Mr. Speaker, as I have said several times, there needs to be a national action plan to address violence against all women. We need that.
That would include actually consulting with women, all women, to understand what the problem is. Part of understanding what the problem is means having accurate data and doing accurate research. That is a really important thing that is currently missing with the present government, because it does not fund that kind of research.
Also very important is safe and affordable housing. We need to be helping out the shelters that are doing the work on the ground. We can cite specific funds sent to certain specific shelters, and it is good that we are helping, but we are nowhere near to helping as much as we should be. We need to make addressing this problem part of a national strategy. Shelters are where women go to get services and to get help to get out of a situation. That is the front line. That is where we need to be putting our effort.
As I was saying, it is really important to remember that it is not just by doing such things as changing the criminal law that we should be addressing this issue. We need to be giving women a way out.
Very quickly, I am going to quote Deepa Mattoo, who said that women:
....are threatened with deportation by the abusers. Also, the system is built in such a way that they can actually face, as a consequence of that violence, being deported. Irrespective of whether or not they reported it, they can face the consequences of being deported because they were violated or because they chose to report abuse.
Maybe we need to be addressing this issue rather than simply criminalizing it further.