Government Operations Committee on April 29th, 2019

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

I will convene the meeting and we are in public.

We have with us today, representatives from Veterans Affairs Canada. I understand that we have either one or two opening statements.

Could you please inform the chair how long you think each of your statements will take? I'm trying to do a little scheduling in my head.

[Kiran Hanspal, Director General, Human Resources, Chief Financial Officer and Corporate Services Branch, Department of Veterans Affairs]

We've timed it as 10 minutes total.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Excellent. Thank you very much.

Welcome, Madam Hanspal and Madam Douglas.

I don't know which of you wants to go first, but the floor is yours.

[Kiran Hanspal]

Good afternoon, everyone.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Veterans Affairs Canada has put in place several measures to contribute to the government's commitment to helping veterans and releasing Canadian Armed Forces personnel find meaningful employment to support a successful transition from military to civilian life.

I would like to share with this committee some of the many initiatives undertaken by the department, both internally and within the public service.

I will focus on initiatives led by the human resources division and my colleague Libby Douglas will speak to initiatives that also support private sector employment.

On departmental hiring with the Veterans Hiring Act, Veterans Affairs Canada, as other federal departments, is subject to this act and has made veteran hiring a departmental priority. To increase recruitment, our deputy minister established an aspirational goal of having veterans represent 10% of the department’s workforce by July 1, 2020. As of December 2018, the percentage of self-identified veterans increased to 7.3%, from 5.9% in June 2017.

In terms of staffing practices, we have integrated various hiring practices within the department to promote the recruitment of veterans. For example, Canadian Armed Forces experience is used as an asset qualification in all of our statements of merit criteria, and more recently as an essential qualification for target recruitment. In addition, in the area of selection, we have also opened it to veterans and Canadian Armed Forces members.

In terms of the veterans in the public service unit, it was launched during the 2017 Invictus Games in Toronto. This unit is the first service of its kind to solely assist veterans in navigating the federal public service hiring process. The unit is comprised of two subunits: the strategic human resources initiative and the service delivery subunit.

On strategic human resources, we work in partnership with the Public Service Commission and the HR representatives and hiring managers from across the federal public service to promote best practices in the hiring of veterans and to offer guidance on understanding the training, experiences and skill sets presented by Canada’s veterans.

Information obtained through this working group is promoted with veterans who are registered in the unit. For example, we promote job opportunities, career events and targeted social media messages.

The service delivery subunit involves veterans serving veterans. Veteran advisers provide direct support to veterans seeking public service employment.

The advisors not only understand the hiring process, but most importantly the culture, the needs and the credentials of the veterans. They help the veterans express and showcase their acquired military training and experience in relatable civilian terminology.

As of April 26, 2019, more than 600 veterans had connected with the veterans in the public service unit for some level of service.

Another initiative that we undertook was the 2017 Invictus Games. As just mentioned, the Government of Canada’s presence at these games was an early success of the veterans in the public service unit. At this event, the department led the participation of several federal government departments, representing the offering of over 70 job advertisements for diverse public service employment opportunities across the country.

Another experiment we did were the second career assistance network seminars. In 2018, VPSU, the hiring unit, piloted using Canadian Armed Forces second career assistance network seminars as a way to promote federal public service jobs to releasing members.

During these events, departments, led by Veterans Affairs Canada, were able to actively engage in face-to-face conversations with releasing Canadian Armed Forces members and promote the public service as an employer of choice, while highlighting available local opportunities, because that's a preference for veterans.

This was a proactive approach to connect veterans with hiring organizations prior to their release date.

I will now yield the floor to Ms. Douglas.

[Elizabeth Douglas, Director General, Service Delivery and Program Management, Department of Veterans Affairs]

Thank you.

My name is Elizabeth Douglas. I am the director general of service delivery and program management at VAC. I am here today to speak about the education and training benefit, as well as the career transition services benefit that was put in place to support veterans regarding their next steps following transition from military life.

The education and training benefit as well as the career transition services were introduced April 1, 2018. For many veterans and their families, a meaningful post-service career is key to financial security and mental and physical well-being.

This benefit helps veterans achieve their education and employment goals, and positions them to be more competitive in the civilian workforce.

The education and training benefit provides funding to support veterans who want to further their education with university, college or technical training. Eligibility includes veterans with at least 2,191 days of authorized paid days of Canadian Armed Forces service, so six years. These veterans can receive up to $40,960 in funding to support their educational goals. Veterans with at least 12 years of service, or 4,382 authorized paid days of CAF service, can receive up to $81,920. Of this funding, up to $5,120 can be used for short courses. These need to be courses that are generally available to the public.

In terms of the formal programs, the requests for funding are varied. Among the top 10 types of programming are bachelor's and master's degrees and Ph.D.s, along with flight training and trades training. Short courses are spread across various topics. For example, project management and leadership courses are of great interest to many.

In terms of the way forward and the year ahead, one challenge VAC faced soon after implementation of the education and training benefit was that supplementary reservists were not eligible for the benefit. A change to make supplementary reservists eligible was announced in budget 2019 and will come into force on July 5, 2019.

With regard to career transition services, first-class military training and experience has helped veterans develop a variety of skills during their time as members of the Canadian Armed Forces, and Veterans Affairs Canada wants to help veterans use these skills to achieve their goals in life after service.

The Career Transition Services provide a broad range of supports and are delivered by a national third-party contractor, Agilec.

Every eligible veteran who applies for CTS is assigned a qualified career counsellor, who also understands military life and culture. These counsellors use motivational interviewing techniques to help veterans and their spouses find the path they want to take in life after service. Counsellors offer a broad range of services, including, for example, education counselling, job coaching, assistance with resumé writing, interview preparation or help to apply for jobs.

As for the year ahead and next steps, our focus will be on monitoring and evaluating the program to make sure it continues to meet its objectives, as well as developing a deeper understanding of the clients who are accessing the program.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much, both of you, for your opening statements.

We'll now go into questions. Colleagues, we won't have enough time for a complete round before we adjourn, but we will have at least one and a half rounds.

Will we start with Madam Ratansi for seven minutes? I'm not sure. I don't have a list in front of me.

I'm sorry. Hold on. It's Mr. Jowhari for seven minutes.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

May I suggest we go to five minutes?

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Do you want to do five minutes each so everybody gets a chance?

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

If you wish to do five minutes, colleagues, that's fine with me. It's your choice.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Then everybody would get a question.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Yes. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

We'll go with five minutes, then.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for providing insight into some of the programs.

We heard from a lot of witnesses who told us there were a lot of services available for them when they were recruited. They got training. Their OHIP, their bank account and everything was taken care of. Their money was taken care of. However, as they were being released for various reasons, there was no process for them to reintegrate.

What I'm hearing, at least from testimony from Madam Douglas, is that, under education training and under career transition services, programs seem to be available. Some of them came in April 2018 and some are being launched in 2019.

When do these programs, especially education and training, start? Do they start after, or do they start during the time they have the heads-up that they're about to be released? What is the process? How are they informed about all of this?

[Elizabeth Douglas]

With regard to the education training benefit, it came into place on April 1, 2018. You must have left the service to apply. However, having stated that, there is an incredible amount of promotion of this program going on. As you may be aware, there is a new transitional group in the Canadian Armed Forces, and they are trying, and we collaborate and partner with them, to really ensure that this transition process is a much smoother process. For example, we've just gone across the country to every base and met with thousands of members. The biggest question they had was with regard to the education training benefit.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

It's great that you've gone to the bases. I assume the armed forces at the bases are getting educated, but we are talking about the veterans. We're talking about the ones who are out of the service and who need the support. Those are the ones we are hearing from. What program do you have in place to reach out to the ones who are not on the bases and need the service?

[Elizabeth Douglas]

A previous minister has had over 40 town halls over the past year. The minister of VAC has had over 40 town halls, and there was a lot of information disseminated on the education training benefit at that time. Over and above that, there is significant information available on our website, available through My VAC Account and available through social media.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Basically we're saying that we're reaching out, and it's up to them to reach out back to us. That's what I'm hearing.

[Elizabeth Douglas]

We've had a significant number of applicants, in fact. I have the numbers here. As of March 31, there were 4,540 applications to the education training benefit. That was significantly higher than had been anticipated. We really are trying to do that outreach as best we can.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

On the career transition service, you talked about two groups. There is a group of counsellors who are potentially previous veterans, and they can take the military language and turn it into civil language to help them through. Then there's this third party contractor who's providing all these courses. There were a number of courses, such as education, job coaching and assistance with resumé writing. What is the process for veterans to be informed? What is the process for them to qualify for this?

[Elizabeth Douglas]

Again, with regard to the career transition services, one of the pieces that I should point out is, if you are still a serving member, you can use career transition services through social media all throughout, through My VAC Account, through the website, through these base visits, through the ministerial town halls, and also through the veterans priority service units.

To my colleague, would you like to follow up on that?

[Kiran Hanspal]

We launched the veterans in the public service unit during the Invictus Games. It's been in place since September 2017. We used social media. We used—

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

I'm sorry, but we're running a little short on time.

[Kiran Hanspal]

I'm sorry.

We used social media, veterans communities and SCAN seminars.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you so much.

Mr. McCauley, you have five minutes.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Thanks for joining us today, ladies.

The reason we're doing this study is that we've heard repeatedly—it's not just anecdotal information—that we are failing our veterans in terms of offering them jobs in the public service.

Who should be the gatekeeper? Who should be responsible overall for giving our vets priority to get into the public service, as is required? You mentioned that you have an aspirational target. I'm disturbed that we don't actually have anything more than an aspirational one for either your department or other departments. Who should be in charge of this to ensure it actually gets done?

It's not you specifically, but Libby's pointing at you.