Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Good morning to all of our witnesses. Thank you so very much for the work you've done on this issue. Clearly, it's something that you're very well versed in and very much aware of.
Before I go on with my questions, Madam Chair, I just wanted to bring to the attention of our committee members the fact that if you check your inbox, you'll see that I have sent out an e-mail this morning. I'm holding a round table in Ottawa with some of the witnesses who weren't allowed to come to the committee and who have had first-hand experience in the RCMP on this issue of harassment. I'm having that on April 22, and certainly everybody in the committee is welcome to come. I plan to submit the testimony from that hearing to the clerk following the event.
My apologies to our witnesses. I had forgotten to mention that earlier. I wanted to make sure that everyone knew about it.
The issues of the RCMP, the rationale for starting this particular study, and many of the things that you have said today, all three of you, are some of the answers that the RCMP should have been responding to much earlier. They would not have found themselves in the situation that they are today with the kind of damage that has been done to their reputation, but most importantly, to the many women who have been subjected to this.
In particular, you mentioned the issue about having an outside organization to go to, with people who are experienced in regard to that kind of harassment. In a hierarchy like you have in the RCMP, all they had was to go to the next manager or to human rights or whatever. As something for the federal government to have, how would you see this outside organization, other than as just one of our normal community organizations that they could go to, an organization that the government would have confidence in to try to deal with those problems? Whoever would like to respond to that, please go ahead.