Just indirectly specific to the whole funding regime, one thing that's good about the Status of Women Canada funding is that it's multi-year funding, so you can do a project within a particular timeframe. Lots of federal funding does not permit for multi-year funding. So I would recommend that this would be a policy change in some of your other systems.
For example, for the Canadian Heritage funding you have to come up with a project every year. While you get your project done within the deadlines, very often the funding decisions don't come out until six or seven months after the clock starts ticking. You're always kind of stuck in this no person's land or on hold, and then it's a hurry up kind of thing, and then you report. It's a little bit challenging to manage a project like that.
Very often we're told now that food, which is so critical for people who are coming from places of real hunger and real challenge in terms of their food security, can no longer be considered part of the supplies that we're using.
The other thing is administration. None of the project-based funding will permit paying for the executive director, for the management structure. The challenge is that you need a management structure to effectively administer an organization, and the project-based funds don't permit that.
Reporting is a challenge. We have multiple reports, monthly reports, and we're doing it.
One other thing I'd like to add is that we recognize that in Manitoba there is a French school division. French families can go to school in the French language. I'm kind of like Suzanne, in that my children are part Métis, part first nations, and part Irish. My children are educated in French through the immersion system. There is no aboriginal school division here in Manitoba or off reserve in Winnipeg. The highest number of aboriginal people living in Manitoba is up in Winnipeg. There's a French school division but no aboriginal school division. It's a legislated thing within the Manitoba act of whatever year it came to be. On top of that, in the current school system, only about one-quarter of our children are graduating.
So we think there are some issues there. Again, it could be that we need to look at a different model of delivering education. We believe that once children have a strong identity and cultural identity, they'll be okay in whatever system they engage in as adults. My recommendation has been, in Manitoba, to move courageously, and similarly in the francophone community, in upholding our rights.
The other thing I'd like to add--