Thank you very much, Ms. Tolley.
You asked some very important questions about the process of the committee. We did try to consult as much as we could with as many groups as we could to find out the best thing to do, but when we travel as a committee, we are bound by the allocated budget that is given to us. We have to make decisions about where we go, and we try to go into every region. While it would have been great to go to Regina because of the large number of missing and murdered women, we also had to go to very isolated communities where no one had gone before. Then we were in East Vancouver, which, as you well know, has a large number.
We felt that we could understand those issues in cities, but we wanted to go to isolated areas and we wanted to go to reserves. We wanted to talk to the average, ordinary aboriginal person and not only to organizations, because sometimes we felt that we could hear, as in your case, Ms. Tolley, very personal stories that might not come out in their realities when you speak to a larger organization.
I'm very sorry that we weren't able to come to every region and probably do as much as we could to meet with everyone, but I want to thank you specifically for bringing up those issues and for presenting to us such a very personal and moving story.
Thank you.