Mr. Speaker, as we continue Gender Equality Week, I want to echo the words of the chair of the women's caucus, who said that every 48 hours in this country, a woman or girl is killed, often by an intimate partner. Unfortunately, another stat is that indigenous women and girls are disproportionately a part of that statistic; thirty per cent of them are indigenous women or girls, when they make up only five per cent of the population of Canada.
The crisis of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls remains a national tragedy, tearing families apart, with communities grieving and families shattered. The tragedy is compounded by systems that have far too often abandoned them. Today I think back to my own community of Musqueam, where women, for thousands of years, were the matriarchs. They were the decision-makers. They were the ones we looked to in times of need and in times of crisis.
As a father of a young indigenous girl, I am so happy to be here in the House. She is here on the Hill with me today, seeing 104 women she can look up to, to strengthen her for the future of this country.