Well, let me speak to the accountability mechanisms first. I think accountability mechanisms are extraordinarily important, and in my mind it's not simply a question of what you think about in terms of this report.
This report is about the human rights of aboriginal women and girls. That's the whole substance of the report. We think of going to the international treaty bodies as part of what holds Canada accountable for the human rights of aboriginal women and girls, but then we find out when we come back to Canada that we have no mechanism inside our own country for dealing with the recommendations that have been made to us.
It's so clear. It has been said over and over again now to Canada, look, this is part of the international human rights law framework that you have agreed to be a part of, and what is said by the treaty bodies to you about your compliance with human rights does matter, so where's the internal mechanism to actually make sure that the recommendations that are made are taken seriously and implemented?
That accountability mechanism that we and the treaty bodies are asking for has to be cross-jurisdictional, because human rights and our implementation of them cross federal, provincial, and territorial jurisdictions.
So that's the first thing.
On the second thing, what does a national inquiry look like? Well, under laws in Canada, a national inquiry can look like what the federal government wants it to look like, right? The terms of reference can be written in a way that's big enough and broad enough to actually take into account the scope of the problem we have. I think this process is part of it, because in fact we keep doing this in order to get to the point where there's the political will to actually say, okay, we accept the responsibility.
Part of the reason why we look at the international treaty law is that it's so clear about saying what the obligations of government are. That's still what's missing here. At no level yet have governments actually said, we understand that we have responsibilities and obligations to aboriginal women and girls--profound ones. That's what we're looking for from a national inquiry: the government actually saying, okay, we understand the nature of our obligations and what steps we now have to take, and we understand that you're part of getting there.
A national action plan, I think, has to do with the things that the people at this table are all talking about. Let's see what the priorities are about what has to be done. Let's see that. Let's write it out. Let's say it. Let's get it on paper so that we have actual steps about what we're going to do and some benchmarks, some timelines, etc., to deal with it as a big, national, complex, essential issue of the basic human rights of aboriginal women and girls.