Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Thank you to all of you for being here today. I have many questions and not nearly enough time.
I have a bit of a preamble or preface. Let me just say to you, Mr. Buller, that I know the Hollow Water initiative in Manitoba. I know that it is an integrated, holistic approach that has been going on for a long period of time, with many different resources going into it. It has had many successes and a number of setbacks along the way, but it is perhaps a model.
To the RCMP, I had the opportunity to meet with the governing council of the Highway of Tears initiative and was pleased to see your involvement there in an effort to have a more united, holistic response to the issue.
But I guess I'm really concerned. At one point last May, my colleague, Todd Russell, and I wrote to the Minister of Justice calling for an inquiry on the missing and murdered aboriginal women, and we virtually received a letter of response that talked about all of the isolated initiatives going on. And there are a number of initiatives going on, but what I am struck by as I listen to the presentations from government primarily is the question, do you talk to each other? Is there an overall integrated approach to the issue? It is a very complex issue.
The funding for the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, which dealt with many of the issues related to violence against women, has been cut, and there doesn't appear to be an overall plan. There are lots of one-offs, but there doesn't seem to be a comprehensive strategic, integrated, holistic plan.
When we talk about root causes, some of them have been identified, but we didn't hear anything about issues related to housing, and we didn't hear anything about the generational impact on aboriginal people, the cycles of poverty, or any of that. So tell me what is happening in government that gives us hope that there is some real effort to deal with this. It is a complicated issue, but one-offs are not going to do it.
I don't know who wants to answer that.