Status of Women committee  I think one of the things I have seen recently is that for those kinds of initiatives that are developed for aboriginal people in the communities, there's never a gender analysis done with respect to who is gaining the services. If it is aboriginal women who are the majority, the

Status of Women committee  I'm actually glad you asked that question. The Native Women's Association created a plan back in May of 2006. We had developed a proposal, and it was the proposal we had with the Law Commission of Canada, the Department of Justice, and Indian Affairs. We were having these discus

Status of Women committee  Well, the justice strategy, again, goes along with specific areas of women's decision-making and aboriginal justice, because there are very specific issues that needed to be addressed with respect to healing and wellness. And that's a whole part of what aboriginal justice is. Th

Status of Women committee  I don't know whether it's the organization, but I think it has a lot to do with the advocacy that has been out there for a long time. I think aboriginal women and young women are starting to address the issues of oppression and healing and wellness, and a lot of those empowerment

Status of Women committee  I think what was missing was the actual community consultations within first nations communities. The Assembly of First Nations had their consultations.

Status of Women committee  How long do I have to answer?

Status of Women committee  Well, I'll just tell you every one of those affects aboriginal communities, and us as a native women's association specifically. I talked about Kelowna already. The language issue, that's a huge one. I'll tell you right now that the language programs at home are already strug

Status of Women committee  Their consultations were with the chiefs.

Status of Women committee  Of course. I will tell you that my elders would say, “We're supposed to be tax-free anyway.”

Status of Women committee  The Native Women's Association has been presenting at Senate committees and standing committees regarding matrimonial real property. In the last standing committee, one of the recommendations we made was to have a full year of consultations, to have a full year to be able to deve

Status of Women committee  There are so many issues I can address. Things do need to change--the way of thinking in institutions and how they're created. There are a lot of holistic ideas, which is part of what I see is needed, rather than putting things in boxes and saying this is one thing and this is an

Status of Women committee  There may be programs on reserve. I don't have that specific information. The Native Women’s Association of Canada has been doing AHRDA work for aboriginal women living off reserve, regardless of their status or where they live. One of the difficulties we've been finding is the

Status of Women committee  --pay for day care, pay the babysitter, or find a babysitter after day care is over. So those kinds of very specific things are needed.

Status of Women committee  There have been no discussions with this government, other than with Minister Prentice, on how we can better the organization. We have talked about core funding, but again that's just talk. Because they talked about project funding, we can submit whatever we can for projects. We

Status of Women committee  We have the Sisters in Spirit initiative that's funded through Status of Women. That hasn't changed. It has been maintained because it is very sensitive, and we were promised $5 million for it over five years. We are working with the families of the missing and murdered aborigina