Thank you very much.
I'm going to give everyone a minute, but before we do, Sandra mentioned that she couldn't speak for men. We are not travelling as a committee to only meet with women. We're speaking to the issue of systemic violence against aboriginal women and the fact that very little has been done. We wanted to investigate that.
We have had men come and speak with us. They have actually spoken to the issue of a loss of self, a loss of dignity, and a loss of value. We've had women plead with us to understand that about the men and to understand that the men have been taken away from who they are. Because so many of them are unemployed and have little education, they can't go to anything else to give them value. They become useless. They become angry.
The women we heard yesterday, interestingly enough, said that as the women get stronger—because the women are still undertaking their traditional roles, which is to have children, nurture the children, make sure the children get fed, etc.—the women in fact actually assume a larger role in the families than the men. These particular women told us they have to learn to be careful in how to do that, because then they revictimize their own men.
This is a very important issue. Dennis, I'm glad you brought it up. We have been hearing about it very, very often, about how the men have been denigrated and how they have completely lost their dignity.
I will ask Therese, Lyda, Arlene, and Sandra, in that order, to summarize in one minute. In that minute, I want you to actually focus on how you feel we could make recommendations that will get to the heart of what we're hearing.
We heard about systems, etc. It may very well be that the systems need to be changed. What are the things you think we can do? What are the most important things you can pick as priorities that you think will hit the heart of the problem and resolve it? So give me two things.
Therese.