This is where I'm at. By the time the police are involved or the courts are involved, it's usually too late.
I'll give you an example. I'm ground zero for MMIWG. That's where I come from. I live two blocks away from where the women that we're currently searching for in a landfill were taken by a serial killer. Both women were staying in a shelter, meaning that they didn't have housing. They did not have a livable income.
Prevention, a guaranteed livable basic income and housing.... In Winnipeg, we've never spent so much money on police. We have an extremely high police budget. This is not changing the gender-based violence that is at crisis levels in the community I represent.
You're right that most of the women have a distrust of the justice system. They go to community organizations.
I'm going to ask you a couple of questions.
Why is it critical to properly fund frontline community organizations if we're serious about saving lives?