Status of Women committee  I have an arm's-length understanding, but Seamless Canada is an absolutely essential service, and not only to connect, as our military families move around the country, to try to smooth out access to health care. Child care is part of it too, but, again, that's a provincially run issue.

Status of Women committee  I can certainly start and share the conversation with my colleagues. I think, as we move forward, we need to remain open to anything and any structures and external advice and support that make sense to help us move forward in terms of change. The men and the women of the CAF believe this.

Status of Women committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. The relationship with the Canadian Armed Forces and the MFRCs is a collaborative one, but I think I need to go back to families. The Canadian Armed Forces is not just a group of individuals who serve; we are nothing without our families. If you care for the families, you care for the service member.

Status of Women committee  Madam Chair, the definition of sexual assault is the same as in the Criminal Code because it is a Criminal Code case. I can comment on that. Does that answer your question?

Status of Women committee  As defence champion, there are two functional leads that I work with. One of them is ADM(HR-Civ) Mr. Kin Choi—to look after the women of the department—and the other is the chief of military personnel command for the military aspects. However, one of the roles of the champion is to be able to basically transcend the chain of command.

Status of Women committee  It is a very rich and meaningful secondary duty. I have to admit that it's something that I'm obviously quite passionate about, regardless of my gender. I think that, especially as we move forward, making sure that we have the proper mechanisms in place to ensure that there is a champion for women's voice that is available easily and readily is going to be quite important, so we certainly welcome any recommendations that the committee has.

Status of Women committee  Madam Chair, because of my day job with health services, I should probably take that question. I have to admit that I don't have the answer for you. What would do justice to you is if I took that question on notice and provided you with a response and some context around that as well.

Status of Women committee  Madam Chair, the group I'm talking about is the Defence Women's Advisory Organization. Under our employment equity program we have employment equity groups for women, visible minorities, indigenous persons and persons with disabilities. These groups, again, come from both the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence, because we work together and are one team.

Status of Women committee  Madam Chair, if you like, I can take this one. Those metrics do exist. Unfortunately, I don't have them with me today. If we could take that question on notice, we can provide that information for you.

Status of Women committee  Madam Chair, I can confirm that we do have metrics on those things. They come through a number of different forms. It could be social science research done through the DGMPRA, our research arm within the Canadian Armed Forces—they certainly have that type of information—as well as regular statistical reporting of percentages by occupation, gender and where they're located.

Status of Women committee  Madam Chair, the data is actually held in the chief of military personnel command. That is who holds that information and reports on it.

Status of Women committee  Madam Chair, that is a great question. As you know, all members of the Canadian Armed Forces have unique and distinct reasons why they remain in the Canadian Armed Forces for certain periods of time, so equal is not necessarily equitable. With regard to the data that we collect, I think it's very important that we are able to go beyond counting and do a little deeper dive on what it actually means.

Status of Women committee  I think, first and foremost, what we really need to do is prevent these incidents from happening in the first place. As we approach this, I think we need to look at it from a prevention perspective, and it takes a number of forms. Primary prevention means that we create programs, systems, policies, structures and training so that people are not likely to cause incidents to happen.

Status of Women committee  From my perspective, in my day job, I can tell you that one thing that is always of great benefit is making that we are able to focus on the targeted research required to look at the impacts of all types of trauma on women and other marginalized groups. The majority of research done in Canada is not on the groups that we are talking about today.

Status of Women committee  I will take this from my perspective as a commander, and also in terms of the voices of the women in the Canadian Armed Forces. What I take away from it is that we still have a lot of work to do in creating an environment where people actually feel they can come forward and share what has happened to them.