Thank you very much, Mr. Bagnell.
With the new funding guidelines, we are no longer able to access funding to work for systemic changes, to speak out for those who cannot, such as all the homeless women who I personally interviewed, and to raise issues and bring together coalitions to inform politicians about the issues and implications of policies and regulations on women's lives. These changes place Yukon women's organizations in competition over funding, taking time away from valuable work in the search for funding.
What Yukon women are hearing is that the federal government does not want to fund advocacy because they don't want to hear about the inequities in women's lives. Funding resources are extremely scarce in the Yukon. Yukon women's organizations are not operating on a level playing field with those in the south. There are few corporations that are alternate sources of funding. Without a charitable number we are ineligible for funding from charitable foundations, and corporations want a tax receipt.
We do not have access to alternate sources of funding. Homeless women place their trust in our ability to help them by working towards systemic change. Without funding from Status of Women Canada, it looks like that trust will be betrayed.