Madam Chair, thank you very much.
Minister, thank you for your time this afternoon and for your opening statement.
You'll recall from past appearances before this committee that, like yourself, this committee has been very engaged in questions of gender equality, equity, diversity and inclusion since our government took office in 2015.
In your opening remarks, I very much appreciated that you referenced trust. You made reference to it in a number of different contexts, and this is about trust on the battlefield, trust in theatres of deployment, trust in the hallways of defence headquarters in Ottawa and trust anywhere else in between.
Minister, in light of recent circumstances, what do we need to do to restore the trust of our Canadian Forces members, particularly female members, and beyond that, how do we work together, not only to restore trust, but to empower victims and witnesses of sexual misconduct within the Canadian Armed Forces?