Government Operations committee  There are a number of responses. A number of programs were available through Canada Company that helped, at the time, to get people like me, some of my directors, down onto the bases and wings, to mentor and to coach. That was a tremendous way of getting information out there, an

Government Operations committee  I don't have the numbers in front of me, in terms of how many of the ill and injured members are coming back into the department. That's something that we could likely follow up with you on. Certainly, just reviewing the statistics before this committee, back in 2017-18, which wa

Government Operations committee  Right now, the objective of the transition group that they're trialing at this point in time is six months. Part of the purpose of the trial is to try to understand, on average, what would be a good time period for members to transition. I do agree with Mr. Dalton, though, that

Government Operations committee  I'm actually going to talk about what I believe has been done right, and that is to accept that we've worked a lot on recruitment into the forces. We work a lot, obviously, to get people ready and build their careers. We haven't been working as well on the transition part to beco

Government Operations committee  In terms of service attribution, as I said, that has been given to Veterans Affairs to adjudicate, so that is the decision of the government. In fact, what I also referenced was how we are making that process easier. The armed forces and Veterans Affairs are working much more clo

Government Operations committee  One part of the process where we hope to see improvement—and we both recommended this to the department—is that all the benefits, all the adjudication that's necessary, should be done before the veterans release so that ultimately those delays that we're seeing now should be redu

Government Operations committee  It has yet to be implemented. That is one initiative that's within the transition group's program right now, but they have yet to implement that. We should see that later on in their plan.

Government Operations committee  Yes. In years past, groups like Canada Company had awards, annual awards to promote and market those companies that were doing superb jobs at hiring veterans, promoting the hiring of veterans, all of that. That is another tool in the tool box that can get at making not only the p

Government Operations committee  I've already mentioned one of the creative solutions in terms of a skills translator that would provide information for both hiring managers, veterans or military members. The other one we talked about was the idea that, as soon as people are given the decision that they will be

Government Operations committee  I will answer your question. In my experience, it is not about hiring managers' deciding that, because they are military members, they don't want to hire them. That is not my experience. My experience is that there is truly a lack of awareness, particularly among those who have

Government Operations committee  I haven't looked into it that deeply as to whether it's a contracting or procurement option. There certainly have been some initiatives within the federal government to try to create that system for us. The one that's available now, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, simply

Government Operations committee  For last part of your question, I can't say. I don't believe it is. Mr. Dalton and I have said in our remarks that, more than anything, it is a lack of awareness of what military members do in their day-to-day jobs and the types of skills that they obtain throughout their career

Government Operations committee  It would definitely be one of the tools that would help, not only to educate hiring managers about what's available in the military but also to help military members understand the huge amount of opportunity that their skills could translate into in the civilian world.

Government Operations committee  I will comment on my experience. I can't comment on the whole public service and what every public service manager is doing. In my—

Government Operations committee  From the two ombudsman's offices, in terms of how we might deal with a particular complaint that comes to either of us, the typical jurisdictional line is, if it's caused by an issue to do with National Defence, our office would deal with it, and if it's caused by the Veterans Af