Good evening. Welcome to meeting number five of the Special Committee on Violence Against Indigenous Women.
I want to let committee members know that Michèle Audette, who was to be our first witness, was called away on a family emergency and sends her apologies. I'm sure I speak on behalf of the committee when I say that we are thinking of Michèle and her family. I'm sure that at some later date Michèle will request an appearance before the committee.
I want to thank the witnesses for coming. We have Mr. Hassel joining us by video conference.
I'm going to ask you to take approximately 10 minutes to give your presentations. I'll give you a signal to wrap it up. Then we will have questions from the members. Their questioning time includes your response time. In the first round of questions, it's seven minutes for questions and answers. Just keep that in mind when you're responding, that you're taking up time around the questions. The members will encourage you to elaborate, if they wish.
I'm going to start with Ms. Rhoad from Human Rights Watch.