Mr. Speaker, last year the government announced some money for aboriginal women's shelters, for 35 existing shelters and 5 new ones. That is certainly not enough for most of us who are concerned about the situation regarding shelters and safe houses and given what we have already heard in the debate this morning of the number of communities where aboriginal women do not have access to shelters.
One strange aspect of the announcement was that northern aboriginal women were excluded from any of this funding. There was no funding for aboriginal women in the north.
Could the parliamentary secretary explain why the government ignored the needs of first nations and Inuit women in the north for new shelters and funding for existing shelters in that announcement last year?