I could speak for NWAC specifically.
I actually sought out Elections Canada two years ago and approached them about doing work with the Native Women's Association of Canada to reach more than 50% of the aboriginal population, preparing youth, pitching the idea.
We know aboriginal young women are the fastest growing population. If we target women who are 16,17, or 18 years old now they'll be voting in the next election. We're informing them now because basically as much as Elections Canada has tried to make information publicly available to everybody, it's not meaningful for our people. It's not culturally sensitive. It's not in plain language. There is still a difference in how the information is presented.
When a third party such as NWAC or the Assembly of First Nations interacts with the first nation, they already have a relationship of trust developed. For us at NWAC, we have 12 provincial-territorial member associations, we have a network, and within Ontario there could be 60 offices that all have memberships of aboriginal women. When we send something to our provincial office in Ontario, for example, the Ontario Native Women's Association, they then in turn send all the information out to their membership.
When you have a partnership between Elections Canada and NWAC you're reaching a broad-based group. AFN already spoke for themselves so I won't go into their whole representation and all the people who they would reach across Canada. For us, our women members are on and off reserve.
To me, that is definitely a relationship you want to build on, it's something you want to enhance and promote. The first time I approached them I was refused because of lack of budget and their inability to engage with NWAC. It was only this fiscal year, from 2013 to 2014, that we were able to secure a small project with Elections Canada and develop a guide for aboriginal women and girls to inform them and get them more engaged and interested, and helped create a focus group and did a literature review.
Our dream would be to take this guide now and deliver it across communities with our provincial-territorial members and that could be seen as interference or....