InvalidCastException in Entity Framework 7 - entity-framework

Question

I'm using Visual Studio 2015, .Net framework 4.6.00079 to build a simple ASP.NET MVC 6 app:
model:
namespace RimconPensionModel.DataAccessLayer
{
[Table("BaseMortality")]
public class BaseMortality
{
[Key]
public int Id { get; set; }
public string BaseMortalitySet { get; set; }
public int Age { get; set; }
public string Gender { get; set; }
public float MortalityFactor { get; set; }
public DateTime EffectiveDate { get; set; }
public DateTime UpdateDate { get; set; }
public string UpdateUser { get; set; }
}
}
controller:
namespace RimconPensionModel.Controllers
{
public class BaseMortalityController : Controller
{
[FromServices]
public RimconPensionModelContext RimconPensionModelContext { get; set; }
[FromServices]
public ILogger<BaseMortalityController> Logger { get; set; }
public IActionResult Index()
{
return View(RimconPensionModelContext.BaseMortality.ToList());
}
}
}
view:
#model IEnumerable<RimconPensionModel.DataAccessLayer.BaseMortality>
#{
ViewBag.Title = "Base Mortality Data";
}
<h2>Base Mortality Data</h2>
<!--
<p>
<a asp-controller="BaseMortalityData" asp-action="Create">Create New</a>
</p> -->
<table class="table">
<tr>
<th>Base Mortality Sets</th>
</tr>
#foreach (var item in Model)
{
<tr>
<td>
#Html.DisplayFor(modelItem => item.BaseMortalitySet)
</td>
</tr>
}
</table>
The app builds and starts, but when I invoke the controller, I get InvalidCastException on the "return View( . . . )" line of the controller. I've been googling for days (I'm a bit new to MVC and Entity Framework) with no luck. I think it probably has something to do with the datetime attributes. I bulk loaded the database table from a csv file with the datetime fields in YYYYMMDD format and the load went OK; the db table shows 1994-12-31 12:00:00 AM in the datetime fields. They are type datetime2(7), NOT NULL in the db.