Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thanks to my Bloc colleague for allowing me additional time to really make certain that the conditions of these places are understood by Canadians.
To be frank, I wish that the commissioner was more frank and, I'd say, transparent, with the reality of how these places look and the resources they receive. I can't name one person I've met in my entire life working with indigenous people and living in community, who have had an opportunity to heal the way they would have wanted to. We have a long way to go. We're only in the very infant stages of understanding this country's history in a way that provides a level of justice and a playing field that would be fair in the consideration of these traumas.
TRC call to action number 36 is in relation to the survivors of sexual abuse. The intersectionality between survivors of sexual abuse and colonialism is great. It doesn't take much other than asking many of our residential school survivors to talk about that experience. There were children in the most vulnerable positions who were taken advantage of because of this country's policies, a kind of injustice that is still pervasive in our population today. Few criminal charges have ever been laid against those perpetrators. They get to walk out in the free world here in Canada, many of them still among us, while these women have to stay in prison.
The call to action asks you to look into the effects of that, to build resources and supports for survivors of sexual abuse and to bring that into your understanding of their experiences in those places.
Our justice system is unjust. I don't think I have to tell you that, Commissioner Kelly. You know that. You have to deal with the unfortunate realities of a broken justice system, in one of the hardest roles in our country, and the attempts to find ways to do the work of healing when this country has done so much damage. You probably hear, if you've spoken to the women, how unjust it feels for them to be attacked constantly their entire lives, and then to be left in the position they are in, while their perpetrators get to walk.
It's clear that our systems are overrepresenting indigenous and Black folks, but they also need to find ways to represent that these people are living traumatic lives of their own and are forced by our policies—