Special Committee on Violence Against Indigenous Women committee  Yes, that's what I intended to say. That's the history of my community.

Special Committee on Violence Against Indigenous Women committee  That attitude changed from our decision as women and as service providers in the community at the time. We all came together and came up with a declaration that abuse was going to stop. We didn't know how, but it was going to stop. From just saying the words, it seemed to snowbal

Special Committee on Violence Against Indigenous Women committee  It's not so much the community anymore; it's the families doing that for each other. There are family members who will go pick up people in Pine Falls from jail or from the hospital.

Special Committee on Violence Against Indigenous Women committee  I think the same challenges are there to varying degrees. As I said, we're still plodding along. We're heading to our vision. A lot of times the children are the ones who push and move community along. You never go from A to B in a straight line when you're dealing with communi

Special Committee on Violence Against Indigenous Women committee  To add to what Robyn said, I think it's.... Did you say something?

Special Committee on Violence Against Indigenous Women committee  Okay.

Special Committee on Violence Against Indigenous Women committee  To answer that, I'll say that we participated in numerous studies by government. That cost analysis was just one of them. We have developed a protocol that has been sanctioned by the provincial government, and the whole community approach includes the Métis communities surround

Special Committee on Violence Against Indigenous Women committee  At one time there was the issue of young women and men attempting suicide. They would be taken to a hospital in Pine Falls, by ambulance or some other way. When they were taken by ambulance, once they were out of danger they were out the door and on their own. We had to set up

Special Committee on Violence Against Indigenous Women committee  After the sentencing circle, there is a probation period for another three years and the same kind of work continues for the next three years. At the end of that time, there's a giveaway ceremony that the offender sets up for the victim. Those are the key pieces of how the comm

Special Committee on Violence Against Indigenous Women committee  One of the key areas we've worked with over the years is the whole attitude of my community. There was a time when it was okay for women to be treated that way, to be physically and sexually abused and all that comes with that. My community developed the attitude that women were

Special Committee on Violence Against Indigenous Women committee  Yes.

Special Committee on Violence Against Indigenous Women committee  We started with sexual abuse in our community because that was one of the root causes of the chaos we were seeing on a daily basis. We certainly had no intention of starting from there; however, we couldn't avoid it. Once we made the decision to deal with sexual abuse, we then d

Special Committee on Violence Against Indigenous Women committee  Back in 1991, when the study on the cost analysis was done—right about that time, in the late 1980s—we started developing our data for the cases we were processing in court. We had quite a database to work with when the study started. In the beginning the provincial government g

Special Committee on Violence Against Indigenous Women committee  My name is Burma Bushie. Thank you for your invitation. Both Robyn and I are happy to be here to share the work that we've done in our community in the last 30 years. Our vision has never changed right from day one as aboriginal women: we have a vision that we have been working o