Status of Women committee  We receive proposals from communities that are seeking to build new shelters and that sort of thing. For the proposals for the new shelters we are looking at now, as I mentioned earlier, CMHC is looking at the construction costs. The O and M looks at all of those costs, like the staff requirements and that sort of thing, knowing that there are higher costs in some of the more remote and northern regions.

Status of Women committee  There is a ballpark figure we look at to see what makes sense, but those are all notional allocations that we try to take into account.

Status of Women committee  I think so, yes. What we do with the program is fund communities to put in place their own plans for either the operation and building shelters or the prevention programs themselves. The actual making of decisions about where shelters are constructed and the types of programming that get support is very much done by a steering committee of indigenous organizations across the country.

Status of Women committee  Yes, that's how we approach it.

Status of Women committee  Great, thank you very much. I would like to begin by acknowledging that I am speaking to you from the unceded traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people. Thank you for inviting me to speak to you about the important work that Indigenous Services Canada is doing to support indigenous women, girls, families and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people facing gender-based violence.