There are a few things I wanted to mention.
Number one is that it's important that we remember--and from everybody around, I kind of heard inklings--that not all aboriginal women and not all aboriginal people live on reserves. In fact, in Ontario it's arguable that over 80% live off reserves. A lot of those, especially aboriginal women, are not leaving for education, or for jobs, or for a life in the big city; they're leaving their communities because of violence, because of the situation they're in.
So it's really critically important to remember that it's not only first nations that need support. It's also the communities in Thunder Bay, and Toronto, and Ottawa, and Kenora that are working to help those women who need that support.
Also, looking at the number of women when we questioned on the responses.... It's because of those kind of racist responses that a lot of native women are afraid to go and ask for help. It's not always about pride; it's about knowing that in the past, and in their experience, and in the last 100 years, the automatic response has been to take away their children.
They don't want to go to social services or to food banks, where they write down your name and address. There's this fear that somebody's going to know that you can't feed your kids, and your kids will be taken away.
They don't want to tell the cops that their boyfriend is beating them, because the CAS will think their children are in danger and will take them away. Taking the children away seems to be the end outcome of any reaching out, so there tends to be, “I will deal with it; I will put up with the abuse to try to keep my family, to try to keep my children with me.”
Also, we talked about capacity, about the website, about the programs. People say, well, there are all these funding sources. But the difficulty has always been for groups like the women at the table, for groups like the Ontario Native Women's Association, even though we've been around for 30 years. The strong groups get stronger. Those who write good proposals get all the money, and those who have the really good ideas and a real connection to the community needs don't have the great proposal writers. There's a fundamental disconnect there. Human resources within your organizations can help support those people when they come to you with ideas that are workable. How do we put it in a way that government can understand and see it as fundable?