Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Dear witnesses, thank you for your testimony.
I am the member for Thérèse-De Blainville, a riding in the northern suburbs of Montreal. I have been involved in my region for a very long time. Recently, I invited my colleague Randy Boissonnault, who is the Prime Minister's special advisor on the LGBTQ community file, to come and see what was happening in my community. I had the impression that the LGBTQ community did not exist in my region. Of course, I knew that this was not the case, but the lack of statistics, knowledge and cohesion between organizations is clear. Each organization has a certain specialization and those organizations are often based in Montreal. Since there is little assistance, young people in the suburbs are redirected to the big city. Basically, they find themselves disadvantaged and become easy prey, subject to all kinds of pressures, good and bad.
How do you see that situation? How do you see cohesion between organizations to ensure that service is provided outside major centres? How do we start? What directions should we take, as a federal government, to change that?
Monsieur Matern, perhaps you could start.