Good evening, and thank you very much to the committee for this opportunity to join you.
I am here representing Battered Women's Support Services on the unceded ancestral territory of the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh and Musqueam people.
For the last 43 years, Battered Women's Support Services has worked to end gender-based violence through support services, training, education and other community-based responses, including research and policy.
It's a pleasure to join you this evening to discuss gun violence in Canada. We understand that it has a hugely disproportionate impact on women and girls. We recognize that what hurts and kills women and girls is gender inequity. This effort to take action on gun violence has to be in concert with what Women's Shelters Canada has been leading around—