Thanks, Chair.
Thank you, MP Ambrose, for bringing this forward.
On the New Democrat side, absolutely, we've been calling for some time for that federal leadership to try to bring some uniformity to how every element of the justice system interacts with sexual assault victims. We've certainly been hearing a lot of testimony at this committee, in a whole range of areas, that victims have a very uneven experience. Also, thank goodness for The Globe and Mail, for really sounding the alarm on the rate of unfounded sexual assault cases.
I'm going to talk for a minute about my own riding. It turns out that Nanaimo, where I was elected, has the lowest rate of unfounded cases in the country. Only four out of 114 allegations were dismissed as unfounded. The fantastic NGOs in my community think their work has something to do with that. Actually, I'm extrapolating that. They're not bragging quite that much.
The Haven Society, the Nanaimo Women's Resource Centre, and the family access centre in Nanaimo have all worked together to partner with the Nanaimo RCMP. In British Columbia, police services are delivered by the RCMP. They attend an orientation. They believe victims because of the training they've received. They've also worked together to establish community coordination for domestic safety that includes the crown and corrections, so that everybody who has some handle on the justice system within the city of Nanaimo works together. They also have a domestic violence unit, which is a formal partnership with the RCMP. We're getting good results in working together and having a consistent approach to training.
I'm hoping that you can talk a bit about how a model like that might give us hope that training at the judicial level also might also get us better results, better justice for victims, and a better experience, so that victims of sexual assault are more willing to go through the process in good faith. Also, what can you tell me about how the experience of front-line organizations might be able to inform this training that you'd like to see delivered?