Veterans Affairs Committee on March 13th, 2012

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

More or less....

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to say at the beginning that I will be sharing my time with the member from Niagara West—Glanbrook, in case he has some good questions.

I would like to thank the witnesses very much.

Mr. Blakely, I think you opened some eyes even around this committee table today when you talked about the types of jobs that are out there. These aren't just manual labour jobs for which a person is getting $12 an hour. Some are very skilled, very hard, but very highly rewarding jobs, and not just in pay but in the end results as well, especially in our home province of Alberta. As you know, things are booming out there.

Many people around the table are wondering what I'm doing here, working for....

The questions I have for you are in regard to the program and the website. Did your organization ask for more than $150,000, or was that the ask right now to get things started?

[Robert Blakely]

Our ask was: can we work with you to do this? The answer was, yes, and by the way, we'll give you some money to get you started.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

So it's a good news story.

[Robert Blakely]

We thought so.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Absolutely.

I wanted to touch base on the security features that this website will.... Can you elaborate a little on that? I know this is something the CF members in my area really pay attention to, when they start talking about going on some of these sites.

[Robert Blakely]

The short answer is that I'm a culture boatswain. If you want to know about the metaphysical poetry of John Donne, I can give you a great answer. To talk about the website...I'm a bit at sea.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

That may be one of the best answers of the year. I'll leave the translation to Mr. Casey.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Could we make sure that gets in the report? That was great.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Perhaps you could enlighten us a little about the employers' point of view—how they perceive this program. I've talked to many of them, but I think it's something that would be of interest here.

[Robert Blakely]

We've had employers lining up to say they're interested in finding people who have a work ethic and have self-discipline. Our employers have been very good at saying they'll make spots for people.

Back home in Alberta, the Construction Labour Relations Association and the Boilermaker Contractors' Association have actively talked about funding this. We're going to make sure we set a number of places for veterans in our apprenticeship cohorts as they go through.

I would say that Canadian employers writ large, at least in our industry, are entirely prepared to step up and do the right thing by the people who went in harm's way for us.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Excellent. Thank you for that.

The last question I have for you on the program is to ask for a little bit of your vision, moving forward.

[Robert Blakely]

I think the vision is to develop a number of ways by which we can integrate people into the industry.

When someone leaves the Canadian Forces, they may leave with certain skill sets that are transferable. If people don't have those, we would look at trying to find a way to give them a skill set, so that when they go on a job they're not complete strangers there. When you join up and go through your recruit training, you learn enough to be able to say that you're a member of a proud organization. I think that's what we want to do with people who have no transferable skills.

For people who have transferable skills, we'd like to be able to translate those skills so that we can fit people into the appropriate spot in the apprenticeship programs. For people who are professionals—engineers, logisticians—there are HR people, the personnel selection officers or PSOs. Our employers need people who have those skills. They can't get them; they're in the paper all the time.

So we're looking at a way to try to get them into that and then to look at other occupations within the Canadian Forces which may, with a little bit of delta training, put people right at the top when they start. That's the three-year look ahead.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Do I have any time left, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

We're actually a bit over, but you promised Mr. Allison a brief question, if he had one.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West—Glanbrook, ON]

Sure, and I promise to keep it very brief.

Ms. Robinson, congratulations on your recent appointment. I think that's great.

In terms of the placements of the Public Service Commission, there is obviously a wide range—all those other kinds of things.

Just quickly, what types of jobs do you tend to find for vets?

[Anne-Marie Robinson]

I can give you again the results from that three-cohort study. Between 2007 and the cohort that ended in 2010, 64% of people were appointed to administration and clerical positions; 18% were in such fields as mechanics, chauffeurs, and manual labour; 13% were in technical areas, which includes engineers, informatics specialists, and aviation inspectors. There is another group as well. We've hired lawyers, nurses, border services inspectors, social workers, and correctional services officers.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Thank you very much. We are at the end of our time.

I just want to say that we assume Mr. Storseth's question about why he is here is a rhetorical one. No one has to feel obligated to answer.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

I want to inform the members that we will be in a different committee room on Thursday. You'll be informed; we're not sure which one it is right now.

I especially want to thank all of our witnesses for coming forward today. There's been a lot of very helpful and useful information for our study. If you get a few written questions, it's because we didn't have time today to finish.

Thank you very much for being here with us.

We are adjourned.