released government statistics show that approximately 1,100 of the 6,200 soldiers discharged because of health conditions since 2009 were unable to serve the 10-year minimum required to collect a full pension.

Under the existing policy, many Canadian Armed Forces personnel face the dilemma of having to choose between risking their physical and mental health or risking their financial future. Soldiers suffering from PTSD and other ailments can either avoid seeking help in the hope of making it to pension eligibility, or seek necessary care and risk losing their pensions. Bill C-27 is clearly just the latest example of the Conservative government attempting to hide its inaction on the many issues affecting CAF members and veterans today. The Conservatives boast how much they support our soldiers and care about veterans and their families, but the facts show otherwise. Shamefully, the Conservative government continues to abdicate its responsibility to care for Canadian veterans.

A few months ago the Minister of Veterans Affairs called into question the social and legal responsibility Canada has for its soldiers. On at least two separate occasions since then, the Minister of Veterans Affairs has literally turned his back on veterans and their families who have come to Ottawa to voice their concerns about the lack of respect and support they have been receiving from the Conservative government. When it closed nine regional Veterans Affairs offices throughout the country, including one in Corner Brook, Newfoundland and Labrador, and committed to eliminating 781 jobs from the Department of Veterans Affairs by 2014-15, it claimed it was doing so in an attempt to cut costs. Meanwhile the Conservative government continues to spend millions of taxpayer dollars on partisan advertising while neglecting Canada's veterans. Then, at the last minute, when it knows the Auditor General's report is coming out, it comes out with a pot of goodies that we know are promises and only promises.

In his report today, the Auditor General concluded that Veterans Affairs is largely unconcerned with how well veterans are being served and whether programs are making a difference in their lives. While $1.13 billion in funding for veterans having gone unspent since the Conservative government took power, veterans have been forced to wait months for the mental health services they so desperately need. According to the Auditor General's report, about 15,000 veterans and serving military personnel were eligible to receive health support from Veterans Affairs through the disability benefits program at the end of last March. The number is expected to increase as more veterans of the Afghanistan campaign leave the military for civilian life in the coming years.

Over the past decade, 160 Canadian Armed Forces members have died by suicide, and 158 died serving in Afghanistan. Many more continue to struggle with mental health issues, such as post-traumatic stress disorder. The Auditor General's report confirms what Liberals have long maintained, that the Conservative government simply is not doing enough to help our veterans and their families who have sacrificed so much for their country. They have put their lives on the line and some have made the ultimate sacrifice, yet we are not there for them in the way they need us to be.

As Canadians we owe a debt of gratitude to our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and their families. They require assistance in so many ways. Unfortunately, because the Conservatives are refusing to respond to the needs of our veterans, the latter are being forced to mobilize in a variety of ways to get their message out about how unfairly they are being treated. Bill C-27 does very little to address a much larger problem. This bill is a step in the right direction, as my colleague has said, but there is much that still needs to be done. It is time for the government to start treating our veterans and their families with the respect they have earned and deserve from those of us who get to live a much better life, and those throughout the world who get to live under better circumstances because of their efforts. This begins by listening to the concerns being raised by those who have already sacrificed so much, instead of ignoring them when they reach out for help, which unfortunately the Conservative government continues to do.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Random—Burin—St. George's for her remarks. One of the highlights of my time sailing aboard HMCS St. John's was travelling with Lieutenant Governor House and his wife on an outport visit through the member's riding, including small communities like Francois and some really charming parts of Canada. There are some wonderful people in her riding.

I will ask her the same question I asked her colleague from Guelph. Do veterans, whether traditional war veterans or newer veterans, who after active service return to Stephenville or Marystown or some of the smaller communities in her riding, use a bricks and mortar Veterans Affairs office or do they receive support mainly from veteran service officers at Legions in many of those towns?