Thanks for that question.
Closing the rural offices will have a huge impact, because it is really with our local program officers that we are able to build a good sense of what's happening in the smaller communities and what the needs of women are and translate that back to Ottawa in a way that ensures the research and the projects and initiatives that are carried out really do reflect and meet the needs of the smaller communities. Without that, we're really relying on a lens, which in my experience has always been an urban lens, in looking at rural issues.
As I said earlier, the lives of rural women are particularly complex because of everything that I mentioned earlier, and particularly in rural areas where we have out-migration and disintegrating infrastructure. So right now, trying to have a woman's voice within rural communities is more challenging than ever. We really require and rely on our program officers to understand that, to work with us, and to be able to translate that back to Ottawa, which is where the funding and the projects are actually stamped.
As far as value for the dollar goes, the program officers work so hard. In Nova Scotia, our program officer works far beyond the actual number of hours she is paid for. The kinds of supports she is able to provide to women's organizations are really significant, particularly for organizations that are not as familiar with applying for grants, etc. She is really a valuable person in making sure that very good projects go through, particularly for communities that are less organized. The work done in some of our African Nova Scotian communities has been absolutely critical. And it's the same with our Acadian communities; the work has been really critical.