We find it to be rather contradictory, or a dichotomy, to fund a national body without a provincial feed-in. It's like taking the legs off something. You have the body there but you've got no legs. This is exactly how we feel. For all intents and purposes, from our perspective, the national body is now lifeless. I don't know what good it's going to do unless we are operating and feeding in.
As Kim said, we learn so much from each other. We pass things on, and it has to be that way. Otherwise, it's just as well to take the whole system right out and not have the thing. We're not going to be operating to feed into a national strategy or body. And across the country we're finding coalitions—who say they can't do this, that, or the other—withdrawing vital services that we've had in place.
So it counters everything we've always believed in. We would like to see a rationale for it, other than that the previous policy increased adult illiteracy. Besides, that's a term we never use anymore. It's negative and the worst term you could possibly attach to a person.
We've looked at this and asked why it was happening to us. We can't really see it. We have to start rethinking everything. We have volunteers who may stay in place, but it's probably easier to withdraw, because they're making the job so much more difficult.