Status of Women committee  Will you have a chance to read our presentation, since we didn't have an opportunity to do that?

Status of Women committee  The federal government now has taken child welfare issues and dumped them onto the province, which they can't support either.

Status of Women committee  Yes. As I said, we did pass the resolution, which I have a copy of, with NWAC, the national Native Women's Association, to put forth that resolution. We did that last September, and they are working on the study on that. One of the things that came out of that study was that right now there are more native American children in foster care than there ever were with residential school survivors.

Status of Women committee  Yes, definitely. There are the same problems here also. I think community members who are in those child welfare positions try as much as they can to have the families on reserve. But there don't seem to be any programs that invite native people to become foster parents. I'd like to see that as a measure, to try to do some training in that area.

Status of Women committee  It's frustrating for me to see that. In the United States, it's a federal law that you have to follow the Indian Child Welfare Act in the placements. We don't have that in Canada.

Status of Women committee  Good morning. My name is Gail Nicholas. I'm Maliseet from Tobique First Nation, a proud elder from Tobique First Nation. I'm the vice-president of the New Brunswick Aboriginal Women's Council. I'm also the director of the Wabanaki Women's Council, and we have Wabanaki women's gatherings twice a year to help empower women in our Wabanaki population.