Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It's good to see both of you again. Welcome. It's good to have you here.
I'll start by saying that the chair is going to remind me that I have to stick with the stress and mental health issues--that's what the study is about--because there are a lot of questions that I know we'd like to be asking.
I particularly want to point out that we are certainly pleased to have you in the job. I think we remind ourselves that you're there looking for things that can be improved and looking for people who need help. That's exactly why there's such an office and such a position. I would just remind us of that as we go through this difficult issue of stress. We have a department that has been struggling over the last several months, as we all know, to try to come to grips with the changes. I did want to touch on that, because you did a couple of times.
But for one of my first questions, I agree that in dealing with these stressful situations the time is sometimes way too long and that sometimes the ability to deal with an emergency, if you like, has been a difficult one to overcome. But I want to ask you first about.... Because we're all finding out that this whole area of mental health and stress is a complicated one for the private sector, for most jurisdictions in the world, and so on, how important is it in moving forward that the DND-Veterans Affairs relationship gets stronger in terms of the transition, but also in terms of the early identification and the sort of continued watch? How critical do you think that is to the process?