I very much appreciate the question, and I think we also need to proceed with great caution. What I've heard from my friend Marilyn and other aboriginal women is that you can't just go into a community and start talking about violence and then leave. Expecting women to speak up and disclose what's happened to them can actually create a dangerous situation for them. My friend Marilyn recommended to you that one thing she thought was important would be services run for aboriginal women by aboriginal women in every aboriginal community in the province--or, from your perspective, in the country.
I think we need to think very carefully about putting some of those supports in place before we expect women to talk, because there needs to be some level of safety and some oversight in a community, some safe place, some initiative where there's support and building and communities. One of the federal initiatives that's going on right now, which I very much support, is the building of community safety plans in aboriginal communities. In addition, it's not just about building a plan or a protocol. There has to be some support in an ongoing way. There has to be some advocacy.
I just want to echo what Marilyn has suggested to you, because more than anything else, if you could embed advocates for women by women in communities, I think that would go a huge long way to helping women find their voice.
I think in the mainstream non-aboriginal communities that's probably how non-aboriginal women found their voice: through the proliferation of anti-violence services, of feminist voices in communities throughout the province. Now, obviously that hasn't ended violence, and every community isn't the same in terms of having these services, but one of the things we've been saying to the Province of B.C., because they fund these provincial services, is that they need to fund services in aboriginal communities for aboriginal women. They have funded a few, but not nearly enough. We believe very strongly in the recommendation by Marilyn that doing that would make a huge difference in terms of opening up the denial but at the same time doing so in a way that's safe for women.