National Defence committee  I thank you for that. Your raising this as an issue and giving voice to it is very important, so thank you so much. I'm going to move over to the Quebec bar and ask a couple of questions. I had been rereading some of the notes of the bill. I was looking at the fact that we provide caseworkers to victims of inappropriate sexual behaviour.

National Defence committee  Thank you very much. I think that was important. I will be reading through your recommendations again, because you've made a lot of them. They were very thoughtfully done. I really appreciate that. I thought you also made very thoughtful recommendations, Lieutenant-Colonel Perron.

National Defence committee  Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. Thanks so much for the excellent presentations, very different presentations. I'm going to start off with Ms. Fynes. Thank you for your wonderful presentation. I'm very sorry for your loss, for our loss. I'm very thankful for the service of your son to our nation.

National Defence committee  I just want to be very clear on the issue you've raised in your key recommendation. I think you've made an impassioned plea and I want to make sure that I'm clear on it. I believe that your key recommendation is the removal of paragraph 98(c). You feel it is not necessary and it somehow might actually, for those who might be attempting suicide, put them into some sort of a conflict with the Canadian Armed Forces.

National Defence committee  My understanding—and I could be wrong on this—is that 98(c) exists because it's trying to be a deterrent to people somehow indicating that they might be ill as a way of trying to get out of continuing to serve. That's my understanding.

National Defence committee  I know we talked about consultation and who was consulted in creating this bill. As part of this process, did we actually consult with those who are former victims of sexual assault?

National Defence committee  Did we consult with former female victims of sexual assault within the Canadian Armed Forces? Did we consult this time around? Did they look at the bill and say, “yes”, or at the draft aspects of it and say whether or not they were comfortable, whether it needed to be strengthened, and what they did or didn't like?

National Defence committee  Is there a time limit to bring a case forward? For example, if a sexual assault happened 10 or 20 or 30 years ago, is that something that could be brought forward under this current bill? Is there a time limit around that?

National Defence committee  How long do I have?

National Defence committee  Thank you so much.

National Defence committee  Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. Thank you so much for being here. I'm glad that we finally have Bill C-77 on the table. I was very much impacted—and I'm sure many across this country were—by the Deschamps report that talked about the rampant sexual abuse within the Canadian Armed Forces.

National Defence committee  I have too many questions, but not enough time. As a comment, one of the things, as someone who has hired a lot of people in my lifetime, is that women tend to undersell themselves and men tend to oversell themselves. I would say that you would also want an interpretation and understanding of that as we are trying to recruit.

National Defence committee  Do you have anything to add, Mr. Okros?

National Defence committee  Just to that—

National Defence committee  Thank you.