Status of Women committee  In your opening comments you mentioned something about inefficiencies and trimming the fat. I want to address that, because we do workshops on the budget; that's what our project is about. Women know all about trimming the fat; they know budgets are about priorities. One of the questions we ask in our workshops is whether you would pay your mortgage all in one year and not feed your children, or not let them have recreation services, or not give them running shoes.

Status of Women committee  For our organization, core funding would mean stability. We'd be able to actually think of projects as they came to us, instead of looking at the funding applications and saying, “How can we make this fit, and how can it also respond to women's needs?” We've had several requests in the last couple of weeks around more groups wanting more training on advocacy and lobbying, which does not fit exactly, within our current mandate, into the budget.

Status of Women committee  Thank you for your question. I'm concerned that your question implies that we are not providing direct services. In our organization, we are providing a direct service, but it's advocacy. We did a workshop in a women's shelter in northern Manitoba, in a small community. Some of the women in our workshop could not leave the shelter because they could not find a house to live in.

Status of Women committee  All our funding is project-based funding. We have no core funding. For this past project we received a small grant from another body, but besides that we don't know anyone else who will give us funding for this kind of work, because we don't have charitable status. It will mean closing our office and not having any staff.

Status of Women committee  Thank you, Madam Chairperson. I'd like to start with a story. Last week my co-worker and I facilitated a workshop with 16 immigrant women. The women were originally from Iran, the Philippines, Colombia, Sierra Leone, Macedonia, and China. Some had been in Canada for six years.