Yes, I'll provide the opening remarks.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, for inviting us to appear before this committee as representatives of the Treasury Board.
Our sector undertakes all collective bargaining activities for the core public administration and we establish terms and conditions of employment for non-executive employees, including vacation leave entitlements. Our sector also provides interpretation services for departments when they have questions with regard to all terms and conditions of employment or the intent of the policies and directives.
In light of the prior testimony, we understand that this committee has a particular interest with regard to the policy considerations of prior service or seniority when calculating vacation leave entitlements for veterans upon hiring them in the federal public service. We can confirm that prior to April 2012, veterans' prior service was either not considered or addressed inconsistently in various collective agreements.
This inequity was identified in budget 2012 to be rectified. On June 20, 2012, the directive on terms and conditions of employment for the federal public service was amended to include service with the Canadian Forces in the definition of “service” for vacation leave purposes. That was effective April 1, 2012. This allowed prior service as a member of the Canadian Forces to be consistently taken into account in the calculation of vacation leave credits for all employees in the core public administration. This language was subsequently negotiated and added to all collective agreements in the core public administration.
Any former service in the Canadian Forces for a continuous period of six months or more, either as a member of the regular force or of the reserve force while on class B or C service, is included in the calculation of vacation leave credits.
Veterans who join the public service can contact their compensation adviser or the public service pay centre with a record of service—if they have eligible prior service—and compensation staff will review their file and make adjustments as required per the relevant collective agreement.