Government Operations Committee on April 29th, 2019

[Kiran Hanspal]

So, for—

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Answer very quickly.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Yes, sorry. We're short on time, but give whatever you can offer.

[Kiran Hanspal]

Simply, it's about how to set up your statement of merit criteria, how to set up asset qualifications. We're setting up exchange sessions to do that with other departments.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Maybe you could send them in writing to our analysts, so we can get it into our report, because I'm out of time.

[Kiran Hanspal]

Absolutely.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Thanks very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Our final intervention will come from Madam Yip.

You have five minutes, please.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Thanks for coming.

You mentioned there were three job competitions specifically for veterans, which is wonderful. How successful were those job competitions?

[Kiran Hanspal]

They were just finalized. We've set up the pools, and I can give you how many people are in the pool. We are promoting those pools for jobs within Veterans Affairs Canada. I know we have already hired three out of the pools. I hired one of them.

We are setting up the HR plan this year, and we're going to be promoting those pools as part of the recruitment effort within the department.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

There were three competitions. Do you know the results of the other competitions that were held earlier?

[Kiran Hanspal]

What's interesting about this competition is we took veterans' and Canadian Armed Forces' experience, and we made it essential, meaning only those who had that experience could apply. You need to be careful because you don't want to exclude other people, but we were very bold in doing that. This is an experiment.

We also have other pools where we have asset qualifications as Canadian Armed Forces. We have done that for the EX processes and for the non-EX processes. We are doing that regularly, and that's helping us too.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Have you given any thought to having an online job bank for veterans where they can apply online and then companies can also see and maybe do some matching?

[Elizabeth Douglas]

We are looking to explore that with career transition services and with Agilec. That was not part of the contract but we're looking to move into that area particularly as we spend more time and focus on external hires. Agilec on its own with our own information has started to create some of that bank, but we are going to have to follow up on it, and want to.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

What are the main skill sets that the private sector is looking for in veterans?

[Elizabeth Douglas]

Again, to date we've had companies come to us saying they'd like to hire veterans but they've not specified specific job trades or skill sets.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

In the advertised internal appointment process for the public service, how is this being reached out to veterans? Is it easily accessible to veterans? Is it specifically for the public service and it's internal?

[Kiran Hanspal]

I cannot pronounce on the public service. It's under the purview of the Public Service Commission.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Am I done?

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

You have about a minute.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

I have a minute, okay.

Does anybody else have something for a minute?

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

You have 30 seconds—

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

I know. I'm trying to....

[An hon. member]

You could just say thank you.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Yes, thank you.