Justice committee  I think it's a step in the right direction for sure, and I think it's important to have representation during the rape shield provisions. We've seen how things go very wrong when those are not in place. I think it's absolutely the right step. We mentioned further steps because w

Justice committee  Okay. We went further because in our experience in Ontario with providing independent legal advice, originally the province wanted to provide it when a trial date was set. We encouraged them to back that up, because the cases go wrong right from the get-go. Women do not understa

Justice committee  No. Maybe those would be at the implementation level.

Justice committee  I'm here to encourage you in the bill and to say have us back so that we can help bolster the ways in which you can incentivize the provincial programs. That may be through additional funding or it may be through matching. I always like to have a carrot, to draw the provinces tow

Justice committee  I'd like to hear from my colleagues, because I'm sure they've thought about this from their stance.

Justice committee  Absolutely.

Justice committee  Yes, I totally agree, and I did work in the far north in setting up a shelter in Nunavut. I have some direct experience with both the levels of violence and the impossibility, as my colleague said, of just incarcerating everyone who offends, because it's so endemic that you would

Justice committee  You're looking at me, so do you want me to answer?

Justice committee  I like to think that we did start dealing with it. We need to understand that in the global context, violence against women, and sexual violence in particular, has been named by the UN as a global pandemic. They don't throw those words around lightly. From a public health persp

Justice committee  Yes, I have been in support of it.

Justice committee  We have both.

Justice committee  We have both. To clarify what I was trying to say, we're always in a resource crunch. This is always the argument against more and more lawyers entering the system. We are very much in support of proper legal counsel with a proper role in the law, but there are additional things

Justice committee  Thank you very much for including us in your deliberations. I expect we'll be answering some questions when you're ready.

Justice committee  We mentioned accountability mechanisms at the beginning. We believe that in order to realize the potential of Bill C-51, the government must put in place some regularized provisions to ensure that the amendments have their intended effect. The clinic recommends that the governmen

Justice committee  Wonderful. Thank you. Deepa and I are going to divide up our comments, so bear with us. Honourable chair and committee members, we're very honoured to be able to speak with you today about the proposed legislation dealing with sexual assault law, specifically clause 10 and clau