Government Operations Committee on May 6th, 2019

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Okay.

Mr. Lick.

[Gregory Lick]

Right now, the objective of the transition group that they're trialing at this point in time is six months. Part of the purpose of the trial is to try to understand, on average, what would be a good time period for members to transition.

I do agree with Mr. Dalton, though, that it simply can't start at the end of your career, even if it's six months, a year or whatever. It needs to start almost in recruit school. As we've all done throughout our careers, we always tend to take our retirement courses at the end of the career. No, it should start when you're in secondary school, to understand how to manage your finances, how to manage your health. All of that should start very early on. In fact, there are some measures already available to military members to provide that information, that type of training, but probably, you could always do with a bit more.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you, gentlemen.

I have another quick question. You talked earlier about the fact that this situation was identified as a priority issue in 2011. It has been eight years with two different governments and nothing has changed. What did we do wrong?

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

That's a tough question and you only get 30 seconds to answer.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Gregory Lick]

I'm actually going to talk about what I believe has been done right, and that is to accept that we've worked a lot on recruitment into the forces. We work a lot, obviously, to get people ready and build their careers. We haven't been working as well on the transition part to becoming a veteran. That's what they're prioritizing now. I think we'll see, as the transition group gets its feet wet, how well it's going to do it. It has the right objectives in mind and I'm hoping to see that success over the next number of years.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Drouin, you have three minutes, please.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I simply want to reiterate what Mr. Lick said. I fully agree with him. The Canadian Armed Forces provided very good service to our constituents who were affected by the floods. A number of residents of my constituency were affected, and the military members were there. I would also like to thank them.

I also want to talk about your experience. You said you made it your mission to hire veterans when you were director general at the Canadian Coast Guard. I'm assuming you hired veterans directly, but how did you empower your organization or the directors and managers that were working under you to let them know that this was a priority for you and to make sure that veterans had a fair chance at applying for these jobs?

[Gregory Lick]

There are a number of responses. A number of programs were available through Canada Company that helped, at the time, to get people like me, some of my directors, down onto the bases and wings, to mentor and to coach. That was a tremendous way of getting information out there, and getting people face time with the individuals who will be hiring.

The other element is a leadership element. I pushed my directors and my hiring managers to become aware of what the military can offer. I came from a reserve background. I knew what the military could offer. We also were an organization that worked very directly with the military on joint operations and so on.

As you grow that critical mass of people within your organization who have that knowledge, that's probably what the public service needs more than anything. Grow that critical mass to make people aware, and then it will grow on its own.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Okay. Thank you.

Mr. Dalton, I agree with your three recommendations. The second one, establishing clear accountabilities for achieving and reporting on outcomes, do you believe that deputy ministers should be held accountable? Should we perhaps tie performance bonuses, other than quotas, to the hiring of veterans?

[Craig L. Dalton]

Yes, and as a deputy head at the provincial level I was tasked to achieve certain employment equity targets. That certainly focused my attention. Nothing focuses the mind like a target.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Yes.

You've also mentioned that HR managers have limited knowledge of CF. How do we share that knowledge? Do we create working groups at the lower level?

[Craig L. Dalton]

Some are very good, by the way, and I should highlight that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Make a very brief answer, please.

[Craig L. Dalton]

Establishing targets and treating this as a program will start to get that message out, as Mr. Lick said, and individuals will take it as a core responsibility.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for your appearance here today. Your testimony has been incredibly helpful. Should you have additional information, recommendations or suggestions that you wish to pass along to this committee as we continue our deliberations, I would advise and encourage you to please direct them to our clerk. We'll make sure they help form part of our final report.

Once again, thank you for your appearance here.

Colleagues, we will suspend for just a couple of moments while we get our next witnesses to the table.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Colleagues, we will reconvene the meeting now. We have before us four individuals who will be making opening statements. Of course, we'll be following our normal question and answer period. Because of the shortness of time, colleagues, I would suggest that, following the opening statements, we go down to five-minute rounds for questions. That way we can try to get in as many questions as possible.

Monsieur Généreux, I understand you have an opening statement. You have five minutes or less, sir, and the floor is yours.

[Luc Généreux, As an Individual]

That's fine. Thank you.

Mr. Chair and honourable members, thank you for the opportunity to appear before this committee to talk about veterans' access to the Canadian public service.

My name is Luc Généreux. I retired from the Canadian Armed Forces following a medical release from the Canadian Forces in 2016 for non-service related reasons. This decision is currently under review and appeal. I served for 34 years in the Canadian Forces.

As noted on the sheet, I'm an engineer, urban planner and planner. I'm a member of several associations and orders that require national and provincial qualifications. I'm bilingual, and I had top secret security clearance. I'm fit to work in the public service.

In fall 2018 I initiated a process to join the federal public service. My journey was not easy. It was like crossing a minefield. Today I'm presenting 10 recommendations I wish to share to improve the process and help to reduce administrative obstacles to facilitate access to public service positions for Canadian Forces veterans. Veterans like me have lots to contribute to the Canadian public service. We hope to share our knowledge, experience and leadership, and hope to help mentor the next generation of federal public service employees.

I wish to thank PSPC, Public Services and Procurement Canada, for having believed in my file and for helping me to secure an excellent temporary position—I repeat, temporary position—while some of the administrative obstacles are removed to allow me to secure a permanent public service position.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you for your economy of words. We'll have lots more time for questions.

Mr. Hicks, you're up for five minutes, please.

[Robert Hicks, As an Individual]

For the record my name is Robert Thomas Hicks. I have a degree, a diploma, a secret clearance.

I'm somewhat bilingual, but in any case, I can manage.

I am currently studying to obtain both my PMP and CMP.

I've served Canada twice. I hold the Queen's commission, and almost 20 years ago to this very day, I was serving overseas in Kosovo in the assault troop of Lord Strathcona's Horse, Royal Canadians. My father served in the seventies, and my grandfather, Thomas Hicks, was wounded in Ortona in 1943. Canadian military service runs in my family.

Please accept my sincerest appreciation for being allowed to speak.

By now, it should be apparent that the current mechanisms to bring veterans into the civil service could use new impetus. The majority of us are not injured or going into executive positions, and few of us have pensions.

Admittedly, I'm not a hiring expert, but I am an expert in not getting hired. I was removed from a competition because I used “emergency communications” as a skill instead of “crisis communications”. HR never bothered to explain the difference. Other veterans have told me similar stories.

Right now, with this forum, I'll do what I've always done—speak, a shock to those who know me, I'm sure.

Currently, Canada's history, statues, culture and civil service are being disrespected and destroyed by intersectionality, virtue signalling and regionalism. Canada was built through hard work, pragmatism and flexibility of thought. We should return to those values.

I was taught to be proud of Canada, to respect our traditions and our history, and to make a positive contribution. To that end, all good communications, change initiatives and projects have at least two things in common: They are driven from the top down, and there is accountability. The only way this situation will be improved is by a push from the top down to find ways to make it easier and relatively risk free for civil service managers to get to know veterans and, ultimately, to hire them. Once we're in place, our value will become apparent.

Let's look at classifications. Currently, the classifications and the structures governing them are very rigid. If a sub-department requires a writer, they have to ask departmental comms, which usually leads to an underpaid contractor. I was that underpaid contractor. One solution is a new classification. Think “special projects officer”, or in project management methodology, a “contingency reserve”.

Create a new, flexible, agile classification for veterans that can't be backfilled by civilians. Create a veterans pool and make it mandatory to look there when hiring. Solicit feedback whenever someone from that pool wasn't chosen.

Make things even easier for managers. Create temporary categories or positions where they hire a vet for three years, minimum of one, and if after two years everybody's happy, the process to make that veteran permanent begins. Think “consultancy with a pathway to indeterminate”.

The way forward is to loosen the hiring process for veterans. Give us a chance to win. Get to know us. Put the onus on veterans to make managers want to hire every last one of us. We're used to being thrown at problems to make them disappear.

Give us a chance to make managers brag about how many veterans they have on staff. My money is on our impressing the country with our flexibility, our integrity and our ingenuity, but it's still predicated on managers finding us, getting to know us and hiring us.

Remember, we're taxpayers, we're voters, we're citizens, and we deserve the same consideration for civil service jobs that everybody else enjoys.

Again, my sincerest thanks. Perseverance.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Northey.

[Robert Northey, Audit Officer, Office of the Assistant Deputy Minister, Review Services, As an Individual]

Thank you for inviting me here today to be part of this committee.

My name is Rob Northey and I'm a veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces. I served just shy of 23 years—from May 1991 until March 2013. During this time frame, I was a vehicle technician, primarily with 1 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group. I deployed both domestically and abroad. Domestically, I was part of operations during the ice storm in 1998, and following that, I provided support to the 28th G8 Summit in 2002.

Abroad, I deployed to Bosnia in 1997 as part of NATO, and again in 2002. In 2005, I deployed to Kandahar, Afghanistan, with the Canadian provincial reconstruction team as part of Operation Archer to support Operation Enduring Freedom, the war on terror. Unfortunately, due to a service-related injury, I was medically released in 2013.

I took advantage of the many programs that were available to me to support my transition to civilian life. I would have activated priority hiring at that time; however, I chose to wait until I upgraded my education. I went to college and acquired a diploma in business leadership. Following that, I was accepted into an executive MBA program focusing on innovation leadership. I graduated from the program in November 2016. I took a little time off to collect myself, and I activated priority hiring in, approximately, December 2017.

I chose to apply mostly within the AS, PM and ED-EDS streams, and I received approximately 600 invitations to apply for jobs across Canada. I actively pursued about 15 of these positions, and I was eventually hired with DND as an audit officer. I started in August of 2018 and relocated to the NCR. I work with outstanding people and exceptional leaders.

The priority hiring program is a great initiative, but it has many limitations that create barriers to entry for veterans.

The positives of the program include that veterans are supposed to get priority and need to meet only the essential qualifications. I was part of the veterans hiring pilot program with Veterans Affairs Canada, and the staff there was excellent in helping me with resumés, cover letters and providing other forms of support. Some hiring managers see the value of hiring a veteran.

There are some areas for improvement in the program. The process is slow, cumbersome and bureaucratic, and there is a negative stigma in the public service that priority hires are subpar performers who are unwanted and being passed around from department to department. Many hiring managers or their representatives were transparent in communicating to me that they already had someone internally whom they wished to bring on board and implied that they would appreciate it if I dropped out of the process. Hiring managers do not often find out that there is a priority hire until they have already invested substantial resources into a non-priority person. Many times I was screened out of a process with what I felt was improper justification.

As well, many of the testing standards for some jobs are unfair. An example is one job for which I was supposed to be able to look up research policy; however, during testing I was required to recall from memory policy specific to that department. Some HR reps are not familiar with the priority hiring process. Examples of that include denying me the five days to create a cover letter and resumé, and not communicating specific examples back to me in regard to why I wasn't chosen.

Although I could have rebutted in many of the jobs I was not chosen for, I chose not to. Why would I want to work with them if they didn't want me on board? In my opinion, it was very transparent that I was getting screened out for virtually no good reason. If it was not for the fact that I was in a good frame of mind and dedicated to finding a job, I might have given up, and I feel that many veterans likely feel the same way I do.

However, I am very grateful because a great department did hire me, and this has allowed me to move forward with life after the service. As well, it is excellent to see that my employer sees the value in my military career and the advantages of hiring a veteran.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much, Mr. Northey.

Finally, we have Mr. Fraser Zerebecki, for five minutes, please.

[Fraser Zerebecki, As an Individual]

Thank you, Chair.

I served 10 years in the Canadian Armed Forces as a combat engineer and intelligence operator. I served in Afghanistan in Operation Athena in 2009, and I was medically released in 2017. I am fortunate to have maintained my faculties through ongoing rehab and therapy.

I thank the honoured members of this committee for their time this afternoon.

During my transition, I completed vocational rehabilitation and earned a postgraduate certificate in project management. I have successfully navigated the priority hire process and will be starting in a management position with ESDC in June.

Overall, my search for public service employment has been stressful, frustrating and unnecessarily complicated. The transition from the military is stressful, especially when managing a medical diagnosis. I felt pressure to use my VRPSM, but like most transitioning soldiers, I lacked direction.

It might help if there were a clear path to a public service job early in the process, with the support of a VPSU adviser. This vision of a job could help guide members in choosing the best routes to education and accreditation.

The SISIP vocational rehabilitation program should be sufficiently lengthened to capture educational requirements of civilian employment that correlate with the member's military trade. As an example, I was a combat engineer. The civilian equivalent would be a civil engineering technologist, which is a three-year program.

The SISIP program does not account for the time it takes members to secure public service employment after completing vocational rehabilitation. In receiving a job reference or analyzing a job poster, there is very little information that tells the applicant what the job actually does. This makes it very difficult to determine whether a job fits the applicant.

A priority hire candidate only needs to respond to essential qualifications within the statement of merit criteria, but this is the most difficult part of the screening process. To be successful, a candidate must write a clear response to the essential qualification, with no detail left out. This process requires support to examine, edit and proof these responses. Wordsmithing is a skill many people struggle with.

The feedback received when unsuccessful was often vague and unconstructive. It is highly demoralizing to be rejected without feedback.

There were issues meeting the educational requirement for positions I was otherwise qualified for. Specifically, I applied for intelligence analyst positions that I had experience for, yet failed due to a stringent educational requirement.

Overall, several organizations included requirements on understanding the organizational structure and mandate of that department, which puts veterans external to the public service at a disadvantage.

Lastly, priority hire benefits can be transferred to spouses upon death or severe disability. I feel that benefits for spouses should be more liberally applied or shared, to reduce the stresses on families in transition.

In summary, the key factors would be to connect transitioning members with potential public service jobs early, with support from VPSU; response to essential qualifications must be simplified; and SISIP benefits should be expanded.

As soldiers, we take our oath to serve the interests of Canada. There should be a simple process to continue that service as a public servant. As of today, the process is anything but simple.

Thank you.