Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you for this generous welcome to Treaty 1 territory. It's a privilege to be here. I thank you for your courage and your willingness to speak to us.
I have three basic questions. I have no illusions that I'm going to get to all of them.
The first question has to do with funding. I was looking at the projects that have been funded by Status of Women Canada in Winnipeg. There are 13. Of those 13, six have been completed. What concerns me is that many of the projects seem to be very, very short-term. When you're dealing with the kinds of realities that first nation women face, 16 months or 18 months is not going to begin to touch the problem, much less a solution. My concern is the ad hoc nature of that funding, the fact that it is so brief.
We heard in Prince Albert that very often there is a situation, a reality, where community groups have to manage to provide programming that fits funding rather than reality, and that's a problem. A lot of energy is involved in securing that.
Finally, there is some fear on the part of groups that if they say the wrong thing, if they upset the powers that be, that funding will be cut off. I assure you that is a situation we find most egregious.
My second question has to do with this discussion about young women arriving from the reserve. They're vulnerable. We heard in Prince Albert and we've heard elsewhere that there's a judgment placed on these women by authorities, social services, the police, that they're bad, and no understanding of how they got to that place. I'm wondering if the group could describe what happens to a young woman. How does she arrive in such a terrible situation?
The third thing.... Suzanne, you alluded to the apprehension of children. We've heard that is profoundly destructive to the community, to women. I was hoping that you could touch on that.
I know that's a huge amount of information I'm asking for, but if you could, please, I'd appreciate it so much.