Status of Women committee  I think we have been doing that. We have been doing that. My grandmother did that. My grandmother was a close friend of Nellie McClung's. I think we've been doing that for centuries, getting women to come together and build those bridges. We're still dealing with the issue of women and violence, or women and abuse.

Status of Women committee  Yes, absolutely: more women in positions of power, more women who have more of a women's voice, and, for those women who are sitting in those positions, that the solidarity is there as well in terms of how they're viewing the issue and how they're looking systemically at how these issues came about.

Status of Women committee  I'd just like to add that $28.7 million--if you look at the cost of running our programs--is a very small amount of money to be adequately supporting the staff in doing these programs. With that amount of money, it typically means that the woman herself is not going to be making a very high wage, and there wouldn't be many additional dollars for training or for resources that would go along with that kind of money.

Status of Women committee  I think there are many reasons why things have.... I wouldn't say entirely that they have not changed, but they have changed very little. I still see an existing attitude towards women that has not changed, an attitude towards aboriginal women that has not changed, systemic beliefs about how to treat women that have not changed, and policies and practices that have not changed.

Status of Women committee  I'd like to respond. As I said, we have one position at Crabtree, and it took a long time to get the funding for that, even though all the staff are working on this issue. They may be funded to do something else--maybe work on FASD or something--but because this is so prevalent in the lives of our clients, they're all doing it.

Status of Women committee  Thank you. I want to thank the women who have spoken. I don't want to repeat a lot of what they've said. I just want to say that I have worked in the field of women and violence for almost my entire career, which has been about 30 years, if not longer. I've come to other committees such as this to speak around issues of women and violence.