Well, $317,000 is almost precisely what we asked for, for phase two of our project. We would have served thousands of women with that in southern Alberta. For us, that is alarming,
What I really want to make sure people take home today is that these decisions have consequences, and they have very serious consequences in southern Alberta for the thousands of women we serve.
We did change our focus to service when the mandate was changed. The reason we did that is because we don't have any alternatives in Alberta. There are very significant problems with women's economic inequality in Alberta. We have some of the highest pay gaps, for example. We have some of the highest levels of poverty among families headed by female lone parents, with 24% of those families living in poverty in Alberta as opposed to 16% nationally. As a result of the recession, our income support caseloads have gone from 27,000 to over 40,000 in a year and a half in Alberta as people exhaust their EI benefits. The recession has hit people hard.