National Defence Committee on April 13th, 2010

[MGen Walter Semianiw]

The one in four is already starting to come down. Something to remember is that you can't just get out of the regular force one day and join the reserve force the next day and walk into the job. You have to meet all the requirements. You have to be fit. You have to pass your medical. So there's still a swath of requirements that you have to meet to be able to do that.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

I'm just curious to know what led you to undertake the initiative of the new web-based recruitment process you recently implemented.

[MGen Walter Semianiw]

What led us were the comments made by reservists who asked, “How do we find reserve job opportunities?” The point to note is that if you are a reservist, if you're on a three-year contract, we will also move you across the country. We've done that for many reservists under the new approach, because we know they're part of the success of the Canadian Forces. So that kind of moved us towards having something like a monsterjob.ca site for reservists. Once we established it and added to it, we noticed all the other areas it actually does assist by providing greater controls and greater transparency. We'd be more than happy to show the software to the committee at any time. The way we actually built it was driven more by the opportunity or chance to provide reservists with a one-stop shop when it came to available reserve opportunities across the country.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Since the implementation of this new web-based system, has the number of grievances gone up? Has it gone down? Or is it too early to know?

[MGen Walter Semianiw]

To begin with, we don't know, but as I said, I've never had a grievance on the issue of someone not getting a class B job that somebody else got and thinking that was unfair. And I get grievances at my level--I'm one of the grievance authorities. I haven't seen it. I have heard these comments, but I don't know. I could take a look at the information for you, but I would only assume it's going to be more open, more transparent. It's going to be better for everybody.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Have other government departments implemented similar initiatives?

[MGen Walter Semianiw]

I don't know. We'd be more than happy to share with other government departments at no cost. Right now the army and the navy are looking at it, and then we'll kind of roll it out across the CF.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Thank you, sir.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

I would like to thank our witnesses from the Department of National Defence. This has been a very productive meeting for Committee members.

I wish you a good day. Thank you very much.

Now I will suspend our work for five minutes and we'll come back in camera.

[Proceedings continue in camera]