Mr. Speaker, today I am honoured to welcome a number of chiefs from my riding to Ottawa for the special assembly of chiefs.
The first nations of my region have a long and proud tradition and culture that goes back thousands of years. Yet far too many of them suffer under third world conditions that we would not accept in any other region of our country.
The violence that inevitably accompanies these conditions is faced by the aboriginal women who live along Highway 16 between Prince George and Prince Rupert, British Columbia. This highway has become known as the highway of tears. Since 1974, there have been at least nine and potentially as many as thirty-five women who have disappeared or been killed along the highway. An overwhelming number of these women were aboriginal.
Any tragedy of this kind has a huge impact on families and communities, but this wound has been made worse by officials who seem to give these disappearances less attention than they merit. What effort was made was too little too late.
We all must work together to finally solve the conditions that are leading to such tragedies--