Evidence of meeting #15 for Veterans Affairs in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was street.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Captain (Retired), As an Individual
No, no.
Do I laud a veterans priority hiring process? Yes, because as we proved with the peer support network, veterans understand veterans. It's just that simple.
The people in this room who are veterans, whether it was navy, army, air force, we all speak a common language. We understand certain things, we understand certain behaviours, and whatnot. So it would be there. Do you want a really great place to put some of those priority veteran hires? VRAB would be one hell of a place to start.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
The percentage of veterans is higher on VRAB now, and arguably needs to be higher still. To be clear, we're not talking about just injured veterans being priority hires.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
Not every veteran would have the skills to be transferable to that. But for those who are appropriately qualified to be case managers, would you see that as a pretty positive place to put those kinds of folks?
Captain (Retired), As an Individual
If they have the qualifications, that would be a wonderful place to start. Case management process, transition networks, expanding military family support—there are a lot of places with some great skill sets that some very qualified people could wind up in. I am not for a moment going to say that we don't want to do that.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
No. Frankly, I think it's a no-brainer to do that.
Mr. Yhard, you talked about taking money from anybody and so on, and that's obviously true of a lot of organizations that operate on volunteers. You've never applied. Have you thought of applying? Do you intend to apply to VAC for assistance?
National Executive Director, National Executive Board of Directors, Veterans Emergency Transition Services
Understanding that we're only three years young, we're still moving and we're still growing.
To answer your question, though, for us the idea of applying to the government for funding at the moment impacts upon our non-partisan position. We try to be very careful not to pick sides. We don't want to be seen as someone picking sides. I'll go back to saying that if you want to give us money, we'll take it.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Greg Kerr
Mr. Hawn, we're right up against the clock. You can have a question if it's within three seconds.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
We have criticized the My VAC Account, and I get that. Do you have a form on your website to help folks?
National Executive Director, National Executive Board of Directors, Veterans Emergency Transition Services
Yes.
Conservative
National Executive Director, National Executive Board of Directors, Veterans Emergency Transition Services
I'll talk about the My VAC and then the age differences of our clientele. The 22-year-old knows how to use it; the 88-year-old doesn't. It doesn't matter what you do for your My VAC. If they're 88 years old, in all likelihood they're not going to be able to deal with it. What our application does is allow everyday Canadians to download it onto their smartphones and their iPads and use it as a means of identifying someone who may in fact be in need of assistance.
They are two completely different applications.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Greg Kerr
Thank you very much.
That concludes our round of questions.
I really want to thank our witnesses very much. We can always keep on learning more; there's no question. We really appreciate the input.
What I want to say is that we're going to have a business session at the end of the next meeting. There are some items that are to be dealt with that day. We have two witnesses that day, so we'll have ample time to deal with items that have been pointed out, including where we're going in future, etc.
If that's it for today, we will adjourn until Thursday.
Thank you. The meeting is adjourned.