Status of Women committee  In closing, I would like to thank you for giving us this opportunity to express our views on this. Very often, non-Aboriginal Canadians talk about things like cigarettes and alcohol. But that concerns only a small number of Aboriginals, and they hide another system underneath. We have to be careful when accusing Aboriginal people.

Status of Women committee  We are talking about skills, and it seems to me that people who have been in prison are already labelled. When they return to the community, employers do a check to assess their credibility and find out whether they have committed robbery, for example. There are inquiries made, so that employers know whether an applicant has committed a crime.

Status of Women committee  I would just like to make one clarification. Ms. Brown, you talked earlier about skills among people with certification. People in our community are educated and skilled at their job. However, the salaries we are able to offer in our community are not the same as what is available outside.

Status of Women committee  I would like to make a comment. As I said earlier, in the communities, we are often dependent on budgets allocated for the different programs. We have to accommodate that in trying to provide a range of services to our community. In terms of economic development, a lot of people who live there have made promises to themselves, like a lot of others.

Status of Women committee  You were saying that governments passed budgets of $285 million and $200 million for skills development. But when that money reaches the community, it is really a drop in the bucket compared to what is needed to provide services and focus more on prevention. Of course, we have to make do with those budgets in order to focus on prevention.

Status of Women committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. On behalf of the Huron-Wendat First National Council, I would like to express our thanks for this opportunity to present our views. I would like to describe the context. Our community is located approximately 15 kilometres from Quebec City. The Huron Nation has a population of about 3,000.