Madam Chair and committee members, thank you for the opportunity to appear alongside my colleagues today, and thank you for your interest in this important topic.

It has been more than 30 years since I began my military life as a cadet at the Royal Military College in Saint-Jean. Since then, as an officer and a helicopter pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force, I have seen and experienced many of the unique challenges faced by women in the Canadian Armed Forces that you are hearing about in this study.

Nevertheless, I believe in the importance of the CAF and its mission, as well as its ability to learn and adapt as an institution. My career has provided me with the opportunities and experience that I could not have found anywhere else, and I still love coming to work every day. I joined the military to get a degree, and then I was going to quit and join the civilian forces. I had so much fun that I just forgot to quit, and I'm still here 32 years later.

In my current role as defence champion for women, peace and security, my interest is focused first and foremost on making us stronger and more effective in military operation. Beyond being a place of work for thousands of Canadians, DND and the CAF are important tools in Canada's effort to bring security, stability and humanitarian relief to fragile and conflict-affected places around the world.

To do this effectively in a modern operational context, the CAF must be able to understand how conflict and other crises affect populations of women, men, girls and boys differently, as well as how gender-related challenges can be exacerbated by, and even contribute to, security and humanitarian problems.

The 2017 national action plan on women, peace and security recognizes this requirement and calls for a coordinated approach across all Canadian efforts—both military and civilian—to improve security, promote gender equality and build sustainable peace.

As we finalize the progress report for fiscal year 2018-19, I am pleased with our degree of effort and success related to the following four pillars: governance and accountability, training and education, recruitment and retention, and integration into operations.

Since I am the deputy chief of operations at the Canadian Joint Operations Command and in my role as champion for women, peace and security, integration into operations is indeed my main focus area.

Of course, this operationally focused lens of women, peace and security is intrinsically linked to the more institutionally focused issues being studied by this committee, since to succeed in operations we must be supported by a strong institution and the right mix of people.

To support this target, the CAF must be able to engage with and understand all segments of a population, including those who may have difficulty interacting with a predominantly male military force.

This is why attracting, training and retaining adequate numbers of female CAF members in key roles and at all rank levels is so important. Beyond increasing the gender equality of our own workforce, which is a really worthy and important goal in itself, it also serves to make the CAF a better-prepared, more adaptable and more effective military force.

I look forward to this morning's discussion and would be happy to answer any questions about the importance of gender and gender perspectives in CAF operations.

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