I know a number of the recommendations are related to better support for the victims, and certainly that support has to be outside the chain of command. How would anyone feel about reporting inside the chain of command? You would obviously be very hesitant. It adds to my earlier point that it should be a serious offence to have any repercussions from reporting.
More important than support for the victims, for me, is that we shouldn't have victims. We should really take the recommendations seriously to reduce or eliminate the number of victims from, as I said earlier, the 30,000 people who were either aware or actually were victims. That wasn't in their lifetime or in their service in the military, that was in a 12-month period. It's absolutely shocking, and a reason all efforts should be made to make sure that we make changes.
There are suggestions that the evidence from the witness we're talking about is important, but that's a bit of prejudging, because we don't know what the person is going to say. We have had a number of witnesses say there was not enough evidence to proceed with an investigation or the willingness of the person involved. Any independent investigative body needs sufficient evidence, sufficient information, to undertake an investigation. If it wasn't there, I'm not sure what more evidence could be provided.
The last thing is related to recommendations. Obviously, and I don't think anyone refutes this fact, in recent years the government has made a lot of very important changes, including the directive DAOD 9005-1. The problem is that sometimes we can make recommendations and they don't work. I'm sure in the process somewhere along the way there were recommendations related to training, yet I heard input from a member that people took it as a joke and there were no repercussions for not taking it seriously.
The recommendation was followed, but obviously it didn't work. It didn't have the desired effect. I'm hoping there are recommendations on how to make sure the recommendations are taken seriously and that the previous recommendations, which may have been good, are followed up on.
There is a famous saying about complex problems that for every complex problem there's a simple solution, and it's wrong. Obviously, it's going to be complex. I think one of the complexities is to figure out why recommendations and processes that are already in place, which in theory are the right thing to do, are not having the desired effect. We have some very thoughtful people from all parties on the committee, and hopefully they will go into depth on that very intellectual point about how things that are recommended, that are there and are right and are even in place, are not working. I look forward to that part of the report.