Thank you so much for that.
First of all, I want to say that the December 2011 report of the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women, “Ending Violence Against Aboriginal Women and Girls”, contained extremely valuable recommendations. I go back to those again and again, and I look at them and I think about them. I think they're very strong, and many of them are outstanding, so I think we have a good path there.
In terms of the process, I think that when we talk about a commission of inquiry that has been recommended, my take on it to create safety is to actually have a commission of inquiry about the safety of girls on reserve, where you perhaps could have a bit more of an inquisitorial process, not an adversarial process, and where you actually allow girls to speak about what is happening in their lives, in community, to someone who has enough authority and responsibility to actually help create some safety around them immediately. I think this is missing. It's absent. Although there are many brave organizations and individuals who have come forward, I would have to say, regrettably, that at this point 90% of the girls who disclose violence, sexual violence, neglect, or maltreatment end up the worse for it.
The initiative that I think we need to have at a national level is a very strongly empowered reach, an in-reach to first nations girls. Also, we need to have a strong consensus on the part of everyone in those communities that safety for those girls is an unequivocal value that we will represent, and that we will listen to them and we will actually do something about it. For the little girl who I reported on who committed suicide, the big issue she had prior to her suicide was that she said, “I keep telling people about this, but no one does anything.” In point of fact, the recent report I did.... She was telling people, and no one actually did anything. When I went back into the community to investigate and ask why no one actually did anything, they said, “Well, we're all too afraid to do anything.”
This is not acceptable, so we in Canada need to reach into the community to girls and create the safety so that they can actually come forward, disclose, receive support, get the resilience they need and can achieve, and go on to do well, but we need to disrupt the cycle of abuse.