Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, General Dallaire, for coming. I appreciate the recommendations that you put forward to this committee.
I am struck by your comment that this is an injury and needs to be treated as such, as well as your comment about people being continually vulnerable. You mentioned an officer's experiences nine years after the fact.
Some of us just came back from theatre yesterday. There's no question that our soldiers are doing an outstanding job on the front lines in Afghanistan, and we saw the medical facilities. There was one psychiatrist and one psychologist at the base in Kandahar. They do the pre-screening and the screening for return. There are a number of people I met, and I am sure other colleagues met them too. The need is to follow up. Some of them were there for their third duty, and some of them indicated that they had some concerns with regard to their colleagues and how they've been treated.
With regard to Canadian Forces clinics being moved off the base, can you elaborate on how that would work in conjunction with civilian or Department of Veterans Affairs centres?
Also, we've heard testimony about rapid response. There's sometimes a discrepancy between those at the higher echelon level and individuals who would say that they were told to just suck it up, that it wasn't manly to come out and talk about this. Yet you came out eleven years ago, and you were very clear about your situation. I know you didn't like to be referred to as a poster boy, but you had the courage to come out and tell your story.
It does not seem from what we have heard that a lot has happened to allow us to deal with people who are still falling through the cracks. I would like you to respond to some of those comments and the fact that we only have those two in the field in Afghanistan with respect to the support level. I would like to know whether we should be looking at more resources of this kind for our soldiers in theatre.