I will now call the meeting to order.
Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), this Standing Committee on the Status of Women is studying violence against aboriginal women.
You know that standing committees are made up of all four parties. It is by and large a non-partisan effort, because we are parliamentarians here and we all want to come together. Whatever we find and report will be presented to Parliament first, and then of course the government of the day will have to respond to the report and the recommendations within 90 days.
Given what we heard from the Sisters in Spirit reports, that there are over 580 missing and murdered aboriginal women around the country, there have been calls for a national inquiry. We know that this is an issue, with best intentions or not, that people have been trying to remedy for a long time with very little success. While most people tell us that this has been studied to death, we're not trying to study anything. We know the data. We know the statistics. What we really want to do is talk with people on the ground and see if they can cut through all of this to tell us what the root causes are and tell us what is the nature and extent of the violence against aboriginal women. By nature, I mean different types of violence. As you well know, violence can be sexual, it can be physical, it can be emotional, it can be systemic. Racism is a form of violence.
So we wanted to look at the nature and the extent of violence. We also wanted to look at the root causes, and I think we've been hearing now a repetitive measure of what the root causes are. But we'd like to also, more than anything, listen to solutions you can offer us--solutions that are not the same old, same old, because the same old, same old has not been working. So we'd like to hear about creative solutions, innovative solutions, systemic resolutions, but we also want you to be as frank and honest with us as you possibly can.
That having been said, I'm going to start the presentations. We have four groups represented here today. We will give you between five and seven minutes; seven is the upper limit. If you can just check me out occasionally, I will give you a little signal as to whether or not you have a minute left or you should wind up; it doesn't mean stop immediately, but it means winding up within about 20 seconds.
We will begin with the Native Women's Association of the Northwest Territories. The presenter is Therese Villeneuve, but she also has Ms. Thomas with her for support. Thank you.
Ms. Villeneuve.