The B.C. CEDAW Group doesn't have clients per se. What I would say in answer to your question, however, is that we're still seeing the results of what the federal government did in 1995 when it thought it was dealing with a deficit, right? The withdrawal of the federal government from social policy in Canada has been marked over these last 15 years and it has had a very serious impact on people all over the country.
We certainly feel it here. When the federal government withdraws from social policy and decides not to set standards for certain things, the fallout comes here, and of course it means that provincial and territorial governments have changed their policies. They've cut funds and they don't have the same obligations that they once did to put money into particular kinds of programs. That's the kind of fallout I'm talking about.
I think we're at a period now where we can see very clearly what impact it has had and where we need to turn it around. We need to think about whether we want to be a country that's distributing wealth upwards. Is that what we really stand for? I don't think so. We've seen something over the last 15 years that Canada has never seen before: homeless people, people who don't have enough food, and the terrible impact that has on women. I don't think we want to stay there.
I'm asking you to really think about how to reverse that pattern.