Certainly. The mandate is evolving as we speak, but listening to Mrs. Smith about the tragedy that she went through, I take your comments to heart. As a husband and as a father, I take your comments to heart. I also listened to Mr. Murray's comments about some of the challenges that we face in the future.
From today, even as my mandate evolves, it really talks about wellness. Comments were made about employees and members feeling ashamed to speak out and feeling worried about their promotions and advancement in the RCMP. I actually see trying to remove those roadblocks as part of my mandate, so that our organization will be one in which our employees and members will feel very free to speak about medical conditions or the challenges they face on a daily basis.
I've been working in the north and have travelled the country. I believe I have a good understanding of the issues. To wrap up what my mandate is, it is to try to build a wellness strategy for the RCMP and really define what it means. Since 2005 or 2006, as Rich Boughen and Mr. Brown explained, we've been starting to grasp what it means and how our employees are affected when they're living in northern communities or are placed in situations in which they see different tragedies day in and day out. It's really trying to develop a strategy that encompasses all this, trying to get to the heart of it. I think we've enlisted some professionals in the business to help us develop our strategy to move into the future.
My biggest obstacle, to come back to what Madam Smith was talking about, is for the members and the employees to feel comfortable and unashamed about saying that they have a medical condition or that they're scared or that things are not working out right now and they need help. If we can get to that point, I think we'll have gone a long way into the future.