The most valid comparison we can make, because of all the cultural and societal factors that impact suicide, is the United States. There are other countries that would make reasonable comparisons, but they don't investigate each suicide to the depth we do, and they don't maintain statistics. They don't aggressively go after all deaths to determine whether or not they may be suicides.
The United States, because of many factors, has a much higher suicide rate than the Canadian Forces. In fact, recently it has exceeded the civilian population's suicide rate. Because of the stresses of the operation in Afghanistan, we expected a higher suicide rate, a higher mental health casualty rate. We haven't yet seen it, but we remain vigilant. We remain about 20% below the national average.
The United States has various factors that may account for their rate. They have longer deployment periods, a different process, less education, less leadership education. So different factors account for the way the armed forces in the United States are administered, organized, and deployed that may impact on why their suicide rate is so much higher than ours.