I'm stating facts. In 2019, Andrew Scheer, in response to the National Inquiry into Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls, said it shouldn't be labelled as a genocide. It's in a CBC article.
I have spent my whole life fighting for these issues, and I wasn't even given a chance to put witnesses forward. I am being taken out of my community, which is in a constant state of grieving, and prevented from door knocking and checking in on my neighbours. We cannot allow this committee to be dragged down the Conservative pole of taking over.
This is the only place where we, as women, have been able to sit, be collegial and bring forward witnesses. It's the only place. This is the place where we pushed for the red dress alert. This is the place where we put forward a study that gave a clear correlation between violence against women and resource extraction—something that a Conservative member during the study called disgusting in the news.
This is why I'm here in this committee. Everybody around the table, outside of members who are not regular committee members, knows I have always worked across party lines to make sure that this committee functions. To use women who are victims of violence, without proper, trauma-informed care—including, for me, by the way, as a survivor of violence—is really troubling.
I am devastated by what has happened here today. I'm devastated. I'm so devastated, Chair, that it's hard for me to hold back tears, because this was the one place in this place where women could sit in safety, and it's no longer safe.
What does that mean? It means that all of the work we are doing to fight for women is now in jeopardy because we're playing games, and we can't play games on the backs of women and gender-diverse people. Their lives are on the line, and what we do matters.
That's why I feel the way I do today.
We could have done this properly, Chair, because it is an epidemic of violence. Cities across the country have declared this an epidemic. There's no question about that.
We need to do better. We need to represent our constituents. We need to fight for people who don't have a voice, including the large number of women in my riding who are suffering violence.
I hope we can do better. Lives are on the line. This isn't a game. We can't play games in this committee. This is a life-and-death committee. I don't want to play games, because I respect our committee too much, and I respect the people whom we're fighting for, because when we don't, lives are on the line.