Thank you, Madam Chair.
I'll begin by apologizing for being late. I got caught in a telephone conversation, so I don't know what's been said.
We have a huge agenda to undertake, and my concern is that we do something real that makes a difference in the lives of Canadian women.
I was hearkening back, and I realized that many members who are here today were not part of the consultation process that went on last year, when we met with approximately 60 different women's groups across the country to try to prioritize what the issues were for women in Canada.
I don't know whether we received them...I haven't reread it, so I don't know, but I think it's important to go back to that. My own preference would be to try to focus on the whole issue of economic security. I think that encompasses so much for Canadian women and makes a difference to so many aspects.
We talk about the issue of trafficking. I listened to Ms. Mourani fairly carefully and she linked it back to the subcommittee that is looking at solicitation.
There is legislation in place, and I'm trying to think how one might deal with it. I looked at the list of witnesses put forward by members of the committee to deal with the issue of human trafficking, and it strikes me that while it's not unimportant that it's missing a whole component...if we're going on a global basis, we have nothing from Southeast Asia, Cambodia, the Philippines, and Thailand, where we know of the prevalence and brutality of human trafficking.
We have nothing here in terms of aboriginal young people. Today's headline in the Globe and Mail--and I haven't read the story--deals with the highway of tears in British Columbia. It has pictures of nine women who were brutally murdered.
I know in my own city I have met with a number of individuals, and I know the gang activity...well, it's really solicitation and prostitution that potentially moves into some aspect of trafficking, but it's growing, and it's growing in impact in the inner city of Winnipeg.
I would like to either do something small and concrete, that we look at the existing legislation and make some suggestions on how to improve the existing legislation, or we do a much broader consultation that includes the various other parties to trafficking, both at home and abroad.
It's part of the trafficking and prostitution issue, but we heard a great deal about the issues of violence against women, aboriginal women and all women, when we heard from the women's groups.
I would be very happy if we could come up with some concrete recommendations to the government, either in terms of service or potential review, although it's been studied to death and the studies are out there. That would certainly be a priority for me, to look at the whole matter of domestic violence and perhaps look at some of the links into trafficking.
I think the trafficking proposal that's here right now is broad but not broad enough. My suggestion would be to either narrow it much more or broaden it substantially.
I don't know whether that's coherent or not, but those are my thoughts.