Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you for being here today.
Ms. Compton, your story is both sad and shocking, but you are a symbol of resilience and hope for all women. Thank you for sharing this story with us. I think you should share it with a wider audience to help people understand aboriginal women are just like all other women in Quebec and Canada.
Ms. Mann, we met a few years ago when a subcommittee was examining prostitution. You took part in these proceedings. I can see things did not change a whole lot in the last few years. You want to decriminalize the prostitute and not prostitution. You want to make sure she is not stigmatized, that she is not necessarily put into jail, and that she does not have to go through the same ordeal of going to prison and then come out and do the same thing again. We have seen that in countries where the prostitute was decriminalized and the clients were criminalized, women in this trade had even more serious problems.
I wonder whether it would be possible for women in risky or even very dangerous situations to go to places like friendship centres or the shelter you are running, Ms. Compton. You were getting money from the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, but this money has be transferred to the health department. Did you ask for some funds from this department in order to be able to keep the programs you were providing with the money from the foundation? You said the money is now in the health department. You could perhaps access these funds.
I would also like to know what your feather means.