Thank you, Madam Chair.
I appreciate the opportunity to contribute to the committee's work on this important matter. This is obviously a challenging and very difficult time for the Canadian Armed Forces, particularly for women in the Canadian Armed Forces.
Madam Chair, I'll spend the next few minutes offering my recollection of the process used to replace the outgoing chief of the defence staff in 2015, in the hopes that this can constructively contribute to improving these processes in the future.
In doing so, I must note for the committee that I am relying on recollections of this period six years ago and publicly available sources and dates. I do not have access to public service records of the period. Political notes and records, including the chief of staff and executive office files, were donated to Library and Archives Canada as part of the historical collection of Prime Minister Harper's tenure.
The selection process—