I think that one of the critically important pieces is that when any policy or law affects marginalized women, whether they're sex workers, aboriginal women, Inuit, first nations, Métis, women who have recently immigrated, refugees, or those with temporary status—whichever group it is—that group has to be consulted, particularly through peer-to-peer points of contact with that group. Then, the national research consensus on best practices and on the implications of various policy applications have to be very seriously considered. When we neglect both of those pieces, we end up with the kind of example, the very small example, that I gave about what happens when, among the very excellent police officers we have across Canada, one or two in each region are unethical. Those one or two literally decimate the possibility of sex workers or first nations women or whoever engaging with that particular authority. The same situation happens within the health system and within social services: one or two unethical people in positions of power and authority in each region decimate the capacity for marginalized women to access resources in an equitable way, which the rest of us assume everybody can access, without having to deal with exploitation.
So those consultations are important, and funding for the agencies is, of course, critically important. Basing law on research and information is important, and then, of course, we need prevention training for abuse prevention generally to shift the culture of violence. In Canada, we're looking at embedded issues around racism and classism and things like that, which are affecting people in ways that most of us don't imagine.
I'm not sure what to say. The pieces about doing those kinds of things are in front of us. I think these issues don't need to be divisive. In the case of Bill C-36, for example, had consultations involving women's agencies across Canada been more comprehensive, those conversations at the ground level would have led to more consensus at the table, in Parliament. We need to look at these issues as health issues. When H1N1 infected 10% of the population, we created the Public Health Agency; we created an office; we created a contingency fund. This is sustainable. It's ongoing. Violence against women is a threat involving 50% of the population. It's a far greater health and justice threat than any health epidemic that we've faced has been. We need to look at implementing the kinds of best practices we already know exist through having responded to epidemics within the health system.