Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I want to thank the witnesses for coming here and for their incredible testimony.
I want to reassure both of you, but especially you, Cait, because you said that you don't believe any of us care, that all of us on this committee care very deeply. That's why we've done so many studies on intimate partner violence. We've had testimony like yours that is very difficult to hear but has been very important to put forward recommendations. We believe you, and we believe others like you.
Our government has put in many measures to try to make sure that the things that happened to you don't happen to others. There are numerous bills: Bill C-51 is on amending sexual assault laws. Bill C-75 is on bail reforms. Bill C-48 targets repeat offenders of intimate partner violence. Bill C-28 is on intoxication not being used as a defence. Bill C-63 is on online harms.
We also have a national action plan on gender-based violence that has been signed by all the provinces. We put $539 million in budget 2022 behind that, something that the Conservatives actually voted against.
I want to start by saying that if anyone tries to say there's anyone in this room who doesn't care about this issue, I think they are playing partisan games. People in this room have spent their lives fighting on this issue and listening to that kind of testimony. I just want to reassure you of that.
I also do, with respect, want to talk a little bit about how this meeting came about.
We have had studies that we've all agreed on to talk about these issues. In fact, we're in the middle of a study right now on coercive control for which we have put forth a number of witnesses we'd like to hear from as a committee.
We know that the Leader of the Opposition has asked Conservative-chaired committees to hold as many meetings as possible during the summer to take us away from the important work we're doing by listening to our constituents. We also know that, in this case, it was a few days' notice. None of the members, except the Conservatives, were given the opportunity to put forth witness names, which is something that every committee does out of basic fairness and respect.
I personally had a number of names of witnesses I would have loved to hear from. In fact, there were witness names added an hour before the meeting, so members didn't even have a chance to plan or prepare the kinds of questions they might want to ask.
I know that, for this committee, this is something we've never done. We do not use victims' and survivors' trauma to try to score political points in this committee. This is cruel. I think it's cruel to have people relive the trauma they've endured just to be able to have a meeting so that if it's not agreed to, there are all kinds of social media posts that Liberals or others don't care about this issue, which, as we all know, we do very deeply.
I know that under the previous chair, this committee worked with great respect for one another. We made sure that we.... The vice-chairs weren't even consulted about having this meeting. Yes, it's an emergency. I would have loved to have an emergency meeting in June so that we could have gotten our red dress alert study done before the end of the session.
Honestly, we saw yesterday that Karen Vecchio, our former chair, announced that she's not running again, which I think is very sad, because I believe that this committee has important work to do. We have done it with great—
