Thank you very much, Chairperson, and my thanks to our two witnesses today from Status of Women Canada.
I'd like to begin by saying that many of the people we've met with informally—family members, activists in the aboriginal community, people who have for decades been involved in this issue of missing and murdered women—tell us that there have already been so many reports, so many recommendations, and that what we really need to focus on is a plan of action. We need to figure out how to move forward. We need to figure out what's going to be done to provide solutions. I'd like to begin with that.
In April of this year, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a draft report of what's called the Universal Periodic Review. In that report, a number of countries called on Canada to develop a national action plan to address the question of violence against indigenous women.
If you go back to 2009, which was the report before this one, you find similar recommendations. In fact, there are recommendations calling on Canada to systematically investigate and collect data on violence against women and to disseminate information. Recommendation 38 talks about a national strategy, comprehensive reporting, and statistical analysis to address root causes of violence, particularly against aboriginal women.
So where is the national action plan? Is there one? If it lies within your department, within Status of Women Canada, who is the lead?
You talked about collaboration, and we certainly heard that at our last meeting, where we had Public Safety, the justice department, and Status of Women Canada as well. We heard a lot about this term “collaboration”. But surely somebody has to be in the lead. Who takes that lead? Where is the national action plan? Is it something we can get hold of to see what these recommendations actually are? Is there a plan for implementing all of the work, all of the studies, all of the recommendations that have been done?