I would say four things. First, I think there needs to be support services, independent transition houses, and rape crisis centres funded by the state, while independently operated by women, so on every reserve and in every rural place women can immediately get safety, support, and advocacy.
On the other hand, we have to have transparency in the system. The fact that we have seen the tip of the iceberg in terms of the judgment to the media does not tell us what's really happening. There is no accessibility of judgments. At the provincial court, in general, it's very hard to have access to the judgments. We want all judgments from all levels of courts to be available to the public for scrutiny.
It's the same with crown decisions and the same with police decisions. I hope that the legislator will come up with instructions that mean that all police forces everywhere, once in a while, once a year, need to report how many sexual assaults and how many violence against women complaints they have received, how long the investigation took, and what the result was of each case.
It's the same for the crown. How many recommendations did they receive? How many charges did they drop or were stayed, and how many were pursued to see court?
I got permission from a woman I work with. She's my age and when she was 11 she was raped for a few years by her adult cousin. In 2007 she went to the police. Charges were laid only in 2011, after four years. The pretrial was in 2013. The trial started in 2015 and it's not over yet. The defence lawyer here was arguing against delay. Delay is everything that the victims are experiencing. The defence counsels are leading this process of delay. Not only do women have no justice, but there is not transparency in all the places that the state is failing them.
There was a really brilliant document written in 1993, called “99 Federal Steps to End Violence Against Women”, by Lee Lakeman. It was adopted by women's groups across the country. I encourage you—and I can send it to the chair—to look at the recommendation for immediate application to advance the situation.