Status of Women committee  Position, as in financial?

Status of Women committee  I'm an animal health technologist by trade, and I'm married currently. I have two children. I would say that I've been through poverty and have worked my way up with my husband, and we are now in a very comfortable financial situation, if that's what you're asking.

Status of Women committee  I'm not in an elite group at all. I would say we're maybe a little less than middle class.

Status of Women committee  I'm sorry. I know of the United Nations, and I know they do work and have mandates or goals that they have countries wishing to meet and reach, but CEDAW, particularly—

Status of Women committee  I think you are. You haven't eliminated that funding. Isn't that right? Isn't that what you're continuing to do with this? Is there nowhere that this mandate allows for those kinds of programs to continue, and that kind of—?

Status of Women committee  I can't compete against these women. I can't compete against the four first ones here. They've had a lot of backing, they've had a lot of training, and they're very good. I don't know whether it's money. I don't know if they're all volunteers. I have no idea where their sources of income—

Status of Women committee  Do you know what? Do you want to be fair? You bring in 800 women randomly selected across this country to this table to sit down to see what women are talking about. I'm talking about being at a parent council meeting, because I'm interested in my school. I'm talking about whether my car tire is going to be flat tomorrow morning when I want to drive to work.

Status of Women committee  My answer would be specifically that I'm not volunteering in my community based on building equity in women. I don't feel I am not equal to men. If you want to define it as having different barriers, you can define it that way, but it's not how I feel. I look at so many aspects.

Status of Women committee  I would agree. You have a report from 1991 on women's violence. You have a report of 800 submissions, from 1993, on women's violence. We're still using it as one of the priorities. Where have we been? Why, 13 years later, is it still a major issue for women? Who isn't dealing with it?

Status of Women committee  I have 44 services in Manitoba for women alone. You're telling me I need your service too? Come on, you guys, there are some real errors here. I look at all the services for women that are available. Why are we still here with groups like this saying they need $600,000 or $200,000 or $300,000 to do the same thing?

Status of Women committee  They are, absolutely.

Status of Women committee  I'm going to just go on. Before I came here, I made a concerted effort to speak to 43 women. I asked them what they knew of and whether they had accessed the services of Status of Women Canada. The vast majority of the 43--42 women--had heard of the group; on the second question, some of those 42 had not.

Status of Women committee  Because under the mandate it says you have to be advancing equality for women.

Status of Women committee  I found it exclusive.

Status of Women committee  Why would we not want to advance equality?