Thank you so much for those comments. I couldn't agree with you more that the EU work we are doing internationally, including in Ukraine, is pivotal in terms of global security and the democracy that we hope will be restored there.
I would like to take a moment of my time to respond to the previous comment made at the very end of the previous intervention. That comment was about why we would need a firm with third party expertise. Why do we need that? The insinuation was that it isn't necessary because the expertise rests in-house with the people right beside me.
That is simply untrue. It is not the case that the expertise for the items contracted for rested, in large measure, in-house. I want to give a few examples, if I could.
To begin, as you may all be well aware, the Canadian Armed Forces is undertaking massive systemic change, as you mentioned in your introduction, in order to ensure that it is an institution where all members who put on a uniform can do so in a protected and respected manner. When they are serving our country, they are not subject to discrimination, harassment, sexual harassment or sexual misconduct.
The Canadian Armed Forces has been criticised for decades because it has been too insular, and it has been unable to change. Why would we then choose to go inside to seek the expertise in terms of how to change a culture that has wrought discrimination, sexual misconduct and sexual harassment on its own members?
I believe, and it is truly the case, that the expertise that was sought from the outside third party was important. It was important to have that outside voice, that external expertise, in things like ensuring a complaints system that operates for victims and survivors and ensuring that the recommendations from other external judicial experts—over 500 of them—were able to be implemented in this extremely complex institution. Then, in the case of the Royal Canadian Navy, it was important to have the organizational expertise to be able to place individuals in the most efficient manner possible, through a digitized system, where that expertise to provide it did not exist in-house.
Mr. Chair, calling on the third party was extremely important to complement the skills that existed in the defence team. It is not the case that those skills rested in-house.
At this point, I will ask Lieutenant-General Carignan if she would like to add anything to that particular intervention I made.