Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Clearly I've been far too quiet, and I will remedy that.
I want to say thank you to all of you for being so candid. We're hearing some very difficult things. People have been very forthright in terms of speaking to us, and I appreciate that very much. So thank you for that honesty and clarity.
At the end of the Sisters in Spirit campaign, or when NWAC came to their conclusions, they said that in the course of the work they did across the country, they came across some real ways to resolve a good many of the issues that face first nations women and their children. It seems to me that's what you're talking about here today.
I want to touch on some specifics in terms of what you've said. The first one is the issue of child apprehensions. In my community, which is largely an urban first nations community, we hear over and over again how profoundly destructive that is. For a very brief time the province provided some funding, a small modicum of funding, to the local community to address that so that first nations families could take in kids who needed help and support, so that they had that balance, that cultural support. I'm not sure where that program is. I think the funding has fallen off.
Is that a solution? I'm assuming that here the province is responsible for child welfare and that there needs to be some discussion with the province in terms of a way for first nations to nurture your own children. Do you see that happening, and how could that happen? Is there a possibility of that being something you could take to the provincial government and get action on?