In the medium and long term, I would say absolutely yes. The first thing you have to do--and what we plan to do in the first phase--is identify where those gaps are, to concretize housing issues, to concretize the justice system issues, to take them from the place of recognizing that there's a problem to starting to work through the solutions.
One thing, for example, that would be an element of this work would be CACL working with the Department of Justice on the concept of informed consent and the right of a person with a disability to speak on their own behalf. This is a really key piece in the justice and legislative systems: recognizing that people with disabilities, women with disabilities, have the right to speak for themselves, that they are capable of identifying their own abuse.
Also, I will say that another really important piece of this is education. One thing I can tell you from working over the last five years on this file is that many women with disabilities are so used to abuse that they do not even recognize that they are victims of it. One of the first things we did, earlier this year, was run an ad campaign through Abilities magazine and at Women's Worlds 2011. That spoke to women with disabilities about helping them identify what abuse is and how they can seek resources and support.
There are many elements to the way this has to be done. I quite agree with you that we have to go through a process that starts with the audit process, engaging the community, identifying the gaps at that provincial or territorial level, and then going forward in the next phase of this work in starting to develop partnerships that begin to take this from something that's an abstract to real inclusion.
Fundamentally, to bring it back to the convention—I'm sorry to bring it back to that, but it's such a fundamental and important piece of legislation—people with disabilities need to be included in community. If they're included in community, there's a process that will allow them to identify how their needs can best be met. One of the things we must stop doing is assuming that we know how people with disabilities need protection. We need to work with them and we need to work with their families, with their caregivers, and with the government at every level.
Thank you.