Meegwetch.
I appreciate your question, because it is very broad, and we have to address it from your part as the government and from our part as members of our community.
I will start with our responsibility.
I know that right now, because of the impact of the residential schools and the abuse of drugs and alcohol, it has made this drastic change within our traditional way of living with each other and the traditional roles we had. Prior to all this, I know--and I've been advised by our elders in our community, and I've seen it myself with my grandmothers and their role within the family--that women and men had mutual respect for each other, because we all had roles, and roles for survival. Children were brought into the world as gifts from the Creator, and everyone within that community worked to ensure that these young people were brought up in a good way, according to our traditions, with that respect, with that balance and that harmony, and that ongoing caring for each other.
That was there; however, as I said, that has broken down. Consequently, we are now dealing with that loss of dignity, that loss of identity, in a lot of cases, where we're seeing a lot of this violence, and as you all know, many studies have shown that.
One of the biggest factors right now is poverty and the lack of housing, which exaggerates and brings this about within our communities. Also, when you bring that to the urban centres, the same situation exists. However, in the urban centres, in order for families, and especially for our single women, who may have children and want to provide for those children...the lack of funds necessitates that if they have no other choice, they go out onto the street, bringing about this very evident fact that they're there...they bump up against the law, so they may get put in jail. The other people who live in these communities then see them, because they're obviously so evident, and this creates more of that racism and that lack of understanding, and there's no communication available there.
However, as organizations, and especially as women's provincial and territorial member organizations across Canada, we are seeking to address this, to raise that communication with members at the community level, and this will be at the provincial level with service providers, as well as with the education system. We are working in all those areas to bring about that communication, because obviously we do not like to see this happen.
In this day and age, Canada is a good place to live. We have many people coming to Canada, wanting to be part of Canada, and we want to ensure it's a good, healthy, and safe place for all of us who live here.