Finance committee  I'm a retired teacher in my community. I taught at the elementary and secondary levels. I know firsthand that the funding we get in our schools on reserves is much less than our counterparts just out of our community. We're asking that it at least be comparable, and the 2% cap di

Finance committee  Bonjour. I acknowledge the traditional people of this territory we are meeting on; that's the Algonquin Nation. Megwetch to all of you for inviting the Native Women's Association of Canada to speak to this committee on the matters that are crucial to us as aboriginal women, our

Status of Women committee  If we had core funding to continue to work specifically on this, it would enable us to recreate our communications department. Right now we don't have any communications people. And that is so crucial to reaching out not only to our own women in our communities but also to all th

Status of Women committee  Again, we'd like to thank you for the opportunity. I just want to say that it's too bad you didn't have the opportunity to meet my mother and grandmother, because it's our role within our community, I guess. It's a responsibility.

Status of Women committee  I was just going to say that within a very recent time I have been able to speak to the grand chief of the Assembly of First Nations. We have agreed to work on dealing with stopping violence against aboriginal women and dealing with the missing and murdered women. So we have deve

Status of Women committee  I would like to add that we have provincial and territorial member organizations in every province, which would have that opportunity and the mandate to work with the various police forces. We would be the conduit to get to these organizations. Talking about the Highway of Tear

Status of Women committee  I would just like to make a few comments. I appreciate your question because it brings exactly the dilemma that we are in. Because of the five years of work that we did through our organization, Sisters in Spirit stands for an initiative that our women right across Canada recog

Status of Women committee  All I can say is that you are absolutely correct. Those kinds of funds, which would be able to assist and help our women at the community level, are not available, or they're very limited. When you, as a single parent or as a young woman, want to access these funds, even at the c

Status of Women committee  In regard to the $10 million and the criteria, it was our understanding that while we would not necessarily as an organization get actual funding from this allocation, we would be in a position of working with the various ministries, the departments of justice, public security, a

Status of Women committee  I don't believe we've done any specific work in that area. However, we do know, just from hearing from our families in circumstances there, and from our other provincial organizations, that this definitely is what happens, because our women do not have those resources, so their

Status of Women committee  I'll ask Katharine to deal with the first one.

Status of Women committee  We're hoping that at the Oppal commission we'll be able to share the knowledge and the expertise that we have in other parts of Canada, to bring that to the commission, so they can address how to deal with the violence in British Columbia. Having said that, I'll say that we are

Status of Women committee  It's in the criteria of the Oppal commission.

Status of Women committee  I would just like to make one final comment. It is on the lack of resources to get legal assistance. This is perpetuating that high number of our women who are incarcerated because they cannot get a lawyer. When they go to court, they obviously get the strictest sentence. If they

Status of Women committee  Could I just make one more comment on the positive results of the Sisters in Spirit funding that has taken place? We now have developed working relationships with various provincial policing organizations. For example, in its database, the OPP, the Ontario Provincial Police, had