Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to the witnesses.
I find it difficult to start and try to collect my thoughts on where we need to go. As I've often heard from individuals, the idea that you don't talk about it is so overwhelming. We should try to provide them with the idea that this time we will truly create, as we go forward, an independent external mechanism that can investigate criminal activity and isn't linked to the chain of command. What has stopped victims and survivors from coming forward in the past is the need for protection and the need for supports around them. We should create them going forward.
We've studied this a number of times. Deschamps studied it, of course. This committee studied it in 2019.
Ms. Wood, in testimony at this committee in 2019, your predecessor, M.C., talked about government-funded programs for those who are injured. She said they had a strong male-dominated focus and focused on those types of injuries. She noted there wasn't a GBA+ lens applied to the programs that currently exist.
Is that still the case, in your expertise, from what you see?