I'd like to call this session to order.
Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the Standing Committee on the Status of Women is studying violence against aboriginal women, and we are travelling across Canada to do so.
There was a motion that was adopted unanimously by the committee to study this issue and to travel across the country and meet with aboriginal communities and other groups that are involved in the issue so that they could tell us about the extent of violence against aboriginal women, the types of violence, the root causes of that violence, and of course the solutions to what is an ongoing problem. Obviously, despite their best efforts, governments in the past, it seems, have not been able to deal with the situation. So we need to be able to get from you a lot of information and concrete solutions so that when we write our report we will be able to at least, as some people have told us, stop studying the issue to death and get on with finding solutions.
Normally, as you know, these are public meetings, so they are being taped. There can be media here. Media are allowed to come in. I just want to point out that representatives of the consulate general of the United States are here as observers. They're very interested in the issue, and they're in the audience today listening. I also want to welcome them here to listen to the issue.
Today we have representatives of Battered Women's Support Services, Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter, Women Against Violence Against Women, and the YWCA of Vancouver.
Normally we give you five minutes each to present. I'll give you two-minute and one-minute indicators so that you know you'll have to start wrapping it up. You don't have to say everything in your presentation, because there will be, hopefully, a couple of rounds of questions in which you'll be able to flesh out some of the other things you want to say and actually be specific about them.
I'm going to begin with Battered Women's Support Services, from which we have Lisa Yellow-Quill, co-manager of the aboriginal women's program.
Lisa, you have five minutes.