Veterans Affairs Committee on Feb. 6th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

I know that we have the speech of Mr. Thivierge, but we won't be able to ask him questions. Whether it's in French or in English, there's no translation. I have to be strict on translation.

Mr. Thivierge, you do live in this area. We can offer to invite you to appear before the committee again, as part of this study, to make your presentation properly. Otherwise, the members already have your speech, so they could incorporate it into the report. However, I think it is important to hear you talk about your personal experience.

What are your thoughts?

[André Thivierge]

If it is for the good of the committee, I agree, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you very much for your understanding. You can stay online and listen to the rest of this meeting, but the clerk will contact you to invite you to appear again as part of this study. I suggest that you turn your mic off and listen to the discussions we will be having during this meeting, if you wish.

Committee members and witnesses, we are going to continue.

Given that we were to continue our business during the second part of the meeting, we are going to cut into that second part in order to examine certain issues in depth with the witnesses who are present here. With that, we will begin the first round of questions.

I invite Mr. Terry Dowdall to start the questioning of the witnesses. You have six minutes or less.

[Terry Dowdall, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First of all, I want to thank all of our panellists for being here today, and to those who have served, thank you. [Technical difficulty—Editor]

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Excuse me, Mr. Dowdall.

I am being told that the sound is not getting to the interpreters' booth.

I am again going to suspend the meeting for a minute to do a sound test with our interpreters. You know we have changed rooms. That may be the source of the problem, members of the committee.

I would ask our witnesses to excuse me.

I will suspend the meeting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

We are resuming the meeting and are now beginning the second round of questions.

I am going to invite Terry Dowdall to speak for the next six minutes.

Mr. Dowdall, the floor is yours.

[Terry Dowdall, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I plan on ceding some of my time to my neighbour here, because we have quite a few questions and it's a short meeting.

First of all, thanks to everyone for being on our panel today. I think we're doing a great study. Hearing from the individuals who are helping us achieve some of those goals, hopefully, is fantastic.

Thanks to those on our panel who have served.

My first question will go to Mr. Meunier.

As you know, we heard testimony on the Corps of Commissionaires last week. I don't want to pick on any organizations, because I think they do great work as well.

You highlighted the RFR and the advantage, and I agree that it hurts companies like yours. I think everyone should, hopefully, be on the same playing field when we're hiring veterans coming out of the field. I heard that from Mr. Sangster from the National Association of Career Colleges as well.

In your opinion, what would a better process be to ensure people hire veterans and keep up numbers? Are we perhaps better off incentivizing hires than having a contract that states, “You need a certain number of veterans in your organization”?

[Colleen Arnold, Vice-President, Corporate Affairs, Garda World Security Corporation]

Thanks very much for your question.

I think there are multiple processes in place already, today. Without getting into too much detail, one in particular is called the “regional standing offer”. Essentially, what this does is pre-qualify service providers. Pre-qualifying sets standards that different providers need to meet. In doing so, you are vetting them to ensure veterans are hired and keep the employment they already have and retain their salary and benefits, their full compensation packages.

As I said, it's a veterans-preferential hiring policy. Putting that out to multiple companies makes it become a competitive process and allows the government to save upwards of $45 million. We know, from the minutes of standing committee meetings past, that the Corps of Commissionaires currently charge about 15% more than market rates. Forty-five million dollars is an awful lot of money that could go towards other programs that support our veterans.

[Terry Dowdall, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Thank you.

Another thing we heard is that a lot of veterans are homeless. I've heard numbers of up to 6,000. I know that in my area, a lot of employers are coming up with ways to address that because veterans can't afford to live in our communities and still work.

Is there an interest in that, perhaps? As a large corporation, could you be a partner in providing some kind of housing tied to employment?

[Colleen Arnold]

We partner with a lot of organizations in our communities. For instance, in Toronto, we're very close to the Crime Stoppers organization. We work on warm-up programs to help veterans.

We see a lot of it in our business. They find shelter in various areas where our clients perhaps don't want them. We're able to work with the homeless and our clients and different community organizations to move them to areas where they can have shelter and be safe overnight.

[Terry Dowdall, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Thank you.

I will now cede my time to you, Cathay.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to my colleague.

I appreciate you all being here. I will do my best to transition to some questions that are different from than those I had today.

I appreciate your concerns. You indicated that three things are important, one of them being the modernization of the right of first refusal. I need some clarity in those arguments. From what I understand, the Corps of Commissionaires is a non-profit or charitable organization, so their overhead is significantly less. There isn't that profit-driven side of things playing into the role of their organization.

The only point I have a question on.... I certainly don't have a question about being a business. As a matter of fact, I believe businesses are definitely far more efficient than government, a lot of the time, and I'm sitting in government—well, close.

My question is, what is your rationale for feeling that the right of first refusal needs to be shared more broadly?

[Jean-Luc Meunier]

The first thing is that it's a fact that the Corps of Commissionaires are the only ones who get access to hire veterans. The industry itself is bigger than the commissionaires. In my own ranks, I already have a lot of veterans, and they are not funnelled to us. We need to source them and find ways to get them to us. If we open the RFR up to everybody, it will give veterans better access to jobs that could benefit from their skill set.

There are many jobs we can offer that others cannot, and because the industry is so broad across the country, together I think we can afford—

Go ahead.

[Colleen Arnold]

You mentioned the non-profit side of the Corps of Commissionaires, and I mentioned their rate being 15% higher than the market rate. We know that this money is not going into the pockets of the veterans, and we can't say for certain—we have tried to investigate—where that money, that $45 million, is going. We do know that they compete against us in private industry and are generally able to beat us in a very low-margin business; they're able to win.

We also know, interestingly, that they're making purchases—acquisitions of companies—across the country. For a non-profit to be doing that is a little bit unclear, so we have to assume that the 15% is—

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

My time is up? Okay, thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Arnold.

Let's go to Mr. Churence Rogers for six minutes or less.

Please go ahead, Mr. Rogers.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for being here today. Welcome. Certainly your testimony is important to what we're doing here on this particular study.

I think the ultimate goal for all of us is to create a better system across the country to allow veterans to find employment and hopefully something to guide them to careers for their entire lifetimes.

Mr. Sangster, I want to ask you a question about the colleges.

I know you made some comments in your opening statement, but I'd like you to tell this committee some of the best things you do that create employment opportunities for veterans and how it's such a success story. You've shared some things with me in a private meeting, so I want you to share those with the committee.

[Michael Sangster]

Thank you, sir. I appreciate the opportunity to answer the question.

I believe it's our fast, innovative, agile style that we work with, being an entrepreneurial organization. We have about 450 members across Canada, and they're used to being very closely associated to the local employers and the local labour force needs, so we can train people quickly for what's needed in the economy nearby.

To answer your question, I'm going to answer you with an example of something that went on. While it's not veteran-related, in Ontario, we were able to train over 17,000 personal support workers during COVID. They came into our colleges in Ontario—and I have that case study I can use today—enrolled, studied, did practical placements, graduated and went into long-term care and personal care homes during COVID. Those are the kinds of examples we have all across the country.

We have veterans and active duty members at Willis College, where they're training to be cybersecurity experts inside DND. It's the fast, nimble approach that I believe our members can bring that is so valuable for learners.

I have to say that I think they're very adept and able to teach and educate people who come out of the military who have a bunch of those skills that employers are already looking for, turn them around quickly—three, six, nine months—and get them to work.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

What are some of the challenges that vets face? We've heard from some of them that they had a great deal of difficulty getting into certain programs and institutions. What are some of the challenges that some of them face when they come directly out of the military and try to take programs with your colleges, for example, across the country?

[Michael Sangster]

I think we can do better at educating them to the opportunities that exist with the training funds that come out of the federal government programs. I think we can work more closely with government to help educate them as well. Those are some of the difficulties.

I don't think veterans are as aware as they could be about the opportunities that exist to come in, get trained and get to work quickly, and that's why, in our comments today, we offered a couple of solutions, one of them being a permanent training table that would allow skills and workforce development issues to be brought to the table on a quarterly basis with government, industry, employers and veterans groups to make sure we're bringing those skills forward.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

From your experience, I think what you're saying is that we've seen a movement from colleges to provide support to military and veteran students on their campuses.

You also referenced the family members of veterans as well. Do you want to elaborate on that a bit?

[Michael Sangster]

Yes. We'd welcome the opportunity to develop on a national basis a program like the one that Willis College has done here in Ottawa to talk about how we could help train the families who serve alongside the members. We would welcome that opportunity to work with government and be a part of that. We would bring together employers that approach us and speak to us and see if we can't find a way to help train the families too.

I know from my past experience with some companies that they used to look at that: How do we get someone who can move anywhere and still be employed? We could quickly be a part of that solution.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

You mentioned the vets' skills and training. You see that as an important part of moving forward.

[Michael Sangster]

Yes. We see that as something that could be very valuable with employers, with all levels of post-secondary education—not just with regulated career colleges, but with all levels.

If I could go back quickly on the family answer, we see some mental health benefits there as well for the families. When you're less worried about the income of different members moving around, the whole family as a unit will feel better.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

This question is for Garda.

I talked to the Corps of Commissionaires right after our last meeting. I spoke to them privately here in the room. I wanted to know a little more about the RFRs, and they were pretty adamant that we retain that because it benefits their organization.

Have you had dialogue or discussions with the Corps of Commissionaires group in terms of whether or not the RFRs should be retained going forward, and what kinds of discussions were they?