Based on my ministerial directive from the Minister of National Defence, in my mandate it does say that I should have an advisory committee that should meet a few times a year. It's kind of a sounding board contributing to our debate, discussion or brainstorming on how we can move and improve, or even decide on some investigation or not.
This committee has a chair and I would say you probably know him from the Office of the Correctional Investigator Canada. Howard, as a secondary duty, is my chair. We have about eight members. Before we appoint someone, we recommend their candidacy to the Minister of National Defence, and he has to approve them to be part of our committee.
In terms of saving money, we reduced from two meetings a year to only one, so the meeting we have with the advisory committee is held most of the time in October when we also hold our commendation ceremony where we recognize the contribution of some people in the department, in the Canadian Forces.
With all of the participants, we try to have a representation of all of my constituent groups, everybody who's a constituent who has come to our office to complain: military, regular, reserve. We do have a regular and reserve officer on board. We had a family member. We have a family director for MFRC, different provinces, services, officers, NCM: we try to have representation of all those who can come to our office. We brief them on what we've done. We brief them on the way ahead on some issues. We get their various perspectives and their input into how we can address some of those issues. It is really a representation of all those who can come to the ombudsman, but this is an advisory committee and they are held in confidentiality if ever we share some things that are more sensitive.