I'd like to thank you again, Mr. Walbourne, for being here today, and to members of the audience, I know we have some students in the crowd, so it's a great honour to have you here today.
Mr. Walbourne, it's a pleasure to see you again. You and I have had some conversations in the past. As you know, I'm a parent of two sons currently serving in the Canadian Armed Forces, so this issue is definitely near and dear to me.
As well, there is the work that you do with our cadet program. Prior to being elected, I was vice-president of a civilian committee in my local cadet corps in Greenfield Park, so I'm proud of the work that you have done in terms of recognizing the incident in 1974 and I look forward to reading additional outcomes coming out of that.
I'd like to talk to you a little about the transition from active service to what we will call non-active service. As you know, the decision to join the Canadian Armed Forces is one of immense pride. Members of the Canadian Armed Forces wear the uniform. They take a lot of pride in the fact that they are wearing that uniform, and it's part of their identity. When the decision for them to leave the Canadian Armed Forces is taken out of their hands, i.e., medical release due to no fault of their own, it is a real struggle for them and their families.
I'd like you to talk a bit more about the work that you have been trying to do and to talk about the attribution to service injury and how we can fix the wait time by identifying it earlier, attributing it when they're in the Canadian Armed Forces, before their release. It's definitely something you have been working hard on and I'd like to make sure that we understand it fully.