I call this meeting to order.
Welcome to meeting number 47 of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women.
The committee will resume its study of women's shelters and transitional housing.
As usual, members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application.
Here are a few quick instructions. Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. For those participating by video conference, click on the microphone icon to activate your mike. Please mute yourself when you are not speaking. If you are in the room and wish to speak, please raise your hand. For members on Zoom, please use the “raise hand” function.
For those on Zoom, you can select the appropriate channel for interpretation at the bottom of your screen: floor, English or French. For those in the room, you can use the earpiece and select the desired channel.
I would like to remind the witnesses that committee members may ask questions in either French or English. If they need interpretation, I would ask them to take a moment now to select their channel and adjust their earpiece. That way, when they are asked questions or need to speak, they won't have to mess with their device. Time flies in this committee.
Before we welcome our witnesses, I'd like to provide this trigger warning. We will be discussing sensitive topics that you may find distressing. If so, I encourage you to let us know through our esteemed clerk, and we can help you at that time. Indeed, the things we hear in this committee aren't always much fun.
I also have a question before I introduce our guests. Ms. Mary Hannaburg has distributed documents, some of which are in English only. They haven't been translated. In addition, not all the documents have undergone a language check. Can I still distribute them to you? The clerk will still make sure, as usual, to have the documents translated and revised. We will then email them to you. If that's okay with everyone, we'll do it that way.