I'll give you two minutes.
Thank you all for being here. We've been studying this because we realize that there is a problem with transitioning veterans into civilian life, and we were wondering what the status was of the priority hiring.
You have told us what we have heard repeatedly, that there is a disconnect between the military.... You know, if I were in Afghanistan and I needed help, I would come to you. The Public Service Commission doesn't understand your skill sets and that's where there is a problem.
The reason I say that—and I was chuckling to myself—is that when I first came to Canada and I had a university degree from London, England, they told me that my equivalence was grade 12. I thought, “I did Cambridge and Oxford. What are you talking about, saying grade 12?”, so I can see where you're coming from, but I think that is because there's probably a great deal of ignorance of what you do.
With the Canadian Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs and PSC, I think the responsibility should really be with the Canadian Armed Forces, because it is the one that trains you. It has a curriculum that is probably far superior to that of a university degree.
I think you were thinking that we were trying to find a solution, a one-size-fits-all. We're not. We're listening. We're in a listening mode and asking what it is that we can do.
Trust me; I don't know what a warrant officer does, but you do something that's so great that I wouldn't even know what to do with it. I think if we could find a way in which universities and colleges, who get their money because you have to pay to go to college, agree to the equivalence provided by the military—the military has to take the lead—would that work so that your qualifications would be equivalent to a university degree? What are your thoughts, all three of you?