Veterans Affairs Committee on March 12th, 2015

[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.

[The Chair, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

Thank you very much, Admiral.

Mr. Hayes.

[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.

[The Chair, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

You have five minutes.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[Adm Greg Smith]

That's correct.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Very good. Thank you.

I'm going to turn my time over to Mr. Hawn.

[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—

[Adm Greg Smith]

No, no, that's alright. Another day.

[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.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

So those kinds of companies are posted on the job boards.

[Adm Greg Smith]

That's right.

[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.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Maybe I'm missing something, but are you funded by DOD?

[Adm Greg Smith]

No, sir. This is a private company.

[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?

[Scott Byrne]

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.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Generally speaking, what has the reception been from DND and VAC?