I wanted to invite the committee to meet with the families on October 3, which is a Thursday night. I would like to invite all of you to come and meet with the families that will be here. We brought in 15 families last year. We're hoping to bring in more. We would like to sit down, and I would like the committee to hear from these families because you don't hear from most of these families. Some of these families live so far away that they can't even drive in. You have to fly in to some of these communities, and how do we help these families over there?
We invite them to come here and share their stories, and then they have to go back to their communities. This is where my problem is. It's really nice to all be together, but then you have to go home alone. This is where the services come in, where the help comes in. What we need, I think, is a national action plan. Within that national action plan we can call this public inquiry, but we need to do something now. The families need help today. We don't want to wait another year or two years for another meeting or more recommendations.
When people go missing, they need help right away. They need services, they need posters, and they need a search party. It was really hard for me because in my community we did lose two girls. We have two missing girls from 2008 and still they're not found. We lost a little baby lion on the reserve two years later. We had a search party. We had the police. We had helicopters. We had game wardens. We had everything. When these two human beings went missing, we had nothing. There were no dogs, no search party, no police, no media. What do we do when this happens? Who do we go to?
I'm very lucky that I don't live far and I'm very determined to come here to meet with you, but a lot of families are not like that. I'm here because I want you to hear from these families. You have all been listening to members of Parliament and national aboriginal organization leaders. You've been hearing from everybody else; why not listen to us? Listen to us, listen to her, and listen to the other families here. There are a lot of other families here. You don't hear from them. This is what I'm asking today.
When I go back home, I'm alone, you know. Nobody helps me. Nobody supports me. I have to come back here again to see a doctor, for counselling. I have diabetes. I'm just about on insulin. All these little things add to the stress and everything. We don't have any money. Families of Sisters in Spirit started with nothing, just a sheet and a name. That's all. We're alive and well two years later, fighting for our missing and murdered sisters, giving them a voice, giving the families a voice, giving the families the support they need. We can't give them much support; we don't have anything. But we give them the love and whatever else we can, and this is still important to all families.