The Status of Women program does not permit us to fund the operation and management of shelters. What we do, however, is work with community organizations to try to address the ongoing funding issue, to address the recruitment of specialized health practitioners, and to address the need to network with other shelter organizations across the country to put in place good practices. The initiative called Uniting to End Violence Against Women was meant to do just that: to ensure that shelters across the country share the good practices and learn how best to approach their situation.
We did one project in Nunavut where there was a lack of shelters for women in Iqaluit. Our funding was used to develop expertise and to get funding from local governments and the provincial government to help create a shelter with day care initiatives built into it.
Our funding continues to be available to help communities address the need for shelters. One of the helpful new initiatives in the women's program approval process is that we're bringing in other federal departments to discuss and review the assessment of projects submitted to us. Wherever a shelter project is being proposed, we invite officials from HRSDC, CMHC, and INAC to join the discussions. We believe that we are building a much better awareness of the needs and bringing organizations into working more closely together.
The other initiative that Status of Women Canada has been working on is reinstituting the shelters initiative as a priority under the family violence initiative, which brings together 17 departments to look at this issue. Shelters in the north is one of the key elements being looked at.