Veterans Affairs Committee on Feb. 6th, 2023

[Michael Sangster]

One thing I'd like to share is around the small, intimate size of the classroom. You tend to have a smaller classroom size and a faster program. As I mentioned earlier, back-to-school day for us, as I like to say, is Monday. It's Thursday. It's not necessarily the first Tuesday after Labour Day. That feeling of getting at it and getting going applies to just about anything we do in work—when you get the project started, you get moving. When you get started on a Thursday in February, we find a higher success rate with some of those students, because they feel charged up.

I think the small and intimate size of classrooms in our career colleges, with people who are of a similar age and similar background to you, is very, very helpful.

[Rechie Valdez, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Can you provide input on how we can increase or encourage more veterans to start up in colleges? What can we do to encourage them to pursue that?

[Michael Sangster]

As I said earlier, I turn it around on ourselves as well. I think we can do more to encourage the education of veterans and active military on the options that are available to them using our channels, our social media, our marketing, our career fairs and our job fairs. I put the challenge on our own members that we can do a better job of communicating some of those things.

I think we can work more closely with government. For us, one of the impacts from COVID has been that maybe some of those conversations stalled. Some of those things that happened at conferences and meetings just came to a halt. We're not having those get-togethers anymore where you move things forward.

I'm putting it upon myself to get in touch with Veterans Affairs. This study led to me thinking about some things differently. I'll be in touch with the department to see what we can do together. The program is generous, and the veterans we talk to are supportive of it.

[Rechie Valdez, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

We have many Legions in our riding, so you're always welcome to pair up with some of them to get the word out.

You've shared several examples of all the work you're doing, which is wonderful. From all that learning, is there something you want to ensure that we incorporate in our national strategy?

[Michael Sangster]

We can never stop communicating. It's what we've learned in our association. We can never stop telling people what we do to convince people of the value of the regulated career college sector in Canada. It's to never stop communicating and to find those partnerships and places, as we've recommended, where we can come together to work together.

[Rechie Valdez, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Thank you.

I'll come back to Garda, since I have a bit more time.

Are there any other recommendations you would like to ensure we include in our strategy that you haven't mentioned already?

[Colleen Arnold]

Interestingly enough, all three of us, and others within our organization, have been following these sessions. Just in speaking with Mr. Sangster, we see many opportunities where we can partner. There is networking that we can do. I heard Ms. Blaney speak about how veterans want to feel that they are contributing to society. How about if we hire them and put them in a part-time job while they are finishing their studies, so they feel that they are contributing to society?

I believe we talked about an alignment with Veterans Affairs and with other partners that have sat through these sessions. We should really work together to find great options and alternatives for our veterans.

[Jean-Luc Meunier]

Security companies are invested in this country. When I think of us, we have 40 branches across the country, about the same footprint as Mr. Sangster here. There's probably an easy way to connect together to help veterans find education or work or other options.

[Michael Sangster]

Can I add one more comment I should have mentioned? It's just an opportunity that we can all take.

Consider this an invitation to tour our college. Come see what we're doing on the ground. See if you think it's a good fit to understand veterans going through that process and where they would come out the far side. We would welcome that. You can come tour one of our facilities across Canada.

[Rechie Valdez, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you.

This is where we end the questions.

During the testimony, we heard that Mr. Bernier is also a veteran.

On behalf of the members of the committee, I want to thank you for your service. I also want to tell you that we offer special services for veterans when we invite them, to be able to assist them at the committee. Please do not hesitate to call on our committee. The clerk will help you with this.

With that, I would like to thank the witnesses who have appeared today: first, from GardaWorld Security Corporation, Jean-Luc Meunier, president and chief operating officer, security services, Canada; Colleen Arnold, vice-president, corporate affairs; and Simon Bernier, national director, innovation and technologies.

From the National Association of Career Colleges, we had Mr. Michael Sangster, chief executive officer.

Thanks again for your contribution.

Committee members, we are going to suspend for a few seconds to have time to thank our witnesses, and we will then move on to the second part of our meeting.

I am suspending the meeting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

We are resuming the meeting.

The agenda shows that the second part of the meeting is set aside for committee business. Committee members have a choice: we can continue to meet publicly or we can meet in camera. If the members want to continue the meeting in camera, I will have to suspend the meeting for two or three minutes. As I said, in the second part of the meeting, we will essentially be discussing upcoming committee business.

First, I would like to make a few announcements.

On Thursday, we will hear from four witnesses; two people will be testifying during the first hour of the meeting, and two others will be testifying during the second hour.

The next week, we will be hearing from more witnesses; their names are on the witness list. As well, I would note that the list will be updated so we are able to hear testimony from a sufficient number of witnesses during our study.

First I have Mr. Richards, who would like to intervene.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

The main point of my intervention is to say that we have literally less than 15 minutes. I would ordinarily say that committee business, unless there's a reason for it not to be in camera.... There are various reasons for it not to be in camera. We quite often do that in camera, but I was going to suggest, given the limited time that we have, that we not suspend to go in camera.

Let's use part of the time that we have, especially since I don't think there's a whole lot of discussion that's going to be needed here. It sounds to me like you have this week and next planned with this study, and then there's one week before we have a break. I would like to see us try to get a report done on the study we were doing before Christmas on the rehab contract. Maybe we can get into that and end at that point.

I haven't had a lot of time to think about what should come next yet, but maybe at that point, once we've finished that review and that report, we would have an opportunity to have some further discussion, with a little more time, about what would come next. We can all come with suggestions and make a plan for it, because we have two weeks of constituency week. That could give our clerk some time to plan witnesses, or whatever the case might be.

My suggestion is that we roll through this week and next and go to work on the report that we should begin work on. We could then, during that week when we have two meetings, have some discussion about what comes next.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you.

I have Mr. Samson. After him, I have Ms. Blaney.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Yes, Chair. If you had let me speak first, I would have said the same thing. I'm good with staying public.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Go ahead, Ms. Blaney.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Now I want to be difficult and say no, but I'm not going to do it. I'm fine with it being public.

It sounds like we need to probably plan, as per what Blake said, another public subcommittee meeting in the next while to have discussions about studies going forward.

I will remind everybody on the committee that I'm pushing really hard to have a study on women veterans. Every report we read talks about the fact that we don't know enough about women veterans. I think we need to spend some time on that, and hopefully engage the government to look into it a bit more with some fundamental recommendations.

That's all I have for my intervention.

Thank you so much, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you very much.

As I said, we have that time to discuss. We have this week, which is okay for the session. Next week, we have....

The clerk will have to call the people who are to testify at the two meetings next week. The following two weeks are break weeks.

I think that if we discuss the upcoming studies in the time we have left, we will be able to prepare a witness list to submit to the clerk and plan the next meetings, as Ms. Blaney said.

When we come back, that is, after the break weeks, we may have a report. Can our analyst tell us whether we will be receiving the report, and the translated version, when we come back from the break weeks?

[Jean-Rodrigue Paré, Committee Researcher]

It will all depend on when I receive the text of the contract. We are waiting for the government to provide us with the contract and a few other documents that are on the list of the consultations that took place.

The report is ready for the most part. I am waiting for those things to confirm the various items.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Right.

Perhaps the clerk has been in touch with the department concerning the requests we have made.

Are we still waiting?

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Audrée Dallaire]

Yes, that's right.

On the contract, it did say "interim" in the letter and that we were going to receive it in mid-February.

On the motion adopted last Thursday, it has been sent to the department and we are awaiting an answer.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Right, thank you.

I'd like to say to our colleague, Wilson Miao, that I'm sorry that you can't participate, but we are working on the sound with the technicians. I am so sorry about that.

Go ahead, Mr. Richards.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

I have a couple of questions.

You mentioned a couple of other things that you were waiting on with regard to the rehab contract. Can you elaborate on what those were and when we...?

[Jean-Rodrigue Paré]

I have a small list of documents that have been asked for from the government, the main one being the contract itself, because I want to compare it to the call for tenders.

The other thing is there was a request for a list of the consultations that had taken place. It was stated in committee, but there was supposed to be a document to support that.

Those are the documents.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

All of the documents you are waiting for are from Veterans Affairs?