Status of Women committee  I deal more on the front lines with emergencies and more drastic situations, where they have nowhere to go and haven't eaten for two days. We're the sort of last stop before sleeping outside, eating at the soup kitchen, or trying to feel comfortable taking a shower. We offer those kinds of things--to make yourself a bowl of soup or lunch or something, or provide clean clothes for your children.

Status of Women committee  Yes, there are some centres in difficulty.

Status of Women committee  In Saskatchewan, actually, there are centres that are considered in difficulty, which means either that they're shut down or they didn't provide an audit or meet certain financial requirements in reporting. It's very rare that happens. Right now there are 125 friendship centres across Canada.

Status of Women committee  No, it's negotiated every year.

Status of Women committee  It is.

Status of Women committee  To a national association, it does.

Status of Women committee  I also think you need to include the off-reserve. There is a huge number of people who don't fill out the census form and there's a huge number of people who leave their communities to go to work and school; their permanent address may be at home, but they are accessing services off reserve.

Status of Women committee  I don't know of any centre that has money left at the end of the year to give back for anything. With the new amendments to our contract with Heritage Canada and the National Association of Friendship Centres, the way we get our money has changed. There are centres with different agreements that aren't receiving their money all at once.

Status of Women committee  Right now, we can take back to our committee how much all this will cost, what exactly we're looking for, and what our needs are to match our priorities to some type of budget we can try to get. I think you're bringing up a positive question. We're not really saying specifically what we're looking for.

Status of Women committee  Money, programs. Especially in New Brunswick, we have an issue with funding for off reserve, on reserve...trying to access workers. Now these programs are trying to work with a union...or with me, for our organization to work with the communities. Our organization gets the people who leave the reserves, who come to the city to work, and then all of a sudden we're not acknowledged for helping the off-reserve people.

Status of Women committee  Yes. I think we've worked almost six years on getting our framework finished for our province. With the work we've put into that and the women we brought into our committee...the government changes when there are new elections and we have to start all over again to go through our training with new people.

Status of Women committee  I think Natalie can help you more with that question. We haven't said we need $8 million to complete our framework. We are trying to figure out what needs to be done. I say $8 million, and it would be nice if they gave us $8 million. It probably won't happen. We are looking forward.

Status of Women committee  The National Association of Friendship Centres is funded through Heritage Canada's aboriginal friendship centre program. That trickles down to the national association. The national association has provincial and territorial associations across Canada. New Brunswick does not have a provincial or a territorial association.

Status of Women committee  Thank you. Good morning and thank you for the opportunity to appear today. My name is Tamara Polchies. I'm a Mi'kmaq from Eel Ground First Nation and I now live in the Maliseet community of Kingsclear First Nation near Fredericton. I have been the executive director of the Fredericton Native Friendship Centre for the past five years, and during this time I have worked in partnership with Gignoo Transition House on the development of the Healing Journey Toolkit and have been an active member of the provincial advisory committee ending violence against aboriginal women in New Brunswick since its conception.