Thank you for the question.
Twelve years ago, back in 2009, when Amanda's victimization started by her online predator, we weren't very much aware of what was happening on the Internet, as parents, educators or law enforcement. We have learned so much in the last 12 years. I have to say that maybe because of what happened to Amanda, how high-profile her death was, and with the YouTube video that she posted, we keep learning and asking questions. It's those questions that will bring the results.
This isn't the first standing committee I've sat on. I've sat on a few for Bill C-13, which was for cyber-bullying crimes, keeping Canadians more protected online, and one on gender-based violence, one on cyber violence, and now this one, on mental health. I'm going to focus more on the online abuses that affect our young people.
I know the focus is women and young girls, but this is about Canadians as a whole. Exploitation is happening to young girls, women, young men and boys, unfortunately, causing death by suicide across our nation and globally. As an educator, my role in my school district is to coordinate online safety education for my teachers, my students and the parents in our community. I think we need to look at preventative measures, the things we can do to prevent the possible mental health traumas that can occur because of online abusive behaviours. We have to look at what those are and what those can be. We have to teach our children how to be safer online. As with anything else, our kids are just rolling their eyes at us. Subsequently, we can't give up on talking to our students and our children. We have to focus on the adults in our country to get them better informed and better aware of cyber violence and online victimization, what happens on the Internet, and what our children are seeing.
We also have to make sure that our law enforcement services are educated. I feel that, initially, back in 2009 to 2011.... Because I sat at Amanda's trial for nine weeks, I was determined, as her mom, to be there to listen to what the jury was listening to. One of the gaps that I found was in some of the preventative things that law enforcement could provide in terms of taking a crime seriously—making sure that it's investigated and that there is no victim shaming, not making my daughter feel that she was responsible, and not making her parents feel like they were at fault. There's a huge piece in that education and training part that needs to go into our police services and RCMP services in order to better handle the reports and case files that come in.
There also needs to be government funding for resources that is unilateral in our country, so school districts and provinces aren't made to try to find the pieces. If there was a set curriculum somewhere that our teachers could pick up easily—because our educators have our children six hours a day for 285 schooldays in a school year—they could be the frontline teachers of our kids to make sure they understand and know what to look for and what they're seeing. Also, we have to educate the teachers so they're comfortable in being able to talk about it in their class. I've known many educators—