House of Commons Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates (OGGO)

Opening Remarks

6 May 2019

Mr. Gregory A. Lick
National Defence and Canadian Armed Forces Ombudsman

 


 

Thank you Mr. Chair, and thank you to the members of the committee for inviting me to appear before you today on the subject of Hiring Veterans in the Federal Public Service. I am very humbled to appear before you today as National Defence and Canadian Armed Forces Ombudsman.

My name is Greg Lick. Prior to assuming my current role, I served as the Director General of Operations for the Canadian Coast Guard. I am also proud to have served in the Naval Reserves for 17 years. Joining me today to my left (or right) is Retired Major Carole Lajoie, who serves as our Director of Education and Collaboration. Mme. Lajoie has a great deal of knowledge of and experience in the topic you are studying today. If there’s a question I can’t answer, I am confident she can.

I am also pleased to appear with Veterans Ombudsman Craig Dalton. Craig and I have already established a strong working relationship. Our offices are already exploring areas of mutual collaboration and interest. We have recently presented to two external stakeholder groups together, and we are working on more opportunities to take the “Craig and Greg Show on the Road”.

I was appointed as Ombudsman on an interim basis in November 2018. For me, serving this important constituency for the past seven months has been some of the most rewarding in my career.

Every morning I wake up and read the daily news summaries about the positive impact the Defence Community is having both on the global stage and in Canada. Indeed, seeing Canadian Armed Forces members deployed here in our own backyards in the National Capital Region dealing with the devastating floods reminds us of the vital and diverse roles that our military serves to protect our citizens. To them, I say thank you.

The constituency that our office serves is extremely large. Not only do we serve members of the Canadian Armed Forces, both regular and reserve force, but also defence civilians, Canadian Rangers, Cadets, Junior Canadian Rangers, Non-Public Funds employees, new recruits, as well as the families of all those I have just named, and persons who are attached or seconded to the Canadian Armed Forces. These responsibilities are not taken lightly by myself or the team of over 65 passionate public servants who work in our office. In fact, the professionalism and sense of duty that these employees have to this constituency is, in my view, virtually unrivaled. Some of these employees have been with the office since they turned on the lights in 1998. As a result, we possess the institutional memory necessary to fulfill our mandate assuring fairness and contributing to lasting change to the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces community.

It is this institutional memory that has helped me to grasp our office’s history of engagement on the very important subject your committee has been studying. Notwithstanding, in my career at the Canadian Coast Guard, especially as a senior executive within that organization, I have been both vocal in my support for and active in hiring former members of the Canadian Armed Forces within that organization. My support was based on what I saw as natural linkages between the Canadian Coast Guard and the Canadian Armed Forces. I recognize that such linkages between the training elements of the Canadian Armed Forces and organizations like the Coast Guard, Canada Border Services Agency, Parks Canada, and the Royal Canadian Military Police may appear less clear for other government departments as they look to former CAF members to fill available public service positions. However, I believe it is incumbent on all public service hiring managers to meet former CAF members at least half-way when it comes to fulfilling our commitments to them in terms of post-service opportunities. In my experience, it is ultimately the Public Service that gains from their expertise.

However, for members of the Canadian Armed Forces who are medically-releasing, we have an obligation to provide them priority access to public service positions. For those members who are medically releasing as a result of an illness or injury sustained as a direct result of their service, they are placed at the top of the statutory category for priority entitlement. For those whose illness or injury is not as a result of their service, their priority entitlement is entrenched in the regulatory category. In either case, we have a duty that far outstrips a “policy” or “initiative”. It was within this context as well as the context of the introduction and passage of the Veterans Hiring Act that my predecessor became publically engaged on this issue. In 2015, he published a report in consultation with Mr. Dalton’s predecessor that recommended the following:

“That the Canadian Armed Forces are best placed to make the determination of whether a medical release is attributable to service pursuant to Bill C-27. More importantly, the ill or injured Canadian Armed Forces member stands to gain significant benefit from quicker access to enhanced hiring opportunities in the Public Service.”

In the end, the Veterans Hiring Act vested Veterans Affairs Canada with the responsibility for adjudicating applications of CAF members seeking access to the priority list held by the Public Service Commission. Since that time, Veterans Affairs Canada has struggled to meet its service standards, an unfortunate consequence that has seen itself play out in numerous media stories and public debate.

My interest in appearing before you today is not to fuel any of that debate. Rather I want to provide you – in plain speak – what our office believes to be the elements that need to be considered in order to make this overall initiative a success.

First, we must consider perhaps the most relevant statistic: the average Canadian Armed Forces member will release around their 40th birthday. This means that former members have quite a few employable years before their full retirement. Experience in the Canadian Armed Forces is unique, and the Federal Public Service has the potential to harness quite a lot of this energy as it looks to fill its ranks with qualified individuals.

Medically-releasing members may face greater barriers to entry and challenges in obtaining and maintaining a second career. For this reason, logically, we have the provisions of the Veterans Hiring Act as well as priority entitlements to ease entry into Public Service employment.

However, there are delays for Veterans Affairs Canada to adjudicate files that would allow individuals to gain priority access to those jobs. In addition, there is a lengthy process on the Public Service Commission side in terms of putting them on the list.

The natural consequence of these two administrative factors is that fully-deserving and qualified former members of the Canadian Armed Forces are missing out on opportunities as a result of administrative delays. The numbers coming out of Veterans Affairs Canada are getting better. However, they are far from perfect. This creates a great amount of anxiety amongst CAF members as they deal with their transition from military to civilian life – or, in the content of Mr. Dalton and myself, from “my jurisdiction to his”.

Administratively, VAC has eliminated some duplicative adjudications in order to improve their response times. This is promising. What is equally promising is that the Canadian Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Canada have established a process by which VAC can now almost instantly access relevant information contained within the Canadian Forces Health Information System (CFHIS) in order to speed up their adjudications. This initiative is expected not only to speed up priority entitlement decisions, but also adjudications as a whole. However, applicants still face significant wait times. As a result, more creative solutions may need to come to the fore when it comes to getting these individuals on the priority list.

For those releasing non-medically, some may already be walking into private sector jobs. Others may find jobs in the Federal Public Service, given that CAF members can already apply to internal public service employment opportunities under mobility and preference provisions. But many may not.

What we have heard from many of our constituents as well as from public service hiring managers is that, despite the efforts made by Government, there continues to be a fundamental lack of understanding of how the knowledge and skills acquired as a result of military service translate into the civilian work environment. This is troubling considering this issue has been top of mind for former CAF members and the Government since at least 2011.

For example, the Standing Committee on National Defence recommended in its 2014 report entitled Caring for Canada’s Ill and Injured Personnel that the government “develop a comprehensive, algorithmic, software tool to facilitate CF members to obtain civilian employment upon release”.

Such sophisticated translators already exist in the United States. An American military member can simply enter their service units and the certifications they have received into a computer database. The computer then spits out both civilian job equivalencies as well as a civilian resume template once the member has made some simple drop-down menu selections. The CAF has developed a translator tool, but having a singular, government-endorsed tool would be valuable for current and former CAF members and public service hiring managers alike. Whatever that tool looks like, it should take the next steps beyond simply transforming a Military Occupation Code to a Civilian Occupation. It must incorporate and recognize the leadership and management experience that is gained over the course of one’s career here in Canada as well as on international deployments.

It is also evident that there is a genuine lack of awareness of valuable programs such as the Vocational Rehabilitation Program for Serving Members, or VRPSM for short. VRPSM enables eligible CAF members who have been notified of an impending medical release, with the approval of their Commanding Officer, to begin vocational rehabilitation training for up to six months prior to either their start of retirement leave or their final CAF release date, whichever is the earlier date.

So what does the Vocational Rehabilitation Program for Serving Members mean for hiring managers in the Public Service? The CAF will continue to pay a member’s salary while that member works within your organization. If that member performs well within your organization, you have a high likelihood of bringing that individual on full-time if you have a vacancy to fill and the selection criteria are met. VRPSM is an incredible program but few people know about it, despite the fact that it is a perfect example of “seamless transition”. Our office and I have used VRPSM in the past, and we have gained from it.

Ultimately, the Public Service and particularly those veterans now working in the Public Service must take responsibility and be supported in mentoring, coaching, and training service members in their transition. We’ve got to make it as easy as possible for public service managers to hire former CAF members.

As former Coast Guard Director General of Operations, I was committed to the hiring of former CAF members by my organization. I travelled to some CAF bases and wings in order to make the sales pitch for releasing members to sign up with us. I know there are many public service hiring managers who are just as enthusiastic. But we have to provide them the information and the tools to empower them. We all have a stake in this.

Members of the committee…Mr. Chair: I want to thank you once again for the opportunity to appear before you today. I’m free to answer any questions you may have related to this important file.

Thank you.

Date modified: