Defence Team News: Seamless Canada Part II – Spousal Employment and Education
Video / June 29, 2023
Transcript
Col Godin: We, in the CAF, we try to do as much as we can to help our members and their families. But there are things that are just not in our jurisdictions to do, such as healthcare and education. So, it's really important to bring our partners in the provinces and territories at the table with us so we can look at what those challenges are and try to find solutions together.
MGen Bernard: Just because of the mobility demands we place on our members, spousal employment is an issue. You know, spousal employment when my father was serving was probably a bonus to the family income. Right now, it's actually a requirement, you know, if you look at the situation with the economy in Canada. Some of the challenges I've been facing, not me personally, but more of my wife, is actually having a career. So yes, she did work. She had jobs. But her ability to actually have a career on her own was a challenge. Because she actually made, I would argue, most of the sacrifices to support me in my career.
Breanna Henry: Because education is provincially governed, the curriculum is different in every single province that you go to. There's a different curriculum, especially when you get up into the high school. So, you have students coming in, that are behind, missing credits, or have to retake classes that they've already taken.
MGen Bernard: There's also children education. So, the ability for dependents to basically have their education recognized across Canada, because all the standards are all provincial and territorial jurisdictions. So there's an aspect there where Seamless Canada is working, trying to provide that Student Mobility Guide. So that we can understand… or that members can understand what the requirements are to graduate from high school, for example, across Canada.
We have an excellent value proposition, I mean our value proposition, our CAF Offer, is actually pretty robust… From a monetary, non-monetary, quality of life, and other benefits. But there are also some critical tensions that we have to fix in the coming months. So, the ones in uniform, we sort of have it easy in the sense that we go on operations, but the families are the ones that are actually supporting the members. So, the more we can help the families in supporting them, with regards to healthcare, education, spousal employment, and childcare, the better off the members will be able to focus on the mission and alleviate the pressures on the families.