Madam Chair, I will be splitting my time with the member for Nunavut.
It was a monumental day today having all members of the House recognize the crisis of murdered and missing indigenous women and girls and two-spirit transwomen, a Canada-wide crisis, because it is a crisis. How many tragedies do we have to endure before appropriate action is taken? We are seeing constant, unrelenting violence against our women, girls, two-spirit people and transwomen.
Rebecca Contois, Morgan Harris, Marcedes Myran, Buffalo Woman, Linda Beardy, an eight-year-old girl in Samson Cree Nation: I send my love and sympathies to their families, but they deserve justice. Almost every week we learn about new and heartbreaking stories of sisters who have gone missing or who have been murdered.
We cannot let this be normalized. It is not normal because this is a result of vile human rights violations, something that the current Prime Minister likened to an ongoing genocide. I want to acknowledge our trans sisters and gender non-conforming relatives who face a heightened risk of violence, particularly with the rise of anti-trans hate and a woeful lack of funding and support.
Too often they are forgotten when we speak about this ongoing genocide. I want to say to our trans sisters that I see them, that they are sacred and they deserve to have space in every circle, even when they are forgotten.
Three years since it was announced, the federal government's violence prevention strategy to address the crisis of murdered and missing indigenous women and girls is mostly unspent, only 5%, just $37.1 million out of a fund of $724.1 million.
Not a single new shelter or transitional home has been built. How much longer do we have to wait for this life-saving money to get out the door? How many lives are going to be lost? How many women are going to disappear without action, without a safe place to go?
To make matters worse, we have learned that the Liberals are cutting $150 million from women's shelters in September. Over 600 shelters will have less resources to help people fleeing gender-based violence, rates of violence that we know have increased since the pandemic. The pandemic might have shifted but gender-based violence is on the rise and this government is turning its back on people needing safe places to go. That $150 million could be used to save lives. They need to be providing more resources, not less, because lives are at stake.
The solutions to the crisis are there. Listen to the national inquiry's 231 calls to justice, to families, survivors, advocates. Listen to the young people who are fighting on the front lines, who often do not even have space to speak at the table, young people who are being impacted by violence.
Families and survivors were clear today. They are calling for a Canada-wide emergency, to start work immediately on developing and implementing a national red dress alert system, to create a guaranteed livable basic income and immediately carry out prevention initiatives that honour the rights of indigenous women, girls, trans and gender non-conforming individuals, including but not limited to a right to health, a right to culture, the right to security and the right to justice.
This funding needs to be directed toward indigenous women, youth, children and indigenous-led and serving organizations.
It is time for the government to heed the call. This threat and this ongoing genocide deserve urgency. We are not disposable. People in the hundreds took to the streets in Winnipeg declaring that we are not garbage. We are not garbage. We deserve justice now.