Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
First I have to apologize; I don't have an RCMP tartan tie, so I couldn't wear it today, but Peter has promised he'll get me one.
I want to thank you gentlemen for coming forward today to testify. It is always an honour and a pleasure to have people of your calibre who have served our country. I want to preface my comments by saying that first and foremost, we need more research when it comes to these issues regarding policing. It has to be very difficult for you and very worrisome for the rest of us to try to build a program around a lot of things that you're trying to adapt from other things that you've seen and witnessed.
I have a good friend in K Division in Alberta who also served in the Canadian armed forces, and he says the work he does for the RCMP is every bit as stressful on a daily basis, if not more so, as the work he did in the Canadian Forces. The work that K Division and the RCMP do in Alberta is very important, and it's also very stressful, so I think we need to take it upon ourselves to make sure that any needed resources are there to do research and to help identify some of these problems.
I have some questions for you in regard to PTSD, and then I will have one comment afterwards that's totally not relevant to our topic.
My first question is on access to operational stress clinics. Obviously our government has created new operational stress clinics. We have one in Edmonton. Does the RCMP have access to those operational stress clinics?