Thank you, Madam Chair.
I just want to make a couple of comments before I go to my questions.
First of all, there were some things said from other members that don't really jibe with the evidence we've had today . One thing was the words “dropped the ball”. When you turn something over for an investigation in almost record speed, you've hardly dropped the ball or covered up. The words “covered up” were used once. What could be covered up when it was turned over to investigators and investigators did everything they could with actually no information?
Also, the word “serious” has been mentioned at various times. It certainly was a serious allegation, but we didn't find that out until this year. At the time, as numerous witnesses said, they had no idea what the allegation was or if it was serious or not, so just to make sure....
There has also been discussion about all the things that have been done since the Deschamps report. Both today and previously there's been some discussion on a number of things and actions that have been taken. Of course, everyone admits that it's not enough.
I just want to add to that list a very strong administrative directive, DAOD 9005-1, which I read in detail about a month ago. It really does make serious changes to the directives, the whole direction to the members of the military, to try to address this serious systemic problem.
Going on from all those moves that have been made, those improvements that have been made, which certainly haven't solved the problem yet, budget 2021 included a substantial investment to address the very issues we are discussing at committee today. I can imagine the very active discussions on this matter when the government was working on the budget, and that questions around how the budget could be tooled to support much-needed cultural change were no doubt top of mind.
Obviously funding alone is not enough, nor is it a silver bullet, but the budgets reflect the government's values, and it was clear in this budget that the government was taking this matter seriously. This is a $236-million investment to eliminate sexual misconduct and gender-based violence in the Canadian Forces.
Ms. Telford, I know you cannot divulge the cabinet process or those deliberations that led to supporting this funding in the budget, but I'm wondering if you have any reflections from that process about the value of this investment and what you think you can do, and any other thoughts that might be relevant on this subject.