Human Resources committee  The commitment from the Government of Canada has ended. It was a $150,000 one-year grant. I'm just in the process of writing a letter to Minister Blaney to thank him for his contribution. That said, the financial aspect is only one aspect of it. The profile that the Government

Human Resources committee  Yes. You've had Dr. Blakely here testifying before you in the past. He is the national head of the Building and Construction Trades Department here in Ottawa. His department has also contributed a substantial amount of money. We have other companies now coming to me offering mon

Human Resources committee  The term “discrimination” is a bit strong. I would not say that it is active discrimination. It is just that military personnel are automatically eliminated over the course of the process. As I said, those who are higher up in a company see the value of military personnel. They a

Human Resources committee  I think it's a very important question. I can only offer an answer in the context of this program here. I would say that for military people who commit to an apprenticeship, based on my knowledge of people in the military who have gone into the trades, the success rate is pretty

Human Resources committee  I completely agree. That is why the program exists. Many people in Canada do not recognize all of the assets that military personnel bring to the labour market. Part of the problem is that people in human resources only look for key words on a résumé. If they don't see what they

Human Resources committee  I wouldn't have a quantifiable number, because I don't want to track that data in case our website is hacked. We know what happened with Veterans Affairs Canada a year and a half ago. I don't want that to happen with the website we have. We've taken extraordinary measures for sec

Human Resources committee  That's a very thoughtful question. I thank you for asking it. I really have four key audiences that I'm dealing with in the first year, and we're only about eight months into the first year since I've been part of the program. The first audience, obviously, is the military co

Human Resources committee  We can give you preliminary details. The website has been in place only since September 18. With the website we're now able to collect the statistics that you're referring to. As of today, probably upwards of 680 veterans have registered through the website. The average age is

Human Resources committee  Mr. Chair and committee members, thank you, first of all for your interest in the Helmets to Hardhats Canada program and for your public and financial support—public in the sense that it was the Prime Minister of Canada who actually launched this program 13 months ago in Edmonton