I would like to welcome MGen Semianiw, as well as Col Moher and Ms. Johnson.
Major-General, I would like you to give us some figures. I have identified three different types of double-dipping. First, there are former civilian employees in receipt of a pension who work as contractors for the Department. I understand that you don't have these figures with you today, but could you forward them to the Clerk? That would be greatly appreciated.
Another category would be retired military personnel working as civilian contractors for the Department. That can also happen.
But the category I am most interested in is retired military personnel who become reservists. You just made a brief reference to that scenario. You have identified 77 of them. In that last category—retired military personnel that become reservists—one soldier has written the following comments, which I would like to read to you in English:
Here's the way it works. General X has a colonel he does not want to lose, for whatever reason, and there are lots. Colonel X is slated to move on by the career manager, but losing him will entail hardship for General X, so he converts the position to a class B reserve and tells Colonel X the job is his if he retires. Colonel X retires, stays at his old desk, but with his new pension he has added 85% of his old paycheque to his account and is spared another potential move. The life begins as a golden double dipper in Ottawa. It's funny how many of these class B positions are found in places like Ottawa and other headquarter cities. The problem is that as more and more of these senior staff positions are being converted to reserve positions, the regular serving CF member's career is being penalized, because all of these positions are no longer available to him for career development. So the quality and experience of CF serving personnel will diminish over time. Once you take a hard CF establishment position out of the system, it becomes very difficult to get it back. Class B positions were originally created to allow class A reservists with training and experience the opportunity to get full-time employment without joining the CF full-time. It fulfilled a need for the CF and the reservist, but the cost was only 85% of a regular member. Now the whole thing has been bastardized and is being used by retirees to collect their position and to stay in one place with a very nice salary. If it continues, the CF will be paying more than what it would have if it had kept the position in the CF regular forces. Sure they get the position at 85% of the CF salary, but only after paying the pension of the CF retiree first. So now you are paying a pension plus 85% of the same personnel resource for the same amount of work and a whole lot less flexibility, because everyone knows you can't move a class B reservist.
I would be interested in hearing your reaction to the comments sent to me by this soldier.