Thank you, National Chief.
Thank you for the invitation to be here tonight. In coming to the committee, I was thinking that we may be concerned about what's happened in the past, but the national chief is correct that we do respond on a weekly basis to cases of missing or murdered women across the country. We do receive regular reports from police agencies. Even if I were to reflect on the last 30 days, so that you have some sense that this is not a historical problem but a current problem, we have responded to at least two homicides—of a 21-year-old female and a 24-year-old female. One 17-year-old female committed suicide. When you think of the root causes of the suicide, was there violence before? There was one female 14-year-old. Another, a 15-year-old female, was, fortunately, found. One female, a 12-year-old child, has gone missing. Out of those six, one was found. They are from all regions of the country, just so you know they're not specifically from one province. They are from across the country.
Two males, one 16-year-old and one 21-year-old, were also murdered. I've included them, because, to me, our men are suffering as well.
This gives you an idea of the current cases. These are 30 days old, so it's not like these are from 10 or 15 years ago. We have those as well. To me it's important to outline what is so upsetting and shocking. It's that these women are dying very young and with very violent deaths, very violent. The alleged perpetrators in most cases are still out there, because police haven't been able to resolve those cases, so families continue to live in trauma from the loss of their daughters. There are children left behind. In Picton alone, there were 77 children left behind by mothers who were murdered. So the impact is huge across various jurisdictions, I think, when we look at the loss of a mother and the children left behind. I think there is a lot to say about what is going on, but even that snapshot that in 30 days this many women could be murdered, this many women could be missing, this many children are missing shows that our communities are in a crisis and they need the inquiry.
I think that's all I want to cover for now unless there's anything else to add.