It's certainly an honour to have you with us, Madam Wilson-Raybould, and your incredible work as the justice minister.
I want to talk mostly today on the issue of the gender lens and how it applies in the indigenous communities. You have experience in many portfolios. Particularly when you were talking about #MeToo, it seems to me that the issue of the obligation of the state to prove the alleged criminal conduct of the defendant is a fundamental principle. But when it comes to sexual assault, it always ends up that the woman seems to have to prove the case herself.
We have situations and issues of sexual assault, the practice of “whacking the complainant”, as they call it, where the credibility of the victim is put on trial. We see in the example of the Ghomeshi trial that the question of the violence that he committed was never ever the issue. The issue was the credibility of the women who came forward, after the police asked for witnesses to come forward.
I don't know if the provisions that you're bringing forward on consent are enough to protect women, to encourage them to come forward, and also to make sure that we maintain a balance of justice in terms of the rights of defendants. How are we going to square that circle?