Ladies, I apologize that I wasn't here for the presentations you made. I was in another committee meeting doing clause-by-clause of a piece of legislation. I'm afraid that takes priority, so my apologies.
Ms. Phillips, I want to ask you a question, but I want to tell you a story first.
I have two women's organizations that function in my riding. One is an organization that is totally dependent on funding from sources at municipal, regional, and provincial government levels. Now they've started to understand that they have to reach out and do some additional fundraising because there isn't enough money in the regional pot or in the provincial pot to give them what they've had in the past. So they're reaching out to organizations that are non-profit organizations in our area. They've come to the Lions Club. I'm an executive member of the Lions Club in the area. We do enormous amounts of fundraising, and much of that money has gone in a donation to the women's organization. They have constraints put on them in what they can do, because they are limited by, I suppose, the ethics of the region, or the municipality or by the province.
The second women's organization that's in my town is enormously successful, in fact to the point where last year the woman who was the executive director did a fundraiser for another women's organization that is just outside of my riding—actually, in Paul Calandra's riding—and donated to them $35,000. She has made an enormous number of connections. She's got a connection with the Bay and accounting organizations in the area. What I'm saying is that she's so successful that she's giving money away. She takes absolutely no government money whatsoever from any level of government. I look at what she's been able to accomplish with the structure she's put in place. She's national.
My question, Ms. Phillips, if I may, Madam Chair, is about the comment you made about the application process, that there was nothing in it that said new money. In 25 years, was there ever any indication that money that came from Status of Women was coming in perpetuity? Is there not an opportunity, or should there not be some fairness in the process, whereby new organizations can apply because they've got good ideas that need seed money to get started?