Thank you, Madam Chair, and to all of the witnesses for being here today.
Thank you to all our military personnel for your service to Canada.
Admiral Bernatchez, thinking about paragraph 98(c), it seems to me that we should maybe break it up into two parts. Part one would be pre-deployment and pre-battle, where someone who inflicts self-harm is charged with a criminal act because they're trying to avoid duty.
The second part would after deployment, after they have been in battle and seen the horror and the carnage of battle. They are now at a point where they are suffering a mental health issue. At that point, maybe they inflict self-harm. I don't think those two things are equivalent. One is trying to avoid duty and one now is a complication from being in battle.
Can you give your thoughts on how paragraph 98(c) maybe should be revised? How can we look at this differently?