Thank you.
Ms. Hughes, you're absolutely right. In the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, veterans make up 30% of the entire employee workforce, and 25,000 of that 30% are disabled veterans. Veterans Affairs cannot answer how many veterans are employed in their department. I suspect it's because there are very few and because it's an embarrassingly low number.
It astounds me. Every federal department is obligated to set appropriate hiring targets for minorities, for aboriginals, for the disabled. Every department is also obligated to hire people who have specialties in the fields they represent. Transport Canada has to hire transport engineers. They have to hire inspectors who perhaps were airplane engineers, aero-engine engineers, or pilots. Indian and Northern Affairs has positions that specifically require some exposure to or involvement in the aboriginal culture, and Statistics Canada has to hire statisticians, yet Veterans Affairs is the only department that is not obligated to hire the very specialty they are supposed to be serving: the veteran.
You in the committee well understand the unique demands of military culture. There is no way that someone who hasn't served in the military can really understand what it's like to have served in the military and the transition into civilian life. It's absolutely inexcusable that they don't have any targets for hiring veterans in the department, let alone disabled veterans.