You've summarized the position of the United Nations beautifully. I think it's a terribly missed opportunity for this government not to have taken, as you say, a strong position of leadership on the issue of violence against women in all its forms, and to have delivered a national action plan with the broad scope and a whole-of-government approach that it could have.
Within that, I think they could have done the work that we were told they needed to do federally to get their own house in order. That could have been part of the action plan. It's important for leadership at the federal level to bring together the territorial and provincial governments, because as we've heard in today's testimony and in previous sessions, women and children fleeing violence in Canada receive varying levels of service depending on where they are living and fleeing to. I think that's a cause of shame for Canadians.
One of the things that could address that is a national approach that would compel, at the very least, comparable levels of service in each province and territory.
My sense of this being a real missed opportunity is also informed by the fact that globally, this is a period when people are paying attention to issues of violence against women. Wouldn't it have been fantastic to have our national government standing up with its own national plan at that time?