Evidence of meeting #40 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 civilian.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
John Rafferty NDP Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON
When you're coming up with that figure—the United States armed forces, of course, is much, much larger than Canada—I suppose it was done on a proportional basis, the anticipated use, or is it—
Adm Greg Smith
Again, it wouldn't be on a cost per use.
In other words, the individual using it doesn't cost money. It's really about the size of the scale here in terms of jobs in the marketplace. They all have to be coded against the scale, and all of the jobs inside the military have to be coded, to make sure those linkages remain fresh and valuable throughout the life of the program.
Conservative
Conservative
Bryan Hayes Conservative Sault Ste. Marie, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will share my time with Mr. Hawn.
I only have a couple of questions.
Conservative
Bryan Hayes Conservative Sault Ste. Marie, ON
Thank you very much.
Mr. Gray, thank you for bringing forward recommendations in your opening comments because we, as a committee, in fact look for recommendations. I believe some of your recommendations have already been implemented.
That being said, what I do want to know from you is whether you have you seen the “Mental Health Services for Veterans Action Plan” that was released by the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Capt(N) Perry Gray
Yes, I have.
I haven't commented on it yet because I'm waiting until next month when there's a summit with the minister.
Conservative
Bryan Hayes Conservative Sault Ste. Marie, ON
Okay. I will be looking forward to your comments at that time.
Thank you.
Mr. Smith and Mr. Byrne, this military skills translator is fascinating. Does it ever determine that additional skills are required, or additional education is required?
Adm Greg Smith
One thing we've done with our system is that we get to the middle ground, so education, training, whether it's a skills training area like certification to be a welder, all the way to a university setting, or the linkages to what jobs you might want to take. For instance, if your goal is to be X and to bridge that gap requires perhaps a couple of years of working in a certain area, that helps to identify that as well.
Conservative
Bryan Hayes Conservative Sault Ste. Marie, ON
That's interesting.
One comment that was made by an earlier witness was that when we invest in education, which we do— there's $75,800 available for education—there was a concern of how we can be assured that the investment is going to pay off in the long run.
It would seem that you've answered that. This identifies the appropriate skills set and the appropriate gaps, in terms of where this individual should go for education.
Conservative
Bryan Hayes Conservative Sault Ste. Marie, ON
Very good. Thank you.
I'm going to turn my time over to Mr. Hawn.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
Thank you very much.
Thank you, gentlemen, all for being here.
Admiral Smith, over my years I have had many fond memories of service with the United States Navy, and some service in the back part of Miramar that wouldn't be—
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
In relation to some of the comments about the cost, I think it's pretty cheap, frankly.
You talked about some of the big employers being on board.
Do you have some of the big ones that are the size of GM, Ford, GE, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, those sorts of folks?
Adm Greg Smith
Those are the major employers that have set national goals of hiring, say, 100, or 200, or 1,000 veterans.
They needed this tool, so they made that investment in their own company's website.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
So those kinds of companies are posted on the job boards.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
Okay, cool.
What kind of support or association do you have with DOD?
Adm Greg Smith
We have full access to all of the data that we need to be able to do all the assessments, everything from what we call MOSs, military occupational specialties, down to specific training and what training is involved, what the curricula are.
We had to build all that in to build the competency to ensure that when we said you had the skill, you in fact did.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
Maybe I'm missing something, but are you funded by DOD?
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
It's totally private.
How much contact, if any, other than individual committee members, have you had...? Have you had any contact with DND or Veterans Affairs Canada?
Manager, Strategy, Monster Government Solutions, Monster Canada
Yes.
We've been knocking on doors for about two and a half to three years for this. We have met with Veterans Affairs a number of times. We have met with members of DND. We've gone from members of the committee to talking to former CMPs.
We've been around the horn.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
Generally speaking, what has the reception been from DND and VAC?
