Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank you to everyone for being here.
I would like to start with the Status of Women. I need to say that certainly Canada's work at the UN has contributed very much to the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women and the creation or establishment of a UN special rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences. That rapporteur was in Canada in April of 2018, and at that point in time she said that there was a lack of specific federal law or model law on violence against women and domestic violence as well as a lack of a national action plan on violence against women and domestic violence. A year earlier, in June of 2017, she said of the government's announcement of a strategy to prevent gender-based violence that it lacked a holistic legal framework with clear explanations of prevention measures, integrated service delivery and the prosecution of perpetrators. She didn't believe that it was coordinated; nor was it guaranteed in all jurisdictions.
So, since that time, since 2017-2018, has Canada complied with the special rapporteur's recommendation to have a national action plan that is fully and comprehensively implemented at the federal, provincial and territorial level in order to make sure that women in all areas of the country have access to comparable levels of service and protection in line with international human rights standards and those accepted by Canada?