Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased today to speak in support of the motion put forward by my colleague from the NDP, the member for Churchill, regarding the critical issue of violence against women.
The motion calls for the development of a national action plan to address violence against women and sets out a series of key components that must be included in such a plan. In hearing from the member for Kildonan—St. Paul, it is quite clear that the Conservative government has no idea what an action plan is supposed to look like. I thank the member from the NDP for actually laying out what some of the things might be, including the essential component of partners that would do this with us, instead of somebody sitting in a den somewhere writing an action plan, like clearly happened with the trafficking action plan that is the joke of the world.
As the chair of the Liberal women's caucus and as the Liberal Party's critic for aboriginal affairs, this is an issue of particular relevance to my parliamentary responsibilities, but also has a huge resonance with my previous life as a family doctor at Women's College Hospital, which set up the first sexual assault care centre, and every year on December 6 honours the lives of the women who have been lost in Ontario at the hands of a spouse or former spouse.
This is an issue that cuts across socio-economic status, cultures and religions, and Liberals believe that all must work together to end it. I truly believe this could and should be an issue that cuts across party lines and I am disappointed that the member for Churchill continues to try to turn this into a partisan issue. It cannot be that.
In August 2013, the Minister of Health spoke at a meeting of the Canadian Medical Association, where she announced she would make ending family violence the theme of her tenure. She repeated a similar message at the recent meeting of the CMA in April 2014. The motion offers the minister and her government an opportunity to match those words with real action.
Every year in Canada, violence and abuse drive over 100,000 women and children out of their homes and into shelters. In Canada, women continue to outnumber men nine to one as victims of assault by spouses or partners and girls between the ages of 12 and 15 are at the greatest risk of sexual assault by a family member.
As appalling as these statistics are, the level of family violence faced by indigenous women and girls is even more shocking. It is really important that the government understand that the rate of indigenous women being killed by a spouse or former spouse is less than in the non-indigenous community. Therefore, I have been particularly appalled by the message being given by the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development as though it means that somehow these women who are missing and murdered are less important.
Indigenous women and girls are dramatically more likely to be victims of homicides or to go missing in Canada. Last year's RCMP report identified almost 1,200 indigenous women and girls who have gone missing or been murdered since 1980. Further, while only 4% of women in Canada are indigenous, this demographic accounted for 8% of female homicide victims in 1984 and a staggering 23% by 2012. The crisis for indigenous women has been getting worse and now almost one in four female homicide victims in Canada is indigenous.
As the Liberal Party of Canada's aboriginal affairs critic and a longtime advocate for such a public inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women and girls, I would like to speak specifically about this part of the motion we are debating today.
I have my own stand-alone motion calling for a national inquiry that will be debated in the House in the coming weeks and I hope the member for Churchill will help me with that. The Prime Minister's insensitive comments last summer that we should not view this as a sociological phenomenon and his shocking admission during one of his year-end interviews that missing and murdered indigenous women and girls are not high on his radar provide a disturbing and disappointing window into how he views this national disgrace.
The truth is that only a national inquiry would have the credibility, scope and resources to address the systemic problems underlying the violence, provide the accountability to ensure implementation of its recommendations, and bring justice and reconciliation to the victims and their families.
The Prime Minister's stubborn refusal to call a national public inquiry is in stark contrast to the overwhelming consensus that one is needed. Grieving families, indigenous leaders, victims' advocates, civil society, the international community, and every provincial and territorial premier have all urged the government to call a national public inquiry. It is time to call that public inquiry now.
What has been the response of the Conservative government to ongoing violence against women? The government consistently dismisses the importance of prevention and refuses to address and adequately resource the programs that are in place to deal with this tragic issue.
The Conservative government campaigns about cracking down on violence against women and girls, citing tough-on-crime measures like eliminating house arrest for sexual assault or toughening penalties for the trafficking of date rape drugs, or as we have heard just now, a DNA databank, which is after the woman is dead. What women and families in this country want to hear is how we are going to prevent and stop this epidemic in both the indigenous and non-indigenous communities. While some of these measures may be positive, they do not replace a comprehensive action plan and amount to little more than tinkering at the margins of a national crisis.
Even more appalling was the government's attempt to hide its inaction by repackaging a laundry list of existing inadequate funding and programs as a new, what the member for Kildonan—St. Paul called “very special”, action plan for family violence and violent crimes against aboriginal women and girls last fall.
Unfortunately, the current government has stubbornly refused to work with its partners, the provinces and territories, civil society and aboriginal leaders and communities, to develop and implement a comprehensive plan to deal with violence against women.
In 2008, the United Nations released a UN Framework for Action, which identified five key outcomes as benchmarks for the campaign to be achieved by all countries by this year, 2015. It is reprehensible that the government has rejected the UN recommendation to adopt and implement a multi-sectoral national plan of action that emphasizes prevention and is adequately resourced.
Unlike Canada's federal government, the national Australian government demonstrated the leadership to work with its partners, state governments and local communities, to develop a comprehensive 12-year national plan to reduce violence against women and their children. Released in 2011, this multi-jurisdictional and comprehensive approach is actually four action plans which represent distinct phases, and each builds on each other over 12 years. They are designed so that the Australian government and civil society can look back at what has been achieved and refocus subsequent action plans on what actions will make the most difference in the future.
This is the kind of long-term, properly resourced and co-operative approach that we must adopt here in Canada.
Today's motion offers an opportunity for all the parties in this House to come together and agree on a sensible and effective path forward. The motion clearly outlines what the necessary components of an effective action plan to end violence against women here in Canada must include.
Those elements include initiatives to address socio-economic factors contributing to violence against women; policies to prevent violence against women and policies to respond to survivors of violence; benchmarks for measuring progress based on the collection of data on levels of violence against women over time; independent research on emerging issues that relate to violence against women; a public inquiry; strategies that address the specific needs and vulnerabilities of different communities; participation by community and other organizations; and human and financial resources earmarked specifically to carry out the program of action set by the plan.
It is time for the government to replace the rhetoric about violence against women and girls with an effective and comprehensive action. This epidemic of violence must end and the Conservative government, which claims to be tough on crime and to stand up for victims of crime, cannot continue to ignore the ongoing national disgrace of violence against women.
I urge all members to support the motion.