Government Operations Committee on April 29th, 2019

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Great.

I just want to get back to the Invictus Games. How many people were offered conditional jobs or jobs on the spot type of thing?

[Kiran Hanspal]

I think it was—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

How many people applied?

[Kiran Hanspal]

I'll need to validate the number, but I believe it was about five.

What I wanted to say was that the job offers were not close to where their homes were.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Right.

[Kiran Hanspal]

They were also, I think, surprised to be offered a job—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I'm not—

[Kiran Hanspal]

—and they wanted to go back and talk to their families.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I understand that. The part about where their homes are, are you finding that people are trying to stay at Gagetown, for example, or are they trying to...? Most of the jobs are in the major cities. I find it difficult to understand that we can't place vets where I would think they were moving back to. It sounds as if you're saying they want to stay in the cities where they're established at the time.

[Kiran Hanspal]

This is important feedback that we've received from our clients. Some may want to move, but some really want to stay where they have been. An example is the number of veterans who have moved to Prince Edward Island because they want to come to the island and that's where their family is. In our recruitment efforts now, we're looking at the locations of the various jobs, so we can promote locally, so we can hire people locally.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I want to discuss the power, I guess, of the local hiring managers in the department and how much of that is a hindrance to getting veterans on board. I understand they have power, so to speak, to set the hiring requirements—you have to be from a certain region, or you have to be from this department only, or we're not going outside our department. Do you think that is a major factor in the difficulty?

There's a big disconnect. The vets I talk to and whom we're hearing from explain it's very difficult getting into the public service, but witness after witness from the government side seems to paint a very rosy picture, saying it's that vets don't want to work for them. I'm not casting aspersions or doubt on what you're saying, but again, we have public servants presenting that “everything's great; we're doing everything; the vets don't want to come work for us,” but vet after vet says roadblocks are being put up. I'm just trying to get to where the roadblocks are. Have you looked at the power of the hiring managers in all the departments, to say it's too strong and you have to open this up?

[Kiran Hanspal]

We have the tools and we need to educate managers—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Okay. It's not about—

[Kiran Hanspal]

—and that's what we're doing.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I find it odd. It's not about educating. It's like saying we have the tools and we have to educate the MPs to show up for question period. No, it's not that. We are required to be at question period. I don't know if you're trying to be politically correct with that term of educating, but it's not a matter of educating. It's that this is their job. We're not going to educate, for example, not to drink on the job. No, this is their job, to hire vets under the Treasury Board guidelines. Where's the disconnect?

[Kiran Hanspal]

So, we have—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Do we have to go after every department one by one to say, “Do your job”?

[Kiran Hanspal]

In Veterans Affairs, I can speak to what we're doing within our department. Within our department, we are promoting veteran hiring. We put in place targeted pools so that managers know that there are veterans—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Should there be a stronger role at Veterans Affairs to reach into other departments and say—

[Kiran Hanspal]

Pardon me?

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Should there be a stronger role at Veterans Affairs to reach into other departments and say, “You are not doing your job in hiring veterans; you're not following the guidelines”?

[Kiran Hanspal]

I cannot pronounce on a policy question like that, but what I can pronounce on is what's under the purview of HR. With the legislation that we have, we are operating within that legislation and we've developed some innovative tools. We're learning as we're going along and we're promoting these tools to improve managers' understanding of veteran competencies, because they're so well trained, and—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I'm running out of time. I'm just going to reclaim my time.

[Kiran Hanspal]

Okay.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

You talked about best practices in hiring vets. Could you share a couple with us? How do we get those to the other departments?