I would just like to mention the vicious circle that our 15 member associations find themselves in. There is no core funding, just the operational funding that we hear so much about.
This morning, we talked at length about funding project by project. The part-time staff and volunteers in our offices are not always able to apply for funding for each project, which means that they don't get it. There must be funding for one person whose job it is to find other sources of funding. They are out there. But you need trained people to find them. Also as we mentioned this morning, people are often underpaid and do not always have job security, so we lose them. With our groups of women, and there are precious few of them, these things always go in waves…
As Mrs. Villeneuve mentioned, especially in the provinces and one territory, we see that, wherever women are seen as a “sector” in the agreements between Canada and the communities, the communities benefit from the efforts those groups of women make.