Status of Women committee  I started doing community volunteer work when I was about 12. I come from a small rural area, and I was the first youth who decided to organize my colleagues in the town to try to get some recreational facilities because we had nothing except for the corner store as a place to meet.

Status of Women committee  Yes, absolutely. I think there are two levels of input that would come from Status of Women Canada. Our minister has already been in discussion with her colleagues on a policy level on this question. As far as the officials are concerned, as soon as the announcement was made we immediately made contact with our counterparts at CIDA and DFAIT to offer our help and demonstrate our interest in being part of the work in developing the government's objective and initiative on that front.

Status of Women committee  Having been there for only a couple of months, I've had to spend a lot of time on understanding what the organization does and what its inner workings are, as well as learning our initiatives as much as possible, but I have had an opportunity to meet with many of the NGOs that are delivering national projects for us, particularly the partnership projects.

Status of Women committee  As accounting officer, yes.

Status of Women committee  Certainly. Yes, I have held quite a few positions in the federal public service, and almost every opportunity brought on something new. With the accumulation of experience from one position to the next, you always realize the extraordinary learning you made in the previous assignment and how it becomes beneficial in the position you are holding now.

Status of Women committee  A number of organizations do research. Within the federal public service, Statistics Canada is constantly doing research. We have a number of organizations...

Status of Women committee  It does the research with financial support from the departments. I have just started meeting with people from certain departments in Ottawa in order to round up the funds needed to update the Women in Canada publication. The last version is from 2005. I looked through it and was impressed.

Status of Women committee  Ms. Demers, there is also the matter of information sharing. Once we have the information, it is important to share it, to make it accessible. That is one of our priorities.

Status of Women committee  Ms. Demers, there are two types of funding requests: one is through the Women's Partnership Fund and the other is through the Women's Community Fund. I am truly not aware of any projects where the application was submitted more than two years ago and no response was sent out. If that is the case, I will definitely follow up on that.

Status of Women committee  Well, the RPPs, the report on plans and priorities, of the organization focus the priorities on three pillars, which are the achievement of economic security for women--

Status of Women committee  There is a plan. On my arrival, I was informed that the action plan is moving forward and making progress on the three pillars in helping women achieve--

Status of Women committee  Well, the plan is always focusing the actions of the government in the three pillars of action, if you prefer.

Status of Women committee  I think if you look at the recent budget there were some very concrete measures on violence against aboriginal women, and that certainly is an outcome of the work that was done in the action area of reducing violence for women. So it is informing actions of the government as we move forward.

Status of Women committee  It would not be appropriate for me to comment on a government policy or to state my position. Senior officials are called upon to give advice and to implement government priorities in concrete terms. I can, however, speak to the issue of maternal health and initiatives that the government is going to undertake.

Status of Women committee  Absolutely.