Thank you so much, Chair.
My first question is for Paul Lacerte.
You spoke a little bit about the impact of colonial policies, in terms of the impact they've had on violence against women, girls and, I would say, gender-diverse individuals. Most notably, the Indian Act really usurped the traditional roles of women as matriarchs but also impacted the understanding of the traditional roles of men, who were to be the protectors of women, distorting that sacred role and responsibility. It is something that I think the Moose Hide Campaign is trying to champion, to get back.
I would also argue that, as you've mentioned, part of the issue when you're talking about indigenous women is the normalized violence and hypersexualization of indigenous women and girls, and a kind of romanticized understanding of indigenous women as portrayed through the media. Certainly Disney does so in its portrayal of Pocahontas and her wonderful romance with John Smith, not noting that she was a 13-year-old girl who was married off to an old, dirty guy.
One only has to think about October and Halloween—where we see things like costumes that are called “the sexy squaw”—to really understand how vile and deeply rooted that normalization of hypersexualization and violence is.
How is the Moose Hide Campaign helping to address that?