Actually we would like to provide more support for the provincial associations. Right now, we have been working on trying to foster partnerships when we're at the Council of the Federation, for example, when the provinces are talking about their commitment to indigenous peoples and their commitment to ending violence against indigenous women.
I was starting to ask, “What are you doing in your province or territory to support your provincial association?” How do we build that partnership and try to foster that? We have consistently applied year after year after year for funds and resources to be able to support provincial associations. We have consistently been denied, but we have tried to work around that with knowledge sharing to help the provincial associations.
If it's a competitive process, we can help them to develop better proposals because we know proposal processes always end up with those who have the money. They continue to get more money because they have the capacity to write the good proposals. Those who have not had a chance to get into the door never get a chance to get in the door because they don't have the capacity to write their proposals.
This is creating severe inequality province by province, and when you see provinces that have a commitment to ending violence, a commitment to supporting indigenous people.... I know Ontario has made huge commitments to ending violence. There was a recent announcement of $100 million. They provide core funding for their provincial association, they have a facility, they have tremendous support, but then you'll see other provinces where there's nothing, where they're struggling and we're supporting them so that they can have an office. This is clear inequality across the provinces.
With this inquiry, we need to make sure that the provinces and the federal government... When everybody is talking about genuine relationships and genuine collaboration, that means we have to make sure that all of the partners have the capacity to participate in that relationship and not be the poor cousin who has the right to be at the table but doesn't have even the gas money to get there.