For all of the reasons I outlined earlier in my presentation, the reality of our lives is very different. We have an enormous geographic area with very small communities. Each of the three territories serves different language groups with different cultural realities as well. It's been difficult enough to be served from the Vancouver office, but to have the whole top half of Canada served probably from two offices is mind-boggling. I don't know how we're going to get any service. I don't even know how they're going to review our project proposals.
As for my colleagues in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, their situations are even more dire than the situation in the Yukon. The Yukon stands relatively well, especially compared to Nunavut. Women's lives there are not equal. They will not be equal for a long time, and they need all the resources, both physical and financial, that can possibly be offered.
The housing situation is just appalling in all three territories. People in the south just don't realize the history and the legacy, particularly of residential schools and colonization, on all of the people across the north. When people don't realize that history, they don't have the same kind of understanding of the problems we have, particularly of women's social issues. Aboriginal women stand on the bottom rung of the ladder. Efforts to help them have to be redoubled. If there was an office in the north that understood our realities and could help diverse women's groups across the north in a more personal way, which is what people need, especially with low literacy levels, that would really help.