Good morning. My name is Christiane Sirois and this is my story.
My son, Sébastien Métivier, was kidnapped on November 1st, 1984, when he was eight years old, close to 28 years ago. Today, I am supporting the assistance that Bill C-44 will give to parents of missing children. This morning, I would like to give you a few examples from my personal experience in order to stress the urgency of adopting this bill as a whole as soon as possible.
As a single mother, I was the only financial support for my family at the time. I had two children: Sébastien, who was eight years old, and Mélanie, who was seven years old. I worked as an administrative secretary at the time. The tragedy that occurred in our life was so emotionally intense that it took all my energy.
After the disappearance, I was unable to work and live in a balanced way, given the events that I just described. So I had to hand in my resignation to my employer and stay home. Since this was a disappearance because of a kidnapping, I kept waiting for my child to return home, which unfortunately did not happen. I used various services, those of psychologists and other people. At the time, this type of event was not familiar to them.
No one has the right to live in this kind of disarray without resources. I had to face these events without financial or psychological resources. My daughter, Mélanie, and I were in an endless corridor. We were directed toward last-resort services meant to help people. We submitted a financial aid request for compensation to victims of crime in Quebec.
Despite the financial assistance we were given, we had to use last-resort services. I worked very hard to make up for what we were lacking. I returned to work and, as a result, had to abandon the large file of research on the disappearance of my son for a few years.
This is why the assistance proposed in Bill C-44 would have improved my life at the time. Even if modest financial assistance had been available at that time, it is clear that our suffering could have been lessened.