Good afternoon, Mr. Chair.
My name is Sandra DeLaronde and I'm also co-chair of the Manitoba Coalition. We thank the standing committee for the opportunity to present today.
We acknowledge this government and provincial and territorial governments for finally establishing a national inquiry in 2016, after more than 20 years of advocacy by families, survivors and indigenous women's organizations, although we are concerned about the lack of inclusion in creating a national strategy to end the violence.
This pandemic is highlighting the desperate, impossible situation our women and girls and 2SLGBTQIA find themselves in. Imagine the terror of being locked in with your abuser for weeks and now months.
We have three requests for this committee.
The first one is that Winnipeg is the only city without a low-barrier safe space for women and girls to protect them from staggering rates of violence by intimate partners and through trafficking.
Second, along with the violence walks homelessness, particularly for indigenous women who are fleeing. The lack of decent housing in the city and on reserve means that multiple generations of families live in a single family home in some communities. The count ranges up to 30 people in a two-bedroom home. This chronic underfunding and profoundly inadequate circumstances existed long before COVID-19, but the pandemic is more deadly because women have no housing options and nowhere to go.
Third, of the 634 first nations in Canada, there are only 46 funded women's shelters and only four shelters exist in Manitoba first nations.
The final quick point I'd like to make is about mental health and well-being. The long-term effects need to be addressed now and for the long term. As a coalition, we'd like to thank Leah Gazan, MP for Winnipeg Centre, for her efforts in supporting our community to ensure the well-being of indigenous women and, indeed, all women who are at risk for violence. We look forward to working with this government to end violence and make this country one where every human being is safe, because we deserve nothing else. We remember those many women—mothers, daughters and sisters—who have gone missing or murdered because of a lack of action.
Meegwetch.