Veterans Affairs Committee on Oct. 26th, 2026

[The Chair, Liberal, Marie-France Lalonde]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 44 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted on May 25, 2026, the committee is meeting as part of its study on the civilian recognition of military skills.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the Standing Orders. Members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application.

I would like to make a few comments for the benefit of witnesses and members.

For those participating by video conference—and I believe all three of the witnesses on our first panel are by video conference—please make sure to click on the microphone icon to activate your mic, and please mute yourself when you are not speaking. For those on Zoom, at the bottom of your screen, you can select the appropriate channel for interpretation: floor, English or French.

I will inform our guests that Madame DeBellefeuille from the Bloc Québécois will be addressing them in French. Also, on the Liberal side, there will be other members who.... I'll just generalize by saying that there will be several members of our committee who will be addressing you in French, including me, so please make sure you have the translation.

I always mention that, Mrs. DeBellefeuille. I apologize to my colleagues on the right side of the room.

I would now like to welcome our witnesses.

We have, as an individual, Dr. John Whelan, a clinical psychologist and veteran.

Dr. Whelan, thank you very much for your service.

We have, from the Nova Scotia Apprenticeship Agency, Ms. Michelle Bussey, chief executive officer. We also have, from the Veterans Legal Assistance Foundation, a former member of Parliament, Mr. Peter Stoffer, chairperson.

I have to say, on behalf of the committee, thank you very much for your contribution to this committee. I understand you're the one who tabled the motion to create our committee, sir, so thanks for your hard work on this file.

We will start by giving each of you five minutes to deliver your opening remarks. After that, the rest of the hour will be a series of questions from the members of the committee.

I would like to invite Dr. Whelan.

The floor is yours for five minutes.

[Dr. John Whelan, Clinical Psychologist, As an Individual]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Madam Chair and members of the committee, thank you for inviting me. I'm Dr. John Whelan, a clinical psychologist, Canadian Armed Forces veteran, and adjunct faculty member at Mount Saint Vincent University.

For 30 years, I've treated military members, veterans and their families. I serve on a national veteran volunteerism action plan steering committee, and the present study mirrors some of our questions: Which skills and abilities, which veterans, which settings and towards whose goals?

Veterans are a highly heterogeneous population: an electronics tech seeking trade recognition, a young mother leaving before completing occupational training, a reservist physician, a senior leader wanting less responsibility, etc. They all face different needs. Health, family circumstances and reasons for leaving matter.

Military service cannot tell us what veterans can do, what support they need or what they want. For technical occupations, the task is to assess competence against civilian standards through relevant certification authorities and employers. Veterans deserve recognition of prior learning, clear explanations of gaps and accessible pathways to meet outstanding requirements.

Broader capacities require attention to context—capacities such as leadership, co-operation and decision-making developed through military roles and relationships. Their effectiveness elsewhere cannot be inferred from rank or years of service. Military life provides recognized authority, shared procedures, mission and belonging. On departure, experience remains, but the relationships and structures supporting it change or disappear. A veteran may be technically capable while needing to establish credibility, to negotiate responsibilities and to trust in new communities. Civilian settings often require open communication, collaboration and respectful disagreement. Military organizations also require those capacities, but their expression may need adjustment when expectations change.

My work with the volunteerism initiative centres these questions. We are working to avoid reinforcing an image of veterans as uniformly resilient, self-sacrificing leaders waiting for another mission. Some want to lead. Others want to learn, contribute quietly or recover from years of demanding responsibilities. All deserve to be considered as individuals.

Employment and volunteer initiatives can help meet workforce and community needs while offering meaningful opportunities, but success must be judged from the veteran's perspective. Providing purpose is only part of the task. Belonging means relationships where one is known, respected and able to participate without continually proving value through service.

A veteran can be busy, useful and praised while still feeling isolated and disconnected. A placement alone cannot establish belonging, nor should veterans have to accept excessive demands to remain welcome. Preparation for civilian life must address relationships and culture alongside qualifications. In my work on military professional development, I emphasize reflective capacity, recognizing habitual responses, understanding new context and choosing how to respond.

Can I recognize expertise without military credentials? Can I disagree while maintaining a relationship? Which habits remain useful, and which need adjustment? Where military belonging has encouraged dismissive views of civilians, those assumptions also deserve re-examination.

Receiving organizations have responsibilities such as fair assessment, clear expectations and appropriate onboarding opportunities for reciprocal relationships. Veterans need room to set boundaries, seek support and change roles without being judged as failing to live up to their service.

I ask the committee to consider the Government of Canada's role in ensuring that the CAF, working with Veterans Affairs Canada, provides structured preparation before release across all release pathways, including members without substantive contact with the CAF TG. Preparation should address identity, relationships and participation in civilian settings alongside employment, volunteerism and clinical care where needed. Its reach and outcomes should be evaluated independently.

My commitment is to veterans succeeding in civilian lives they value. They must recognize all that they carry from service to help them utilize abilities and new meaningful connections. They require the freedom to decide how much responsibility and service they wish to carry forward.

Thank you. I welcome your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marie-France Lalonde]

Thank you very much.

I will now invite Ms. Bussey, chief executive officer of the Nova Scotia Apprenticeship Agency, to speak for five minutes.

[Michelle Bussey, Chief Executive Officer, Nova Scotia Apprenticeship Agency]

Good afternoon.

Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee, for the invitation to appear today.

My name is Michelle Bussey. I'm the chief executive officer of the Nova Scotia Apprenticeship Agency. I also serve as the chair of the Canadian council of directors of apprenticeship, the forum through which provinces and territories work together on apprenticeship and skilled trades issues.

Before I begin, I'd like to acknowledge the tragedy at CFB Wainwright. My deepest condolences go to the families, friends and colleagues of the Canadian Armed Forces members who lost their lives. My thoughts are also with those who were injured, their loved ones and everyone in the Canadian Armed Forces community affected by this tragedy. At times like this, we are reminded of the service and sacrifice of those who serve our country. Their service strengthens our community and protects the values Canadians hold dear. They bring leadership, discipline, technical expertise and a commitment to teamwork and excellence. Those are the qualities every employer is looking for.

I appreciate the opportunity to contribute to your study on the civilian recognition of military trades.

It's true that employers are looking now more than ever.... Canada is in a unique moment. Employers are looking for skilled workers across the country. Major projects are moving forward. Communities are growing. Opportunities in the skilled trades continue to expand. Veterans have an important role to play in meeting that demand. Our job is to make sure that unnecessary barriers do not stand in their way. That is why the work around military skills recognition is so important.

For many years, the Canadian council of directors of apprenticeship, Employment and Social Development Canada and the Department of National Defence have worked together to compare military training and experience with civilian Red Seal standards. The goal has been straightforward. When military training and civilian trade requirements align, that experience should be recognized. The result is a process that helps qualified military tradespeople move more quickly into civilian certification pathways. It recognizes what they already know, respects the skills and experience they have earned through service, and helps them continue to contribute to Canada's economy and communities.

Provinces and territories have played an important role in that work. Industry has played an important role as well. The strength of this initiative comes from collaboration. It is governments, industry and military partners working together to solve a practical problem.

In Nova Scotia, we are proud of the work happening to support veterans and military families. We have worked to map military occupations to Nova Scotia-designated trades so that people can receive recognition of their experience and the skills they have gained through service. We also partner with Helmets to Hardhats Canada to help veterans, reservists and family members connect with opportunities in the skilled trades and construction. Together, this work is helping create clearer pathways from military service to civilian careers.

We are also proud to be the home of one of Canada's largest defence communities. Every day, we see the talent, leadership and experience that veterans bring to our workforce. Helping them transition into rewarding civilian careers is good not just for veterans but for employers, communities and the Canadian economy. Most importantly, it reflects the simple principle that people who have served our country should be able to use their skills to build successful careers after service.

Thank you again for the opportunity to be here today. I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marie-France Lalonde]

Thank you very much.

I would now like to invite Mr. Peter Stoffer, chairperson from the Veterans Legal Assistance Foundation and a former member of Parliament.

Sir, the floor is yours for five minutes.

[Peter Stoffer, Chairperson, Veterans Legal Assistance Foundation]

Hi. First of all, I want to thank all my colleagues around the table. Thank you very much for the opportunity to participate in a very important discussion.

My name is Peter Stoffer. I chair the Veterans Legal Assistance Foundation, but I also have the honour and privilege of being in about 11 different veteran organizations as well.

What I find is that from the transition period of leaving the military into civilian life, a lot of veterans, military personnel and RCMP feel naked without that uniform for the first while. They really are a bit lost. Even though they may have had a good transition, they still feel part of that “get up and go” and want to do something for their country. I find that in many cases, a lot of these veterans, unfortunately, are injured. They have either post-traumatic stress disorder or operational stress injuries. They're finding it challenging to go back into the workplace.

I believe that one of the things that can be done prior to their leaving the military is to ensure that if a veteran is leaving on a 3B medical release, everything is done to basically instill in them that they have worth. They have value. They and their family can still be contributing members to our society. We need to assist them in finding gainful employment that not only puts food on the table but also is worthy of their service to Canada.

There are two organizations right now that I want to send a special hello and thank you to—Helmets to Hardhats and Commissionaires Nova Scotia and Canada. These two organizations truly understand what it's like to work with veterans and, just as importantly, their families, in order to transition veterans into gainful employment in that regard. Many veterans have very good skills, but if you were a stoker on a ship for many years, you may physically not be able to handle any kind of physical work outside of the military. You may have to transition into something else. This is where I believe DVA and DND can work with that veteran or that individual and their family to find something for them when they leave the service. I believe that would go a long way toward giving them back their dignity.

The other concern, too, that many folks need to be worried about is what I call “poaching”. A lot of companies out there are looking at well-trained military personnel and encouraging them, with various incentives, to leave the military early and join their particular company. In Nova Scotia, as you know, we have an awful lot of defence companies. I see the poaching that's going on. The Government of Canada and the taxpayers of Canada spend an awful lot of money training these wonderful individuals.

I encourage all of them: If you can, stay within the military for at least your 25-year service in order to get your pension in that regard and then move on to civilian life. If you have to leave earlier, then I believe transition and employment opportunities through DND and DVA in order to help you and your family would be the way to go.

At the same time, we have to be very careful about poaching and having people leave too early. Even though our defence companies are desperate for well-qualified people, our military also requires those individuals. It's a bit of a catch-22 in many ways. I would just encourage the committee, if they have a chance, to look at that and see what can be done in order to mitigate the early leaving of people who really would have a wonderful career in the service and then would join a company for various incentives in that regard.

Most importantly, I'd like to advise the committee, or at least ask the committee, to ensure that prospective employers understand what a veteran has gone through, especially those who are 3B released through post-traumatic stress disorder or through operational stress injuries. These prospective employers need to fully grasp and understand what the veteran and their family are going through and give them the best possible dignified landing they could have in order for them to be able to justify their new employment. I've seen many veterans who've left the military, gotten a job and within six months to a year have left that job. They simply couldn't handle it, or else the employer couldn't handle them. That's not good for anybody.

As a society, we need to do a lot better at ensuring that military members and RCMP officers who leave the service, whether it's of their own free will or through medical concerns, are treated well and offered the opportunity and dignity of a decent job in the future.

Thank you so much. I truly appreciate your time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marie-France Lalonde]

Thank you very much. I appreciate your thoughts on trying to keep our military members for as long as possible.

On that note, we will start our first round of questions. Each of our members will have six minutes to ask questions of any of you.

We'll go to Mr. Diotte for six minutes.

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Thanks, Madam Chair.

I'm going to ask a very broad question of each one of you, starting with Dr. Whelan.

In your experience, what is the biggest barrier preventing military training qualifications and experience from being properly recognized in the civilian workforce?

[Dr. John Whelan]

Thank you for the question.

That's a little outside of my experience, in terms of technical skills. I could speak to training that is not, sometimes, on a par with the standards of civilian regulatory bodies. Most of my attention is on the other dimensions that create difficulties when engaging with civilian workplaces.

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Ms. Bussey.

[Michelle Bussey]

I would say the same. It depends on the person, first of all. Each veteran is completely different.

What we are hearing is that some veterans need help understanding the civilian certification requirements of the Red Seal program in particular, connecting with employers—which you've already talked about—navigating requirements to make that transition and getting the supports needed.

It's all of that. It boils down to a fully collaborative effort among multiple parties working together.

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Thank you.

Mr. Stoffer.

[Peter Stoffer]

One thing I would like to see is a Red Seal program within the Government of Canada. If you're a stoker, a carpenter, a plumber or an electrician on board a ship or plane—or whatever it is that you do—those qualifications should equate to the Red Seal program, right across the country. No matter where you live within the military or whatever skills you have, if they're up to the Red Seal standard, you should be able to get a job anywhere in the country in that regard.

We could trim a lot of red tape by ensuring that any skilled trade within the Government of Canada—be it Public Services, Transport Canada, DND, the RCMP or wherever—equates to a Red Seal program in civilian life. If you did that, I believe you could streamline the process a lot more easily.

Thank you.

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Thank you.

I'd like to get a bit more specific on the question.

Again, to all three of you, is the main problem government regulation, provincial accreditation bodies, educational institutions, employers or the communication among all of these?

Dr. Whelan.

[Dr. John Whelan]

Chair, I defer to Ms. Bussey on this question. It's not in my direct experience.

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Ms. Bussey.

[Michelle Bussey]

Thank you.

The Canadian council of directors of apprenticeship is a national body that helps oversee and guide the Red Seal program. All of that is happening right now. Canada has a beautiful model, in that all jurisdictions have some autonomy. However, in terms of the Red Seal, it is that national standard we all go to.

It's about seeing what we can do together to wrap our arms around the veterans as they're coming out and transitioning to the civilian workforce. It's about making sure we have intentional programs, like we do in Nova Scotia with Helmets to Hardhats, helping individual military veterans make that transition—almost walking them through that journey and making sure they are supported.

We have models in Canada that work really well. We just need to tap into those and learn from them.

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Mr. Stoffer.

[Peter Stoffer]

If I may use your first name properly, Kerry, I believe the reality of this is communication. All three branches you mentioned need to do a much better job at communicating with one another, as well as with the Department of Veterans Affairs and DND.

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

This is an open question for anyone who might have an answer. Is there any province that is ahead of the game? I know that we have somebody from Nova Scotia. Are there any other provinces that have best practices?

[Peter Stoffer]

Yes, I would say that Nova Scotia has done a very good job so far. We're not perfect by any means, but since all three of us are from Nova Scotia, let's give a plug for good old Bluenosers.

The reality is that we do a good job, but it's not perfect. We make mistakes as well. There are many things we can do to improve. I think it's because we have such a large veteran population in our province or in fact, for that matter, in Atlantic Canada. Employers are attuned to that. I think we definitely have a good start in this regard.

Of course, I mentioned Helmets to Hardhats and the Commissionaires. They are two wonderful organizations that truly understand, exactly, the discussions you're having. Definitely, if you haven't had a chance to invite them and pick their brains, they have some great advice on how to move forward.

Thank you.

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marie-France Lalonde]

Thank you very much.

Now we will invite Mr. Clark for six minutes.

[Braedon Clark, Liberal, Sackville—Bedford—Preston, NS]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I'm also from Nova Scotia. It feels like a home crowd, so that's good.

I'll just say at the top, Mr. Stoffer, that it's great to see you. I represent, as you know, much of the riding that you represented. It's rare that a week goes by when a veteran doesn't come through my office and tell me about the great work you did to help them over the years. I just want to let you know that your reputation is without equal in the province, I think. Thank you for all your work and for that of the other witnesses, as well.

At the risk of buttering up my witness, Mr. Stoffer, I wonder if I could start with you. You touched on a really important topic in your opening statement, which is around the interplay between DND and Veterans Affairs on this. We've heard this with other topics we've studied over the last year and a half.

From your perspective, what does that transition period look like from DND to Veterans Affairs so that when the veteran becomes a veteran, they are as primed for success as they possibly can be? We're dealing with two big organizations, which is always difficult. What, in your mind, needs to be done to make sure that transition is as seamless as it should be?

[Peter Stoffer]

Thank you, Mr. Clark.

Thank you for your great representation of our riding. You're doing a great job.

I will say that, 20 years ago, the transition period was really bad. It wasn't very good at all. It has improved over 20 years. There's no question about that, but I still believe there's a severe lack of communication between DND and DVA. It's almost like somebody wants to throw the football and not be responsible for trying to catch it later on. It's sort of like, this person was under DND and now they're under DVA, and now we have nothing to do with them anymore.

That needs to change. It's not perfect yet. It still needs to be done. The transition period should be seamless. It should be very clear. The individual who is leaving should be introduced to a case manager at DVA, who says, “My name is Peter. Here's my number. I'm the person who's going to walk you through the myriad of programs you're entitled to have or not have in the future. I'm the person you talk to.”

Right now, they call 1-866-522-2122. They could be talking to anybody a lot of time. Now with the PCVRS, you may be talking to somebody over there. A lot of veterans are very confused.

If you're looking to get gainful employment and if you're looking to get one person to walk you through the system, that's what should be happening. You shouldn't be talking to a whole range of folks. It should be very clear that this is the person you need to speak to. They're the one who will assist you and help you in transitioning into civilian life and then working towards employment down the road. That's really what we would like.

The whole veterans charter, when it came in 2006, was designed to ensure that people in their thirties and forties didn't just get a pension cheque and do nothing with the rest of their lives. The whole thing was designed so that they could have gainful employment, have the dignity of work and be able to look after their families in a safe and comfortable manner. That's really all they're trying to do.

I would encourage DND and DVA to work even more closely together and tighten up any gaps that are there so that the veterans and their families feel that their services were merited and warranted dignity and that they are able to move on with their lives.