I come from a community where we've enjoyed at least 30 years of sobriety, and we know that the alcohol and drug abuse were just symptoms of deeper problems. We needed to get to the root causes of why our people were drugging and drinking in the first place.
We had the opportunity over the last 30 years to develop community-based programs that would allow us to create a safe space to deal with violence against women, the sexual abuse that happened in residential schools, and what we in turn perpetrated among each other within the community—the sexual abuse, the incest within our communities. We did those in conjunction with police agencies, with the full support of crown council, with the full support of judges. And we know from that experience that for any one victim, there are 20, 30 offenders. For any one offender, there are 20, 30 victims. So the whole community eventually is involved.
In the healing process that we've set up through our community to deal with that abuse and violence.... If we are to be successful in the work we need to do with violence against women, certainly it starts within our own communities, but also it requires working closely with the various provincial and federal jurisdictions. At the same time, for sure we need the inquiry so that we can uncover and know the full extent and truth of what is happening to our women and our children within our communities, not only in one region but also across the country. The cases I just referred you to—even over the last 30 days—are from every province across the country. It's extensive.
Thank you.