Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In honour of Human Rights Day, which is also the final day of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence, I would like to read the introduction from the Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, "Reclaiming Power and Place."
Understanding Violence Against Indigenous Women, Girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA People: Indigenous women and girls and 2SLGBTQQIA people in Canada have been a target of violence for far too long.
This truth is undeniable.
The fact that this national inquiry is happening now doesn't mean that Indigenous peoples waited this long to speak up. It means it took this long for Canada to listen.
More than 2,300 Metis people participated in the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, some in more ways than one.
Four hundred and sixty-eight family members and survivors of violence shared their experience and recommendations at 15 community hearings, one here in Yellowknife.
Over 270 family members and survivors shared their stories with us in 147 private or in-camera sessions.
Almost 750 people shared through statement gathering, and 819 people created artistic expressions to become part of the national inquiry's legacy archive.
Another 84 expert witnesses, elders, knowledge keepers, front-line workers, and officials provided testimony in nine institutional, expert, and knowledge-keeper hearings.
The truth in these national inquiry hearings tell the story or, more accurately, the thousands of stories of acts of genocide against First Nations, Inuit, and Metis women and girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people.
The violence the national inquiry heard amounts to race-based genocide of Indigenous people, including First Nations, Inuit, Metis, which especially targets women and girls and 2SLGBTQQIA people.
This genocide has been empowered by colonial structures, evidenced notably by the Indian Act, Sixties Scoop, residential schools, and breaches of human and Indigenous rights, leading directly to the current increased rates of violence, death, and suicide in Indigenous populations. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
