Status of Women committee  Yes, you do.

Status of Women committee  Please.

Status of Women committee  So you're a good combination?

Status of Women committee  First, if I may address this, although we are concentrating on Canadian Muslim women we don't do this alone. We feel very strongly that no one group can manage it. We always work with sister organizations whatever we do. We're partnering with.... I could mention all the other organizations that we work with.

Status of Women committee  Very simply, I think all of us would say to you that we would like to be treated as if we were partners in any of the work we're doing. One of the things I've been saying ad nauseam for years and years is that we really carry out what you set as your mandate to the government. You say we're going to work on this and this project and then you turn to us and we do the actual work, and it's a hell of a lot of work.

Status of Women committee  This is a huge subject. When you think about violence against women, people don't realize what comes under that heading, that rubric. You heard from DAWN about what's going on. You heard specifically about immigrants, and you've heard about us. Muslim women come from every strata of society, every nationality.

Status of Women committee  I would love to comment on that.

Status of Women committee  It follows up with your question about whether we're part of a plan. I'll talk about the Status of Women as an example, because multicultural has a closed shop, it seems to us. We're not getting any funding at all from the multiculturalism department. With regard to the Status of Women, we have no problem with the government setting its priorities as to what is needed.

Status of Women committee  I guess I'm so depressed and disappointed that the Government of Canada, which is my government as much as it is yours, would use such language. It doesn't go with the tradition of Canada. We have a charter of rights. We have a Canadian Multiculturalism Act. Why the heck—sorry—would we talk about immigrants being barbaric, as if we're so pure and pristine that none of this happens here?

Status of Women committee  I think it should be dumped.

Status of Women committee  I'm being honest, aren't I?

Status of Women committee  I think I will share it with the group from Calgary. Muslims have been here since the 1800s, by the way, so it's not just immigrant Muslim women that I'm talking about. I know the Calgary group are talking about immigrant women, but it's any woman. Again, I'd like to universalize it and say that any woman who leaves a relationship, I mean who ends up having a bad time....

Status of Women committee  Thank you so much. I'm very impressed by the preparations some of you have obviously done. Thank you so much. It helps us to have a conversation on the common ground project. We called it “common ground” because we were trying to explain to our young people, particularly young men, that they have to go beyond belonging to only the Muslim communities.

Status of Women committee  That's all right. That's about the gist, thank you.

Status of Women committee  We didn't even hear about it.