Your testimony is incredibly powerful. Your experience is the experience we've had over and over again. We need to have representation in the justice system for each of us as women, that is, a lawyer dedicated to women's experience in the justice system, a similar system to the one we have for family court support workers in Ontario and criminal court support workers across the country, who will walk with women through this experience.
Just six years ago, after the Mass Casualty Commission, one of the first people charged was the woman who survived the perpetrator's violence for years. She was charged. She was blamed. This is not an aberration. This is a consistent process of blaming each of us when we've experienced harm. The criminal justice system will continue to be inadequate, unresponsive and unaccountable to women until we address our own attitudes, beliefs and assumptions and our unwillingness to open our hearts to see the truth of what actually happens on the ugly side of who we are. We can be really harmful. We can be really awful. We can be very coercive, very controlling. We have to honour that this lives right here in this room. It lives in this country. It lives across every single postal code. Until we're honest about that, when each woman comes into the room to share their experience, they will be doubted. They will be questioned, and they will experience a moment of concern for their safety.