Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you both, Rolanda and Jennifer, for being here today.
We can all see how difficult it is for you to tell us your stories. I absolutely admire your strength and your courage for being here. I know it's a public place.
Jennifer, you said you'd never told your story to so many people all in one place, and I bet the same holds true for Rolanda. We really appreciate it. We know it's difficult, and we thank you so much.
The reason this helps us, and why we're thanking you today for coming, is it makes us, as politicians and parliamentarians, recognize that we can talk about what we're doing here, we can talk about every aspect of the legislation in an impersonal way, but when we see you and we hear your stories...we all want this legislation to pass because we know that we won't see any more people going forward—any more women—who have the same problems that you do. It's women and children, because not only did you suffer for many years because of this problem with the law as it is—or because it doesn't exist—but your children suffered as well. That's very apparent.
Just in the last hour, the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples' vice-chief told us that they look at this as an equality issue. They don't believe that making this equal for women on reserves and giving them this right in any way takes away other rights from indigenous people as a whole.
I want to ask you if, based on whatever knowledge you have of this bill, you want to see it pass in Canada's House of Commons because you think it will help other women in the future not have to go through what you went through.