I'd like to speak to the rural issue around funding.
Sexual violence trauma therapy is a specialization. It requires particular skills, a particular knowledge set. It's a field in which there is more and more new learning all the time. In rural areas, mental health workers, by virtue of the fact that they need to respond to everybody, are generalists. They're not trained in doing that specialized sexual violence trauma work. When someone goes to mental health in our area, they're immediately referred to us if they identify sexual violence as part of the issue.
Nova Scotia is in hard economic times, but there's this idea that this is being done by others such as mental health, and it's not, at least not in Nova Scotia. The specialization that is concentrated in sexual assault centres across the country is invaluable. It's the difference between coping and healing. When someone is actually able to do healing work, they're able to move on with their lives and they're not in and out of centres, or in-patients, etc.
When all they can do is get the supports to be able to cope, that is a good thing. People need to be able to cope, but it means that they're cycling through the health system again and again. It's that specialized work that needs to be funded.