Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Through you to the witnesses, thank you for appearing today.
My first question will be to the surgeon general. According to your mental health strategy from 2012—I will give you a quote—
Combat exposure and exposure to atrocities are risk factors for post-appointment mental illness. Deployment, however, accounts for relatively little of the overall burden of mental health disorders in the CAF. Military personnel experience nearly all the non-operational risks and vulnerabilities to mental illness as their civilian counterparts.
I wonder if you can address and explain this? I want to deal specifically with the change in the type of battle our Canadian Armed Forces face, in particular in Afghanistan and in modern times recently in other places in the world. The difference is that traditionally the enemy had a uniform or you were somewhat protected because the roads you were travelling had been previously travelled on. What we were faced with in Afghanistan is the enemy could be anybody out there. Our Canadian military were at the pointy end of the spear as they drove through cities, towns, and villages, as well as the countryside. The enemy could have been anyone they saw. We heard stories from serving members from that area who basically gave anecdotal evidence to indicate that this posed a significant burden for them when they got back into regular society and there was no decompression, I guess.
The other is even the roads they drove on, they never knew what road had an bomb on it or you didn't know what street.... So I'm just wondering how you could say what you said based on...if you could explain that I guess is what I'm asking.