Special Committee on Violence Against Indigenous Women committee  Yes, regardless. However, with aboriginal women and girls, there's an additional level of discrimination in how they are treated. The first question always asked is, “Were you drinking?” There are certain ways in which the treatment of indigenous victims was distinct from the oth

Special Committee on Violence Against Indigenous Women committee  There was this weird paradox in some of our interviews where women were very afraid to talk to us for fear of retaliation for complaining. At the same time, once they did talk, it was clear that they thought this was normal and that it was perfectly acceptable in their communitie

Special Committee on Violence Against Indigenous Women committee  I think where the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry in B.C. really fell apart was on the initial arrangements around how civil society would be able to participate. There were a number of groups that were granted standing, but then were unable to participate because there was n

Special Committee on Violence Against Indigenous Women committee  I think a national awareness campaign in conjunction with an inquiry, or later with an action plan makes a lot sense. The one thing I would emphasize, as we've said before, is that it has to go beyond raising awareness. We do need to address the underlying factors that make indig

Special Committee on Violence Against Indigenous Women committee  Absolutely.

Special Committee on Violence Against Indigenous Women committee  Certainly. Yes, absolutely, there is a lot of room for improvement in domestic violence in many of the contexts that we work in across the globe. In doing the interviews in British Columbia, certainly some of the service providers we talked to said, “Yes, in general, we're not s

Special Committee on Violence Against Indigenous Women committee  I'm not disputing that's it's what in our report, but what I'm saying is that the numbers are incomplete. That's because the data collection was unable to be continued. They did not get further funding for data collection, and police forces across Canada don't collect comprehensi

Special Committee on Violence Against Indigenous Women committee  I do not know.

Special Committee on Violence Against Indigenous Women committee  No. Our engagement—

Special Committee on Violence Against Indigenous Women committee  We did not engage on this issue before 2011.

Special Committee on Violence Against Indigenous Women committee  I understand, but—

Special Committee on Violence Against Indigenous Women committee  Your question is one that's on a lot of people's minds, including a lot of people in B.C., as they've just financed the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry. They're wondering what more would come from a national inquiry. We don't need just another study. We do need something th

Special Committee on Violence Against Indigenous Women committee  I can't say whether there was a request at the time that happened. Those numbers, I should note, are from the Native Women's Association of Canada, and their data collection stopped in 2010 when their funding ran out. It may well be that more cases have happened since then. The n

Special Committee on Violence Against Indigenous Women committee  Yes, that is our position. We noted that a number of countries raised the issue of the need for a national action plan on this when Canada was reviewed before the Human Rights Council this past spring. Our feeling is that if there is going to be an effective plan, it does need to

Special Committee on Violence Against Indigenous Women committee  Yes, exactly. It's not that kind of disappearance. Quickly, for repairing the relationship, I think accountability actually is the first thing, even though it's post.... We started to see there was a glimmer of hope in some of the community leaders' eyes about there being a new