Thank you so much, Chair, and as always, everything is through the chair.
First of all, I'd like to thank the minister and her team for being here with us today. I appreciate the time. I am a little sad that we don't have the women's report tabled. There are a lot of things I would love to talk about, although I feel that this is not quite the right time. I do think it's really important to say that, in the testimony we heard, women spoke again and again about feeling invisible, both in their service and then afterwards in their treatment by VAC.
I would say that the number of women who are reaching out to our office, who want to be here when the tabling happens, who want to know when it's going to happen and who have put a lot of pressure on this committee to make sure it happens tells you that there's a lot of need for it, but there's also a lot of hope.
Sometimes it worries me to give people hope, because if there's no follow-through, it's more devastating. I hope that all of us in this place are carrying that very carefully.
In the context of that opening statement, you did mention the minister's advisory group on women veterans that you're going to have. I know you are not yet in a place where you can announce who that will be, but I am curious about a couple of things. What is the structure in terms of choosing who's going to be in that advisory group? Also, what are the commitments around diversity?
During the time when we were doing this amazing work—and I'm so grateful for it—we did identify that we did not see enough women veterans from the Black, indigenous and people-of-colour communities. We know it's going to be a great report, but there's definitely going to be a gap in that component.
I'm curious about how you're going to select these folks who will be guiding you. What is the commitment with respect to diversity? What is the commitment about its being largely veteran women?
Thank you.