National Defence committee  It did all happen on the same day, sir.

National Defence committee  Again, that kind of analysis in terms of policy implementation and procedures is well above my pay grade. It's at the coal face of it that you need to have somebody within your chain of command, hopefully an officer if not a senior enlisted member, to trust to come forward to. That's what I can speak to.

National Defence committee  That is a very good question, sir. I have received phone calls from senior officers I trust, on this coast, within senior levels, who have relayed to me that they have their trust in me and that I'm an asset to the organization, but internalized to me.... I mean, you can tell somebody who is depressed “just don't be depressed”.

National Defence committee  To answer your question, sir, yes, but the “why” is probably better. When I took a commission as an officer in the Canadian Armed Forces I swore an oath to Queen and country to fulfill my duties, and there's the old adage of service before self. There may be blowback. There may be career implications—that's just supposition, I don't know—but I have had assurances from some people in my chain of command that they have my back and that they trust me.

National Defence committee  Yes.

National Defence committee  So far, I am very engaged with my integrated health care team to make sure that my mental fitness is good, because if my mental fitness isn't good, I'm not good. I'm working on physical fitness as well, but with respect to my future employment within the Canadian Forces, everybody needs to pay bills.

National Defence committee  It happened prior to the appointment as chief of the defence staff, but to get into any further specifics about timeline I'm basically going to provide the same answer about it being under investigation with CFNIS.

National Defence committee  Ma'am, that's correct. Again, I can't infer who, how or what, but I was made aware by the complainant who made the complaint to me that she had received an email from the chief petty officer doing the investigation. He didn't get the information from her, so there must have been somebody else who made a complaint about it.

National Defence committee  Ma'am, again, I believe that incident is under investigation. I think it would be inappropriate for me to make inferences about what people thought and comment on them.

National Defence committee  No, sir.

National Defence committee  I don't believe he's actually on the call with me today. I am not a lawyer. I drive warships for a living. If somebody wants to learn how to do that, I can teach them. However, when it comes to parliamentary stuff, I obviously needed some sort of legal advice so I didn't say anything that was out of bounds.

National Defence committee  Again, I want to answer this. When you speak about performance evaluations, which performance evaluations are you speaking about: an individual's personnel evaluation at the end of the year, or the evaluation of an op task itself?

National Defence committee  I'm sorry, sir. I'm going to have to ask you to rephrase that question because I didn't completely understand. I don't want to give you the wrong answer.

National Defence committee  I don't know, and I haven't seen necessarily in other peoples' personnel evaluation reports about Operation Honour or the implementation of it. I really can't speak to that because those evaluations are protected B information, but I can't recall ever seeing mentions about metrics or how people were performing in those areas.

National Defence committee  Yes sir, I did know her from previous service. We have a really good professional and personal connection. I can't get into her head, but she felt that she could trust me with the information. Yes, I did know her, but about the how.... I don't want to get into that because, again—