Thank you very much, Madam Chairperson.
First of all, to the witnesses, thank you for coming. But more than that, I want to begin by acknowledging the tremendous sense of frustration, maybe anger, maybe a loss of hope that you have, Bridget, when you tell us that you haven't seen any change in 12 years. You went to the status of women committee two years ago—and you hold up your stack of reports. Mary, you tell us that you're still waiting for some of the basic recommendations from the Highway of Tears report to be implemented.
I want to say on behalf of the NDP members on the committee that we get that, we understand it. This is not an issue we need to keep going over and over. There are so many reports.
Mary, I really like it when you say we need an implementation plan that is funded. This links the problem directly back to the services that all of you have spoken about—whether it's the police services Marie talked about, or the grief counselling and the healing centres that Bridget mentioned.
I'm the MP for Vancouver East. That includes the downtown eastside. Our whole community is in grief, and the amount of time that people spend trying to find money to get a healing centre up and running is just mind-boggling. So I value what you say when you talk about needing services that are culturally appropriate and locally sensitive. It isn't one thing that fits all communities. There are differences, whether it's urban, rural, different nations, different experiences. Northern B.C. is very different from the downtown eastside. There are commonalities, too.
It's hard to ask a question, because it's all been said. I just want to say that we know it. So what do we do? We want to focus on an implementation plan. We want to focus on solutions. I will give you a simple question. For the services that are needed, how many funding sources would you have to go to? How frustrating is that? How much time do you spend on it?
I think this is a universal issue for all community services, but it's particularly difficult for aboriginal services. It's a patchwork. You're going here and there, trying to get another $5,000, or this or that. If any of you would care to share a little bit more about that, I think it would help us match this up to the solutions in these recommendations and emphasize that these services have to be provided as part of an implementation plan.
Would any of you like to respond?