Status of Women committee  We are a grassroots organization, and thankfully we are incorporated, so quite possibly we could access some funding. However, we will have to compete with for-profit organizations that may or may not have an equality agenda. And based on what I'm hearing today, I'm pretty sure those for-profit organizations that have consultants to write proposals and access the material on the Internet are going to have more success at getting funding than my organization.

Status of Women committee  I would say they are not. In my opinion, current statistics clearly show that. I would be very curious to know what statistics my colleagues are relying on to say that women are equal to men. I believe it was Ms. Byers who mentioned that compared to men, women's wages amount to 71 ¢ on the dollar.

Status of Women committee  Sure. I think if we look at it in terms of a river, the mandate of the women's program, when you focus on the research piece--and maybe we will need to talk a little bit later about what participatory action research is, because it's action research--is about doing something upstream rather than doing something downstream.

Status of Women committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. Because my community had a local Status of Women Canada office, we had technical support that was easily accessible, and those most marginalized in our community, as well as their advocates, were able to access women's program funding. Because of that, we were able to achieve some very important outcomes.