Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Thank you to the witnesses for being here.
Before I ask you a question, I do think it's important that we just clarify a few things that you mentioned. This government has in fact increased funding to Status of Women by approximately 42%. We have redirected it somewhat. We want to make sure that it has a direct impact on women.
I'll give you an example that we just learned of. We just completed a study on EI benefits, and we found out that back in 2000 there was some research done on whether women would benefit from having self-employed individuals be able to receive paternity and maternity benefits. That study and that research were done in 2000, but absolutely nothing was done under the then government. We were elected in 2006. We immediately looked at this issue, brought a task force together, and we are going to be addressing the issue.
The other area that we have really acted on is matrimonial real property rights for aboriginal women. I think it needs to be clarified that we have increased funding, but we don't want to see it tied up in a lot of studies. As much as we respect and admire academic groups, our purpose and our goal are not to fund or make sure that jobs are created in academic groups. Our goal is to make sure that funding gets directly to women and to helping women on the ground. I think it's important that issue be clarified.
My question is for you, Ms. Birenbaum. Under the court challenges program, we were told by some of the groups that it actually took 18 years. We had some women sitting in court for years and years and years, being asked questions and going through really tremendous hardships. Can you just tell me as a lawyer, how much time legal counsel would be able to bill? How many hours would legal counsel be able to bill if under the court challenges program something dragged on for 18 years?