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

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Guelph touched upon a subject I have worked on for many years, in fact, long before I joined this Parliament in 2012. I have met with the folks from monster.ca many times over the years. I know and have seen its skills translator. In fact, representatives are coming to my office in the next few weeks to show me the modifications to that translator.

I commend the member from the Liberal Party for bringing a rational voice to the veterans affairs committee, and I say that sincerely. I know he has been productive, and I very much keep in touch with my colleagues. The previous member from his party, not so much, but I welcome his interventions.

Part of the challenge is that transition itself for veterans starts when they are members of the Canadian Forces. They are actually in DND when they are searching on Google and wondering if they should move back to where they enrolled from, such as Nova Scotia or B.C., or if they should stay where they are finally posted to. It has to be a case where DND and VAC work better together. Each has chosen a different model. If the member pledges to break down some of those barriers between those two departments, I will work with him on it.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for Durham for his thoughtful comments and his service to our country.

The member talked about some of the organizations that have been involved, such as the Veteran Transition Advisory Council and the great work it is doing. CEOs and leading people in organizations understand the benefits that these veterans can bring to their organizations. He also talked about the win-win.

The question I asked before was that, to me, there seems to be two parts to this. One part is the service to the veterans when they come back, and getting them ready. The second part of that is having a place for them to go. The private sector is stepping up on these fronts to do some of this work, and it is good business for the public sector.

I would like the member's input as to the importance of attachment, because these folks are used to being on a team. They are used to working as a team and so it is as important to make sure to continue that team effort back in the workforce.

Could the member talk a little about the importance of that work environment in continuing that team effort?

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member hit the nail on the head. In many ways, I alluded in my remarks to the inherent loyalty of the men and women of the Canadian Forces. They want to join a new team, in a lot of cases.

There are some programs out there, in fact, one of Prince Charles' charities, the Prince's Trust, works on entrepreneurship with veterans and that was supported by the True Patriot Love Foundation. However, the vast majority actually want to join a team. We need to ensure that we connect them better to teams that want veterans on them. That is why the Treble Victor Group and some of these groups have been building networks within national companies, including in Atlantic Canada, companies like McCain Foods, like IMP Aerospace. I met with them last week. They have a number of veterans already working within them. That helps the veterans transition in because they know someone has already blazed the trail.

We need to build better online resources to allow that mentoring to happen, without the government needing to intervene. If there is a forum out there, and this is what Kevin Newman was calling for in his blog, we need this to be facilitated by the veterans themselves. This is an example of where the government should get out of the way.

However, he is very right. The team-based approach is key for many veterans.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his speech. I really appreciated his comments on the government's efforts to help veterans transition to civilian life. That is a recurring problem that we have to try to fix. The bill will certainly not hurt in that regard.

However, I did not appreciate the government propaganda in my colleague's speech. He said that, since coming to power in 2006, the government has spent an additional $6 billion on transition programs.

I did the math. That money was budgeted, but was not spent. Close to $1 billion was not spent over the past seven years. The government keeps repeating that number, and I want everyone to know that it is not quite accurate.

Also, with respect to transition support for post-secondary and university studies, the government announced $2 million, I believe, over the next five years. Divide that by 100,000 and it turns out that it will help just a handful of veterans, who will be able to go to university so they can be employable in the public service.

What does my colleague think of that amount? Should it be increased so more veterans can be helped? If that amount does not go up, the government will not even be able to help 50 veterans during that five-year period.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member and I served, for a time, on the veterans affairs committee, and I know he is sincere in his passion for veterans.

One thing I would invite him to learn more about is, as I said, the transition between the Department of National Defence and Veterans Affairs, which is key. When a lot of veterans decide they are transitioning at the end of their short service engagement or whatever contract they are under, they begin their education while they are in the Canadian Forces. We cannot look at just the post-release education without looking at the education gained in the Canadian Forces.

Groups like Canada Company and others have worked on a lot of universities, breaking down tuition barriers or reducing or limiting tuition for some veterans, depending upon the nature of their release.

Certainly, education is a key part of transition. The government is helping. Veterans are taking advantage of it. However, it is also key to create this hiring culture and to show that government is not the only answer, but we are part of the solution.

[Pierre Dionne Labelle, NDP, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Western Arctic.

As many of my colleagues have said, we are going to support this bill, but we do not think that it goes far enough. We think that it raises questions that the government needs to answer.

First, with regard to the priority given to members of the Canadian Forces who are released for medical reasons, we are wondering what will happen to members who are released for medical reasons when the department or the board does not recognize the connection between their injury and their service. This affects me personally because I have been in touch with a veteran, Mr. Scalise, who resigned from the Canadian Forces because he was suffering from burnout; however, he failed to inform the armed forces that his situation was related to post-traumatic stress.

For four years now, Mr. Scalise has been fighting to have his situation recognized as being connected to his years of service. According to the bill before us, his priority entitlement period is almost up.

First, I believe that the time it is taking to process Mr. Scalise's file is ridiculously long and unacceptable. Second, the bill as it stands does not address Mr. Scalise's needs. This man could very well go back to school, upgrade his skills in various areas and eventually get a job. However, he will not have time to do so if the bill is passed as is.

Whether at the CEGEP or the university level, it takes between two and four years for veterans to acquire a specialization that will allow them to make the transition to a civilian job. We therefore have to give these veterans time to heal and get treatment for their post-traumatic stress before they go back to school.

This transition takes time. It does not happen overnight. The committee should look at this issue again to ensure that the bill that is eventually passed meets the expectations of veterans and truly allows them to reintegrate into the civilian world and the labour market.

The skills acquired in the military are not necessarily automatically transferable to civilian life. Skills upgrading is required. What is more, the private sector is not really aware of the qualifications or technical skills that soldiers develop. A collaborative effort needs to be made here. In fact, the ombudsman proposed measures to that effect, but they seem to have been completely left out of the current bill. That is too bad.

Under the new legislation, the system will have to adjudicate an individual's file to determine if the medical release is related to service or not. That is the case for Mr. Scalise. Like the ombudsman, we have concerns about this administrative uncertainty when it comes to maintaining hiring priority.

Would it not be better to use the recognition of the link between the injury and the service to determine the accessibility and length of the priority entitlement? This could be done in two ways: either the reason for release is designated “service-related medical release” or the link between the injury and the service is recognized by Veterans Affairs Canada.

Either way, we want the system to be consistent. That way some of the red tape can be avoided and we could ensure that veterans do not lose their priority entitlement. That is central to our argument.

This bill also creates categories of veterans; that is another issue. The NDP supports the principle of having a single category of veterans.The bill takes another direction. Veterans of the RCMP are not included in the bill and remain in the regulatory category. I think that a member of the RCMP who suffered a trauma and wanted to get out of the policing environment because it reminds him of the trauma should have hiring priority. He practically gave his life to serve the public. It is only right that the government acknowledge that it has a social and moral obligation to that individual, just as it is only right that the government acknowledge that it has a moral obligation to the people it sends into various conflicts or on various missions.

According to what I read in the veterans' class action suit against the government, the government does not even acknowledge this moral obligation. That is so sad. It is implied. I hope that the veterans will win their case against the government and that their lawsuit will be successful. I hope that the government has a moral duty to people whom it sends into conflicts and who return injured. I hope that we have a moral duty to support them and to ensure that these people get quality care, have a rehabilitation process supported by the government and have access to jobs offered by the government.

There is another side to this coin. At present, we are in a situation where different departments are systematically downsizing. Since the arrival of the majority Conservative government, there has been a series of cuts. Jobs have been systematically cut in different departments, and even if the veterans are given hiring priority, the jobs have to exist. If departments are not hiring, this priority is completely meaningless because there are no jobs available. There is no correlation.

I think this is a weakness that must be studied in committee, and we must ensure that this hiring priority is based on something concrete. It is unrealistic. They will not be able to implement it. I find that too bad.

I will not have time to talk about all the statistics, but there are not many veterans who find jobs in the public service compared to the number of veterans who have access to these types of jobs and the number of veterans who are qualified for these jobs.

We have been told that of the 4,000 veterans who could have been entitled to these jobs, 200 applied and 63 were hired. The employment priority really applies to a very small number of people. That is another aspect that will have to be analyzed in committee to determine what other support could be provided to those members who have finished their military career and those who have been injured in order to ease the career transition to civilian life. We must ensure that there is a transition. For the time being, there are weaknesses in that regard in what we have before us.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my colleague. I was here when the New Democrats forced the debate on sending our troops into Kandahar under Operation Enduring Freedom. We asked simple questions at that time. Where were our allies? Where was the support? What would they be faced with? We were thrown slogans about boots on the ground and how we were like 21st Neville Chamberlains. We heard this machismo sloganeering that showed that the government had no real plan for what would face our troops in Kandahar.

Now we see this bill, which we support, but I hear the same kind of sloganeering from the government about how it is part of the solution, and sometimes governments should get out of the way.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague this. Government sent these men and women to put their lives at risk. Government had them have their limbs blown off or suffer PTSD. They did it for the government. Therefore, when I see the government members talk about how government can be part of the solution, that the government should step out of the way, it was the government who put these people, our brave men and women, in these situations. It is the government that has the entire responsibility to work with the private sector and others, but fundamentally it is a government responsibility.

What does my hon. colleague think about these slogans he hears from the Conservative government with respect to its continual refusal to meet its basic obligations to the men and women who served our country?

[Pierre Dionne Labelle, NDP, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, if I contrast the government's campaign and what is actually happening before the courts with our Afghanistan veterans, it is shameful. Absolutely shameful.

Afghanistan veterans are now forced to go to court to have their rights recognized. How can that be? Government lawyers claim that the government does not have a moral obligation towards them. That is totally wrong.

This is doublespeak here. On the one hand, the government claims to support veterans, and on the other hand, it is forcing them to go to court. That is unacceptable. Fortunately we are here to talk about it, otherwise we would only get one side of the story.

I spoke about this issue this evening and in particular about Equitas, and I noticed that there are not many Conservative members on the other side of the House. That is unfortunate. I will take another question if there is time.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my hon. colleague to explain a little further about the class action lawsuit. The Government of Canada and all of the ministers in the front row stood and had their pictures taken, for all of their propaganda purposes, with our men and women and sent them overseas. When those men and women came home, that same government said that it did not have a moral obligation to follow through on that social contract, which has existed in our country since the First World War: if they serve our country, they will be looked after. The government takes the position that is only there when it is good for the photo ops, but let the veterans stand up for those rights and to take it to court.

Would my hon. colleague explain what he thinks about this attitude of using our men and women as props when it supports the government and then telling those men and women to take it to court when it comes to the moral contract?

[Pierre Dionne Labelle, NDP, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we would like things to be different and to not have this doublespeak, but that is unfortunately the case.

If we are to believe the Conservatives, veterans cost a lot of money. Senator Roméo Dallaire, who is well known, took exception to the rumour that veterans cost a lot of money and that we should not pay for them. That is how some Conservatives think, and they try to negotiate by cutting the costs of our military involvement throughout the world.

When we participate in a military operation in a given area, the primary costs are not related to the intervention itself, but to support for injured soldiers, who need help when they return to Canada. The United States learned that the hard way during the recent conflict in Afghanistan.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to rise to speak to Bill C-27. Of course, I will be one of the few in Parliament who actually gets to speak to the bill, because we have gone to the process of closure very quickly.

I think it is unfortunate that closure took place today, when tomorrow and the rest of the week we will have many veterans here on the Hill. “Rock the Hill”, they call it.

The Conservatives have not seemed to show much of the courage of their convictions in perhaps having the debate about this particular issue when the veterans are here on the Hill. They are very anxious to get this over with tonight. That is the reality of what the Conservatives have done here with closure. They have taken the opportunity we could have had to have the veterans here to listen to the different points of view of the people in this Parliament on this subject. Conservatives are very happy to get closure on the bill and get it away.

I have the opportunity to speak to the bill at second reading. Of course we support the principle of assisting with priority hiring for injured veterans and doing more for veterans within the civil service. How could anyone in this Parliament not be solid with that principle? What we argue at second reading is principle and how bills should be formed, using the knowledge we all have about the history of the service of the Armed Forces in Canada.

My father was a veteran of the Second World War. He spent five years in Europe in Bomber Command. He always said that toward the end of the war, the CCF was very popular in Canada, and their numbers were well up. The government respected that and brought in very good programs for veterans when they returned from the war. It did not want to see this turn into a socialist paradise, which may have happened with these veterans who came back. It offered land in Edmonton. My father got a piece of land on a veterans estate. Veterans got an opportunity for low-interest loans to build their houses and to set up their families after being in the war and being away from their communities and their loved ones for the period of time they were in Europe, that five years. Compare that to some of the commitment our servicemen make today of 10 and 15 years overseas.

As well, the government at that time tried to hire many veterans, and my father got a job with the Department of Transport, working in the Arctic, taking care of the airports. The skills matched up in that regard, because he worked in the Royal Canadian Air Force, and that sort of relationship existed at that time.

As well, in every small community across Canada, there were lots of veterans who came back from that big war. The legions were working very well. There was comradeship and an opportunity in every small community to share with many other veterans. I remember growing up in this atmosphere of legions and the respect everyone in the community had for the veterans.

Compare that to today. The veterans come back from a foreign conflict, generally of a terribly undefined nature, where they are not involved in liberating countries. They are involved in inter-regional conflicts that have so many variables attached to them. When they walk away from those conflicts, do they have the honour people had coming out of the Second World War? Do they have the approbation of the citizenry across the country for which they have served? No. That does not happen anymore. Is there a large volume of veterans who can join together in common places like the legion? No. In fact, across the country, legions are shutting down.

In the major city in my riding, Yellowknife, even with Joint Task Force (North) there, the opportunity to maintain the legion has almost failed completely.

The times have changed. There is no structure anymore for veterans, like there was in the past.

The good side of it is that we recognize post-traumatic stress disorder. That was not part of the vernacular of the Second World War. We are much more understanding of the nature of the mental injuries veterans suffer in these conflicts.

Bill C-27 tries to provide some answers, but it is not adequate. We do not think we should change the principle that a veteran is a veteran. That principle should remain in the bill, but it is not there. That is one problem we have with the principles of the bill. They are not dealing with all veterans in the same fashion as they used to be dealt with. They are not taking care of people and keeping the commonality among veterans that is so important.

The Conservative government is offering up the opportunity to go into the public service. The public service has changed so much. It is not the public service of 1945 to 1950. It is different. More specialized skills and education are required.

People may be put in priority positions that may not work for them. My Liberal colleague talked about the U.S. government program that includes skills identification. Quite clearly, it is important not to put people in jobs they will not be satisfied with and where there may fail. That would not help the veterans.

We need to pay careful attention to these people. They do not have the same opportunities veterans had in the past. They do not have the same volume of strength that 500,000 veterans had. The veterans today are thin in number. They are not a large part of the population. They need more specific attention. The Conservative government should be thinking about how it could provide the services these veterans require that would make their transition to normal civilian life successful.

This debate must continue until we come up with solutions. I look forward to the bill going to committee, because perhaps at that time, we could consider some of its details. We all agree with the principle that we should do more for the veterans, that we should find ways to integrate them into the workforce. How much more could we provide to the bill in committee on some of the issues we have identified in the very short time we have had to talk about this bill? We have a very short time to communicate in the House about the issues surrounding veterans.

We are doing our veterans a disservice by not continuing this debate for a period of time. They are going to be on the Hill, but they will not have the opportunity to speak to parliamentarians so we can carry their message forward in the House. We could do it at committee, but it is not really the same as talking here in the House.

The bill does not go far enough. We want to see it improved. We are willing to send the bill to committee. I encourage the government to take this seriously, to look at the other options put forward in committee, to listen to the witnesses, and to be open to amending the bill to make it work better for the veterans.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for his remarks. Certainly I was proud when our government, a few years ago, extended the Bomber Command commendation to our air force veterans from World War II. I indeed hope that the member's family, or perhaps his father himself, got that for his medals.

The member made an interesting point about the so-called Rock the Hill event later this week. As the member may know, it is organized by Canadian Veterans Advocacy. He is asking why are we not having this debate when they are here. I would invite the member to just walk across the hall in the Confederation Building and meet with Canadian Veterans Advocacy, who work out of the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore's office.

As a veteran myself, I have been quite offended by some of the work that group does. It is not sincere. It is not based on sound policy. I understand, at committee, that they have acknowledged that their funding has come from unions.

I would invite the member to actually get into the legions and start hearing from members specifically. To suggest that we are not listening to and debating with veterans is insincere. I would like his comments on who he speaks to beyond that group.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his comments, but I do not agree with him. It was a couple of months ago that I had a very long and detailed conversation not only with a retired colonel in Yellowknife, from the Armed Forces, who explained to me many of the details of what was going on with veterans. I also had the opportunity to meet a serviceman who was experiencing the difficulty of getting his condition recognized by the authorities. Here is someone who is still in the Armed Forces, who has post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms, and yet has had an incredibly difficult time getting through the bureaucracy to understand how he can get himself healed.

For you to suggest that we are not in conversation with veterans or that we do not hear from other people about the problems in the system is really unfortunate, because we are all committed to doing a good job.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Order, please. Just a polite reminder to hon. members, if they can direct their comments to the Chair from time to time, it helps the Chair to give some time signals and helps the member to guide their comments and stay on track time-wise.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Chambly—Borduas.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Speaker, obviously my question is for my colleague from Western Arctic, but I was shocked at the comments made by the member for Durham. He suggested that funding was coming from unions or other sources. During question period, the Prime Minister mentioned conspiracy theories. This seems a lot like a conspiracy theory that does not make any sense.

In fact, we spend a lot of time in the legions in our ridings, as do all members of the House. I worked with a veteran in my riding who was homeless. He did not have enough money to pay his rent. I will not name names out of respect for the individual. We managed to help him, but not by going through Veterans Affairs Canada. We worked out a solution by working with the municipality. The municipality had to help this veteran by providing him with housing until things got sorted out and we could finally work with the government. It took far too much time in my opinion.

My colleague spoke about this. I would like to hear his comments. It is all well and good to talk about hiring and all those things, but we have to look at the whole picture. The reintegration of our veterans is not just a one-step process, and I do not think that what we are seeing is sufficient. I would like him to elaborate on that.