Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First of all, I must make it entirely clear that sexual misconduct of any kind in the military is absolutely unacceptable. There is nothing that I could say or would ever say that would indicate it's acceptable. In my comments yesterday, I stand by the apology, for they were an introduction to comments that make it clear that we are committed from the very top—myself, my key generals, commodores, flag officers, chief petty officers, chief warrant officers—right through the chain of command to our aviators, sailors, and soldiers, to rid the Canadian Armed Forces of this problem.

What is probably most damaging about my opening comments yesterday is that they obscure the work going on in the military right now on this. It obscures the fact that we have surveys that indicate our men and women in uniform have never been so confident in the sanctity, the safety, and the satisfaction with the workplace these days. But that doesn't matter. We still have an issue with sexual misconduct.

We had an internal review. We acted on it. We brought in Madam Deschamps to carry out an external review, from which she has come up with 10 recommendations, all of which we will meet the intent of. I have raised, under Lieutenant-General Whitecross, a team of 25 men and women to work on this. This work is all under way now.

I didn't ask Madam Deschamps whether we were better than we were 10 years ago. We have all kinds of indications, including retention figures with our women, which are actually better than with our men, that indicate we are much better. But that doesn't matter; we have a problem.

I didn't ask her to look backwards. I asked her to look at where we are today and how we can get better. She's come back with 10 points, all of which we will be actioning.

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