Thank you, Madam Chair.
I would like to thank the people who are presenting here today.
I think this is an extremely important issue. I was on this committee when we did the study on human trafficking, and it's an issue that's more horrendous and devastating than many of us ever thought when we started into it.
I want to pay tribute to my colleague Joy Smith, who has done so much work on this file and has worked with many of you as well. My thanks to her and Anita Neville, who had the foresight to bring this motion forward so that we could get this update from you. I think it's extremely important for the Standing Committee on the Status of Women to know what's happening, and I think it's also important to have you back again, either closer to the date or after, so we can follow up on what legislative tools we may need to put in place to continue this endeavour to make our women and children safer. I think that's something we need to be looking at.
When we studied this issue, awareness was one of the things that came to the forefront. People were not aware that this was happening in this country—it happened somewhere else but not in Canada. I've heard a lot of things here this morning that have raised the level of awareness on this issue. I know in my community, as in Ms. Mathyssen's, there is a group that has made the commitment to make the public more aware of human trafficking. They're involved with the NGOs in the community and with the local police force. Cooperation among the agencies is also improving. When we did this study, there was very little cooperation among the agencies. Everybody was operating in silos, and what I'm seeing here today is very encouraging—everybody is working together.
We know that there are domestic and international issues, but one of our big issues has to do with the aboriginal community in British Columbia. Is anything being done by any of your groups to address the aboriginals?