Well, there's been violence against aboriginal women in this country for 500 years. The reason behind why we are, I guess, only hearing about it....
I've heard about it my whole entire life, being an aboriginal woman, and my ancestors before me heard about it. I think there's been a huge blanket lifted off the eyes of some of our Canadian people. I think what needs to happen is that there needs to be mainstream education and curriculum in the high school education system that portrays a real portrait of colonization, the residential school and its legacy. This legacy is going to go on. People are going to suffer from the legacy of the residential school for a very long time.
Aboriginal women have been victims of violence for decades. This is not a new subject. Unfortunately, the media do not portray what's happening in our country. Most aboriginal issues are swept under the carpet. Most people don't hear about them. It's no secret that women were murdered and went missing in Vancouver, in this city where we sit right now, for decades. The police knew about it. People knew about it. Politicians knew about it. But it wasn't until a non-aboriginal woman went missing that something was done about it.
So once again, the responsibility rests within our government to take action and to let the citizens of this country know what's going on in this country with aboriginal people.