Of course we do. We have to be able to work as collaboratively as possible. When that has been exhausted, however, we have to be able to move on. My hope is that the federal government can intervene in that instance. That's why I asked, long before there was ever any drafted legislation, how you're going to intervene if the province decides that it doesn't want an agreement at a federal level.
That's my wholehearted question, and that is why I've always collaborated with the province to try to have an agreement that would continue to get towards where we're trying to go, which is community-driven strategies and first nations laws being recognized. That's the endgame here. We need it to be funded properly.
When I have to work with the province, when I have to work with the feds, I've continued to be adamant that we're here, we're at the table. We're the ones appointing the board members to the southern authority, which is the current regulatory body for southern Manitoba. It's our responsibility to ensure that the people who are our partners, our treaty partners, are well informed and that they're reflective of what's really happening on the ground. That's what we've tried to do. We've been constantly meeting with the executive directors, the agency directors, to get their opinion and trying to bridge the communication between them and the southern authority and how their relationship works.
That's really on the ground that it's being implemented. Then we have to deal with the government regulatory level. We tried to inform that table as well—and that's what I'm doing here—so that you have an understanding of how it truly is rolled out in Manitoba, in southern Manitoba. That's how we've done it.
We're the only ones doing the Doula Initiative where we have our women and our doulas supporting families. They have anywhere between 200 to 300 mothers they support through the process right at birth. From what I hear, it's going to be quite successful in the way that it's going to impact families.