Government Operations Committee on May 13th, 2019

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

I will call the meeting to order. We are continuing with our study of hiring veterans for public service positions.

Colleagues, before we get into the meeting itself, there is a housekeeping note. For our second panel, which will start appearing at 4:30 p.m., we have three individuals by video conference, but that will be a 45-minute session. I would like to reserve the last 15 minutes of this meeting for some committee business.

With that brief introduction, I'd like to welcome all of our guests who are here in person.

We also have, via video conference from Windsor, Ontario, Florin Corcoz. Thank you for being here as well.

We'll start with Mr. Corcoz by video conference. All of our panellists have brief opening statements. I don't think any one of them exceeds five minutes in duration. That should leave us plenty of time for questions.

Without any further ado, Mr. Corcoz, the floor is yours.

We don't seem to have audio on our end. Just give us a moment and we'll try to rectify that situation. While we're working on the technical difficulties from this end, we will start with Mr. Ticknor.

Mr. Ticknor, thank you for being here. The floor is yours.

[Donald Ticknor, Sergeant-at-Arms, Chairman of Voluntary Resources and Executive Committee Member, Branch 350, Royal Canadian Legion]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you ladies and gentlemen for having me. I appreciate it. Hopefully, I can represent our veterans as best as possible and with integrity.

I have two briefs. I will try to be quick to get through them.

As a priority hire status and a veteran, and the sergeant-at-arms, chairman of voluntary resources and executive committee member of the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 350, I find it is necessary to address some major problems with the hiring process of CX-01 correctional officer positions in relation to veterans and other candidates.

I propose that a veteran who has already been successful at the Canadian Armed Forces Military Police Assessment Centre, the acronym for which is MPAC; who holds a police foundations diploma with a high GPA; and who is a priority hire status should not, without reasonable excuse, be denied an immediate offer of employment as a CX-01 correctional officer and be sent to Kingston, Ontario, for a correctional officer course. The candidate should also bypass some of the training in Kingston in relation to the already gained skill sets the candidate earned while being in the Canadian Armed Forces.

The reasoning is that the candidate has already, at this point, gone through an aptitude test at the local military recruiting centre, which is valid for life, and earned a high aptitude score to be considered as a military police candidate. The candidate has also undergone a full background check, medical and physical fitness tests, and has completed the requirements for priority hire status.

The candidate has completed MPAC, a three-day testing period for MP candidates where judgment, memory, integrity and other factors are assessed by the selection officers present. Keep in mind, I am not allowed to reveal the types of testing for confidentiality reasons, as I am not legally permitted.

These tests are credible and state of the art, more so than the 90-minute, 100-question multiple choice of either one of five options: ineffective, somewhat ineffective, not effective or not ineffective, somewhat effective, or effective, for the CX-01 correctional officer SJT, situational judgment test, which is ineffective at properly measuring SJT. The test is so subjective and vague at determining a proper SJT and is inappropriate compared with the far more credible and significantly more thorough three-day MPAC.

I recommend true or false questions, with less grey areas of subjectivity, coupled with scenarios to actually see how a candidate may or may not act in a certain situation for the SJT, situational judgment test. Those who have passed the MPAC should obviously bypass the correctional officer SJT and be sent immediately to the correctional officer course in Kingston, Ontario, and bypass some of the courses for already gained skill sets that the candidate earned while being in the Canadian Armed Forces.

It would be highly inappropriate to not make the needed changes on the SJT in the CX-01 correctional officer test, and highly discriminatory for those veterans who qualify, as listed above, for the policy to go unamended.

Mr. Chair, may I present the second brief?

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Certainly.

[Donald Ticknor]

Veterans in supervisory and managerial roles create a positive synergy. The proposal is that veterans be considered priority hire based on an honourable release and that consideration be made for the public service to allocate a significantly greater percentage of veterans into the public service as priority hire and for supervisory and managerial roles.

The reasoning is that veterans have great practical experience when it comes to various avenues of life. These skills and attributes of veterans make many veterans suited for managerial and supervisory role positions based on a lot of the leadership qualities veterans possess, such as having the practice and utilization of teamwork experience in motivating others to complete goals and tasks. It would benefit almost any organization to utilize veterans for their skills and practical experience to further our public service and our country.

This is signed, sincerely, by Donald Ticknor—me—Royal Canadian Legion Branch 350, sergeant-at-arms, chairman of voluntary resources and executive committee member.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much for your testimony.

We'll now continue with our in-person witnesses. Mr. John Hewitt is next up.

Mr. Hewitt, you have five minutes or less.

[John Hewitt, As an Individual]

Thank you so much.

My name is John Colin Hewitt. I was named after my grandfather, Colin Bruce, a World War II pilot, and his father, a Boer War veteran. I grew up seeing my mother look at my father wearing his uniform in that indescribable way a woman's eyes convey the look that a man will live and die for.

Thank you for hearing me speak today. Let me begin by commending all the past and present casualties of war and the suicides. Your valour is not lost on us. We understand why you have done this.

To begin, I am not a war veteran. Let me tell you a bit of my story that led me into the priority process. I will skip right to my injury. I was injured in para school in Trenton, Ontario, during crash week. I landed badly, felt a sharp pain in my back, and at lunch I was locked up and sent to the hospital, carried away on a stretcher. I was given some muscle relaxants and I ran immediately back to school to complete my para course. I did not know then but I had herniated a disk in my back that hit my sciatic nerve. I jumped nine more times with pain increasing. Finally, on a rucksack march, my legs went numb and I dropped. An MRI showed the injury and I was put in JPSU.

At that time I only had a grade six education and learning disabilities to boot. I hired a specialist for a month to reteach me grade one. By the end of the month, I was up to a college reading level. From there, I completed high school and all the prerequisites for college. While awaiting release, I did two years at Lethbridge College. I had to drop two courses because of the workload, which was so intense due to my lack of education.

I entered into the priority system only to find that my school was only transferable to Parks Canada, which was exempt from the priority system. I was able to land a seasonal job as a park ranger. When the job ended, I was desperate for work, so I went back on the tugboat. I had severe pain. I found out about the VAC rehab system. I did not want to be provided for but I had a new baby at this time so my wife was off work. Out of desperation, I took a job with the Coast Guard as a labourer. I ended up in the hospital on the Alaska border and was flown home. My wife went back to work early while I looked after our baby so I could recover and get some money to live.

Veterans vocational rehab was approved by this time, and there was an assessment done. Once again, I went back to work as a labourer at DFO. Once again, the pain was overwhelming, even with cortisone shots. I saw a doctor and he said to me, “No more labour jobs.” My back was screwed. I needed back and knee surgery.

At this point, after reading an investigative report into veterans committing suicide after war due to systemic problems, I decided to get a psychology degree. It took me three or four tries to upgrade my English for the psychology program, while going through back and knee surgery, a divorce and a constant fight against the Veterans Affairs system that said I was too young for this injury. Their doctor said my back was getting better—the opposite of what my doctor said.

Then it struck me. I knew why veterans were committing suicide. I was outraged. Why would VAC say these things? I went to an officer at the Legion who had experience dealing with Veterans Affairs. He said, “You know this is an insurance company, don't you?” Now it all made sense to me. I decided to fight back, get a lawyer and gather evidence but the doctors would not write me letters confirming the degeneration of my injuries, stating, “I do not deal with insurance agencies.”

VAC finally left me alone when I was scheduled for surgery. After surgery, I finished upgrading. My prerequisites were entered into the psychology program, and once again, I was attacked for my learning disabilities. I was told a degree would take me too long. The final blow was an intelligence test the day before my psychology finals. All along I knew their intentions. They found my verbal abilities were well above average, but my math and spelling were well below average, disqualifying me from funding and pushing me back into labour.

I was done fighting. Without going into detail, I woke up in an ambulance, having been brought back to life. My dreams were crushed, my faith in Canada, myself and humanity were gone. Desperate, I started volunteering at a disability centre to gain some entrance-level administration experience, knowing I needed to preserve my back so I could play with my son in the future. I took a typing course, again began to apply for positions in the priority system and was denied, denied and denied.

I fought back, phoning everyone I could and demanding answers. I had no choice but to fight until I broke through.

I'm now at Service Canada. Here, I found what I can only explain as people accepting me for the way I am and empathizing with and understanding my past troubles. The manager quite frankly was too good to be true in terms of my diminished trust. He placed me beside a fellow PPCLI veteran who took me under his wing. The team leader was an ex-DND employee who spearheaded a mental health community and set up a decompression room. I had miraculously landed in a dysfunctional veteran's paradise.

I'm well behind my colleagues, and I have a feeling of constant guilt and pain that is always present, but they tell me every day that I'm worth it and to take a walk when I need to. They say, “When you get sore, we're behind you, no matter what.” What they have done for me brings tears to my eyes. It will take me a long time to get my well-being back, but I have time.

I told them that I was excited to share this news, and they told me that I was lucky to be at this office. Quite frankly, other veterans would not get this support in some of the other places, but with this, I digress.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much, Mr. Hewitt.

We'll now go on to Mr. Grant. Hopefully, we'll have audio. The video conference seems to be down, but hopefully we'll have Mr. Corcoz by teleconference.

Mr. Grant, you're up first.

[Alex Grant, As an Individual]

Honourable chairman and committee, thank you for the opportunity to be here today.

I am a retired naval officer. I work for DND, but I worked for VAC for three years. My evidence is as an individual from the perspective of a middle manager who was tasked to operationalize the Veterans Hiring Act, or VHA.

Back in July 2015, the VHA amended the Public Service Employment Act. Medically released personnel are now eligible for either statutory or regulatory entitlement, dependent on whether their release was or was not attributable to service. They have five years to activate their entitlement, and when it's activated, they have priority for five years or until they accept indeterminate employment with the public service. Serving members and all veterans have preference for external processes for five years from date of release. They also have mobility, which means they are eligible to participate in internally advertised appointment processes for up to five years after date of release.

I am very pro-VHA, but clearly to the layman it is complex. With the VHA, many armed forces members and veterans believed that upon retirement, they were automatically entitled to a public service job. This is not the case. When hit with the reality of public service hiring, some became bitter and felt betrayed.

As well, the VHA creates a complex space between the Public Service Commission, Veterans Affairs Canada and Canadian Armed Forces mandates. The Public Service Commission's mandate is to promote and safeguard merit-based appointments to protect the non-partisan nature of the public service. They are all about fairness and transparency. VAC's core mandate extends to the care, treatment or re-establishment in civilian life of any person who served in the Canadian Forces. Finally, one of the seven basic armed forces professional development objectives is to prepare retiring CAF members for the transition to civilian life. You have three departments whose mandates touch in this complex space, with no clear lead department, no MOU and confused clients. This is probably why this committee has been assembled.

Veterans Affairs Deputy Minister Walter Natynczyk talks to a lot of veterans and service members. He understands their concerns, and in an effort to close the seam between the departments, he took the initiative to create the veterans in the public service unit, or VPSU. You've heard about the VPSU's award-winning accomplishments from the Veterans Affairs director general of HR and other veterans. Its lines of effort are to influence two audiences—one, the veterans of today and tomorrow, and two, the public service hiring managers. There is a service delivery arm made up of veterans who understand the Veterans Hiring Act, have experienced the public service hiring process, and connect and relate with their clients as brothers in arms. To influence hiring managers, a strategic initiatives arm has, one, created an interdepartmental working group; two, leveraged GCconnex to share best practices; and three, completed outreach and connection pilot projects.

As the VPSU concept matured, I did internal stakeholder engagement at Veterans Affairs Canada. This is where I started to get a sense that operationalizing the VHA was going to be a difficult journey. I was challenged by HR professionals and hiring managers alike to justify the expense and resource drain of the VPSU when veterans are not an employment equity group. The answer, obviously, is that most veterans are not an employment equity group but the Government of Canada and Canadian people think they deserve enhanced public service hiring consideration—thus the VHA.

To improve, this will require continued education and accountability of our HR professionals and hiring managers. I have worked collaboratively with the Public Service Commission. I am confident they have the expertise required to address this issue. However, holding hiring managers accountable is an individual department's responsibility. I suggest that the way to do this and maintain transparency and fairness is for deputy ministers to, one, follow Veterans Affairs' lead and consider their department's mandate; two, consider the value that veterans represent; and three, establish reasonable aspirational hiring goals.

Then hold the hiring managers accountable for their actions. How can this be done? Well, I heard VIA Rail's president speak at a career fair. He said he has every director who screens out a veteran report to him and explain why and how that veteran could not be accommodated. When it comes to veteran hiring, I think public service directors and DGs can learn from his style of leadership and accountability.

When I left VAC, the requisite memos to cabinet and Treasury Board submissions were being considered to fund the VPSU. Up to that time, the VPSU had been funded through the DG of HR's funding envelope, and she was creative and innovative in making it work. I hope this can-do attitude continues, but I am concerned.

One of my last meetings while at VAC was to listen to legal counsel explain how they were having trouble aligning what the VPSU was doing with Veterans Affairs' mandate. To me, it's an obvious match. I hope they've figured it out, especially since a significant portion of VAC's evidence to this committee related to VPSU accomplishments.

In sum, there are two primary audiences: veterans who need to be mentored through the process, from skills translation to application, interview and immersion into a brand new culture; and appropriately monitored public service hiring managers who need to be educated about the veteran labour pool.

Sir, thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

Finally, colleagues, we will have, by teleconference from Windsor, Mr. Florin Corcoz.

Mr. Corcoz, can you hear us? Are you receiving any audio? It looks like we're trying to get a connection here, colleagues.

Failing that, we will continue to try to reach him by teleconference, but I don't want to delay the proceedings any more than we have to, so we'll go immediately into questions.

Colleagues, we won't be able to get two full rounds in, but I think we'll still go with the seven-minute rounds. That will allow three questions from the government, two from the official opposition and one from the NDP.

For the first seven-minute intervention, we have Mr. Peterson.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, gentlemen, for being with us today. Your testimony was very enlightening for our study here.

Mr. Hewitt, I want to start with you. You're currently with Service Canada. Is that what you said?

[John Hewitt]

Yes.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Where are you located?

[John Hewitt]

I'm in Nanaimo, British Columbia.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

How did you come about getting that job?

[John Hewitt]

I applied to, probably, five jobs. I applied to that job through the priority hire. I believe I got sent a priority message. I replied to it and then I did a follow-up email to ensure continuity to the manager. I'm pretty sure they didn't send it to the manager, but tenacity is really the only word that's going to get you anywhere.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Let me just say that I think what you've accomplished is remarkable considering the challenges you've faced and the obstacles you've had to overcome. Personally, I want to congratulate you for that tenacity. I think it's great to see the accomplishments that you've achieved based on your commitment to getting it done.

[John Hewitt]

Thank you.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Maybe I'll ask Mr. Grant, because it seems to segue into this a bit. You say you have two audiences here: the veterans whom you want to make sure have the proper expectations going into the process, which is a good way of looking at it; and on the other side, the managers and the people hiring. Mr. Hewitt seems to have found a good match in Service Canada. The manager in charge seems to appreciate that there needs to be some accommodation, values the contribution that Mr. Hewitt makes and obviously knows that any accommodation is well worth the return he's going to get.

Is that the perspective we need every manager to have?

[Alex Grant]

I think that would be great. I think there's probably an education piece there. I'm not sure where the research came from, but I have, from when I was working at VAC, close relations with the research group there. There's a best practice called “individual placement and support” which asks what is required for people who are coming back into the workplace. It requires a lot of engagement from not only the new employee but also from the manager. So, yes, I do agree.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

That's good—so do I. It seems to me that if we can operationalize this legislation to make that one of the metrics, it would go a long way towards getting us where we need to be. I think you'll agree with that.

Mr. Ticknor, thanks for your testimony, too. That was very enlightening. You were speaking about the specific example of the military police being able to become correctional service officers. Generally, that sheds some light on a problem that we're hearing about a lot: The specific skills learned in the military don't easily translate into layperson skills, so to speak. I think part of the shortcoming of making this work is that we as a government, depending on whatever department you want to look at, Veterans Affairs or DND, haven't taken the necessary steps to make that more seamless.

Would you agree with that?

[Donald Ticknor]

I actually fully endorse your statement, most definitely.

That being said, my expertise on the subject has added light to the code talk of how these transferable skills align with CX-01, correctional officer, in relation to those who have completed the military police assessment centre, most definitely.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Did you want to add something?

[Alex Grant]

I heard a lot in the previous evidence that skills translation figured prominently. I'm not sure if the committee knows that ESDC granted the Canada Company in excess of $1 million to develop a skills translator. It's called MNET. It stands for MOC, which is the military occupation code, and NOC—national occupation code—equivalency tool.

The beta version came up online. Then when Canada Company closed its military employment transition program, access to MNET went away. I've used MNET. I thought it was a great first start. It should come back.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Do we know the status?

Is it mothballed somewhere or is it gone for good?

[Alex Grant]

I don't know the status.