Thank you very much, Chair.
Welcome, witnesses.
I just want to echo that it is very appropriate that we are having this panel discussion today on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.
Superintendent Bates, let me begin with you. Thank you for your testimony. We know that indigenous women are far more likely to suffer abuse and violent crimes than non-indigenous women are, and we appreciate the report from the RCMP last May that put a number on the missing and murdered indigenous women. It's a terrible, tragic, shocking number—1,200—but it is good to have that data.
We know there have been multiple reports from victims and also from international human rights NGOs such as Human Rights Watch, which published a wonderful report in February, 2013 entitled “Those Who Take Us Away: Abusive Policing and Failures in Protection of Indigenous Women and Girls in Northern British Columbia”. We know there have of course been many cases of victimization of indigenous women by police including the RCMP. I appreciate the study that the RCMP has undertaken of itself and all of the programs that you are instituting, but I'm wondering if, in light of the systemic nature of this epidemic of violence against indigenous women, the RCMP can support a national inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women.