Status of Women committee  I think we're very media-rich in the north, as you know. The media are everywhere, all the time. They are everywhere. Even if we're having small events, the media really covers issues for women and family violence. That's been our experience. When we had our northern women in mining, oil and gas project , having come sometimes from different jurisdictions, funders were amazed at the amount of media coverage we got from our project.

Status of Women committee  I think it's important for the committee to consider that services need to be equitable and accessible to all the women, so even if you are in a remote location, you should still be safe and have services available to you.

Status of Women committee  Oh, sorry. Because of the cold weather or just the nature of Yellowknifers, women and children who have no place to live are often taken in by relatives or friends, and they just stay there. They don't have beds. They don't really have a spot in the family, but they're allowed to stay there because they have nowhere else to go.

Status of Women committee  What we're really trying to do at this point is to stabilize the shelters, because if we don't have shelters, we have nothing. We don't have enough shelters. I'll regress a bit. in order to offer training for aboriginal women and women of the territories we have just launched and finished a three-year project, which I actually presented to this committee maybe a year and a half ago, about how we work with marginalized women--that is, women who were in the shelter, women who were in a homeless shelter, women who were couch-surfing.

Status of Women committee  For us, our role with police would be mostly to sit on committees. They're usually very interested in doing that. A lot of times we get a frantic phone call from women in small communities where there may be no RCMP present, or there is RCMP but they're scared. So oftentimes I will just call our person from the coalition.

Status of Women committee  I can only speak to small steps that we've made through the coalition. Government and non-government work together to come up with strategies and work together. Sometimes folks are there and they talk about different issues, not necessarily ones the coalition is working on, but we do promote awareness.

Status of Women committee  Thank you for giving us the opportunity to present. I am with the Status of Women Council of the NWT, and although we don't do front-line service, we do a lot of advocacy with women who come to us after they've probably exhausted all other resources. Aboriginal women who come in for advocacy have indicated to us they are being terrorized in their homes, in the streets, and in the workplace.