Good afternoon, ladies. I want to thank you so much for coming today, Lucille, Stéphanie, and Sonja.
Lucille, I have a question for you, first of all, if you would. I thought your presentation was extremely compelling. I have worked for years with abused women and have worked for just about a decade now on the trafficking of human beings. Of course, you know that aboriginal women and women on reserves are very much at risk, and there have been incidences of this happening across our nation.
Just to give you a little background, I know of what you speak. Our son is an RCMP officer. He is married to an Ojibwa girl. Her family is in social work, and she has done a lot of it as well.
I thought some things you said were very interesting. I looked at your website for the kinds of projects you have worked on, things like workforce re-entry and workshops on issues related to health, self-esteem, and violence against women. It seems to me that a lot of very good things have been done through your organization and through your dedication. I would like to commend all the women, and especially, Lucille, what you've done with your organization and the women there.
Now, you said that you didn't need to speak for the aboriginal women, that the aboriginal women can speak for themselves but that we have to listen. I couldn't agree with that more.
The fact of the matter is that I've been on the status of women committee now for two terms, since I became a member of Parliament. I'm a mother of six children. I myself have four daughters, and I've been a really strong women's advocate. I was in the math and science field prior to that, with a master's in education in that area, so I was in a man's world for a long time. This is something I brought to the status of women committee.
When I came, I saw all the wonderful research and the stacks and stacks of research material we had. One of our members even brought the stacks in one day to the status of women. And you know, this was very credible, very good research. Do you know what struck me? What struck me was that, along with all that research--we know a lot of the problems--a lot of the programming, a lot of the things you're doing with your projects, hasn't been happening. There are a lot of reports, there's a lot research, there are a lot of motions on Parliament Hill, but for the on-the-ground work that needed to be there, the funding, wasn't always there. I think you would agree with me in that area, because it's very self-evident when you look at the history.
In looking at what you've done, I wonder if you have applied for some of these projects through Status of Women. As you know, opposition members have been touting the fact that Status of Women has been cut. I say that it's been redirected. That $5 million is not lost; that $5 million is going directly into women's programs, and within that project, women can still advocate and they can still do research. But those projects are designed to do what you're doing, and what many of your women's groups are doing, which is to be on the ground helping women. I wonder if you have actually applied for some of this.