I just want to go back. I know that the issue of family violence, domestic violence, has been on the government's agenda, and on various governments' agendas, for many years. The challenge is that it has been de-gendered in a way that has caused some problems.
There were some productive consultations in the mid-nineties that occurred between what were broadly called “women's groups”. It included organizations here today and other organizations the committee has consulted with, and it provided a way to make recommendations for real initiatives. I commend to you the document “99 Federal Steps Towards an End to Violence Against Women”, which is one of the products of those consultations.
It included women at the grassroots level who worked on anti-violence, as well as indigenous women and other racialized women. It included a whole range, and it made recommendations, but it didn't continue, largely because it became a bit uncomfortable. It challenged all of the representatives about the manner in which the subject was being addressed.
To address violence against women, you have to address the structural inequalities that women experience: social inequality, financial inequality, racial inequality. You have to address all of those areas. We have yet to see a concerted effort to address these issues and to demand that we have substantive equality for women at every level.
Eliminating the Court Challenges program was probably the best worst example we could have of a mechanism that allowed women—particularly poor women, racialized women, women with disabilities—to argue for the duty to accommodate that needs to be in place.
I think there are real challenges, but there are also real opportunities.
Prevention is about developing social equality and financial equality so that women don't end up in a position of trying to manage. We have created an infinitely criminalizable group of people by allowing the provinces to cut social assistance the way they have.
We have cut mental health services. In the Kirby commission, Senator Kirby talked about mental health issues. Women have always been overrepresented there. We've cut that. In the prisons, women used to be able to move ahead through post-secondary education. All that was cut in 1992.
We've had a succession of cuts that have created more of these problems. That's why women are the fastest-growing prison population. It's not because you walk outside and you're concerned that your safety is at risk from women. It's not accidental that these are linked. That's some of the prevention. Women who come from the community come back to the community, and unless we have their services and supports in place, we're going to continue to see this.
In fact, I was just called by Correctional Services. They advised me that they are about to have to break the law and start transferring women all over the country illegally, because they have no beds. It's quite something to be advised of that by the government.