Thank you very much. I bring you greetings and warm wishes from our president, Beverly Jacobs, who couldn't be here with us today. I'd like to also acknowledge the Algonquin people, whose traditional territory we are on here today.
On behalf of the Native Women's Association of Canada, I wish to thank you for inviting me here today to speak on the issue of funding cuts and program changes at Status of Women Canada. The direction this government is taking on women-specific issues is disturbing. These decisions have huge impacts for aboriginal women and children in Canada. My goal here today is to impress upon you, respected committee members, the extent to which grassroots aboriginal women will be affected.
I just want to note as well that, in our rush to get our submission in, it went from a 9-page document to a 500-word document, and we realized that a lot of the meat of what we were trying to say made it very confusing. I'd therefore like to put emphasis on the speaking notes, as opposed to the submission.
First, I'd like to acknowledge how particularly fitting it is for us to be presenting here today, December 6, as we commemorate the national day of remembrance and action on violence against women. Our hearts go out to the families and friends of those fourteen women who were murdered on this day in Montreal in 1989—murdered because they were women.
As the only national organization representing aboriginal women in Canada, we must also take a moment to remember all those who have been taken from us over the years not because they were women, but because they were aboriginal women. The Manitoba aboriginal justice inquiry, in 1999, noted that Helen Betty Osborne might be alive today if she had not been an aboriginal woman. Extensive lobbying in the years following the inquiry by NWAC and other equality-seeking organizations brought about federal support for aboriginal women's issues and enabled us to look more closely at a disturbing trend called racialized sexualized violence.
The following points provide context or background to the position we are presenting here today. This is really a human rights issue. We've worked very hard over the years to help the Canadian government understand that the historical treatment of aboriginal women has resulted in permanent adverse effects. With colonization and assimilation that came through the systemic breakdown of our societies, our connections to the land were severed through legislation intended to civilize. We quickly became disenfranchised from our families and our children, from our communities and our traditional territories. We lost vital connections to our roots. Our traditional roles and matriarchal ways of being were denigrated and ultimately abolished. This experience has translated into alarmingly high rates of violence, incarceration, alcohol and drug abuse, suicide, and death. It has resulted in aboriginal women's overall poor health and socio-economic status. Forty percent of our women are living in poverty.
NWAC works toward revitalizing individual and collective human rights, with the main goal of ending violence against aboriginal women. Human rights infringements and legislated discrimination perpetuate the alarming statistics. In order for real change to occur, these root causes must be targeted for change. Without the continued support of Status of Women Canada, our ability to see these changes through will be jeopardized. Our women will not have a national voice, and the families of missing and murdered women across Canada will be devastated. I'll ask you to keep in mind as well, as you deliberate these changes, that aboriginal women today do not have the same rights as every other Canadian woman in this country.
The Sisters in Spirit initiative was a direct result of tireless advocacy work raising the profile of the violence issue. It was only after several months that NWAC and other national supportive agencies finally received attention. Given that the Sisters in Spirit initiative is currently the largest contribution agreement at Status of Women Canada, the question on our minds is the degree to which our ability to advocate on behalf of aboriginal women's issues, through the Sisters in Spirit initiative, will be affected by these cuts and changes at the department.
The funding cuts and proposed changes to the department are extremely upsetting and, quite honestly, confusing. We are struggling to understand the rationale that would support this move. The Sisters in Spirit initiative has a strong research component that is critical for the development of policy positions and effective advocacy measures. We want to express how concerned we are about the security of the Sisters in Spirit initiative and its staff and the overall capacity that we have gained through this initiative.
Sisters in Spirit is about a public safety issue. Research was required in order to show and demonstrate to all that this is a critical issue that's really happening in this country.
The Status of Women has successfully advanced the gender equality portfolio through the accountability agenda of the current government. Great strides have been made this year towards the development of equality legislation, and these are instrumental steps forward validating the work we do. It would be a huge blow to abandon these achievements.
NWAC's work on a culturally relevant, gender-based analysis framework complements the Status of Women's achievements in this area. We were shocked by the recent announcement that almost half of the department's budget has been cut, that 12 regional offices will be closing. These measures fly in the face of election promises to respect and promote women's rights. They are contrary to Minister Prentice's agenda to make aboriginal women and children a priority for this government.
NWAC is almost exclusively dependent on contributions by the Status of Women, unlike other national aboriginal organizations who receive core-like funding from the Department of Indian Affairs. In fact, we've been directed that we will only get project-based funding. They will not consider core-like funding, so these impacts will have a much greater result with NWAC than with any other aboriginal organization.
As an organization, we are particularly susceptible to what's happening here. We've been doing what we can to prepare for the worst. I must tell you, however, that it's been most difficult preparing the families of missing and murdered women. We also look at the risk to the advancements we've made internationally, and specifically the inclusion of indigenous women-specific clauses in the Beijing Plus Ten platform.
I thank you very much for your ear.
Niawen.