Status of Women committee  Yes, I think it would be very helpful. In the past we always had Aboriginal Business Canada. I think it's kind of on the wayside now. Of course, one of the problems was always that you needed that 15% or 20% equity down to even start a business. We never could find that amount o

Status of Women committee  Yes, that's what happens. They are relegated to something else.

Status of Women committee  Yes, it is. There is a lot of that, especially when trying to get women into the fire department. It's looked down on. There are women who want to be firewomen. The fishers are now called “fishers”, not fishermen. We had that cleared up.

Status of Women committee  We train some truck drivers. We have a lot of community-based courses for truck drivers. It's still very looked down on for a woman to drive a truck. I don't know why. It just is.

Status of Women committee  Well, I guess I did bring that up. It's close to my heart. When it came to Manitoba, I was kind of looking after that. We did a lot of groundwork, working with the young people, and the healing started. Now that the funding has gone over to another area, truth and reconciliation,

Status of Women committee  I think some of the ones who are hired for construction jobs are paid less. They start on heavy equipment and are then moved to something else so that they'll be paid less. It's very difficult to keep women in those positions and to have them paid equitable wages. For example, t

Status of Women committee  We can't just drop those people. We have to continue to try to help them.

Status of Women committee  In terms of jobs, 35,000, and we could help a whole lot more. What we appreciated about the program was the flexibility we were allowed. The flexibility allowed us to hire those young women to work within the schools, to connect the parents with their...for example, and the wom

Status of Women committee  Oh yes, everything has increased. Our rent has increased, for sure. We had to buy bigger buildings. I own a building and it's just about paid for, but there are some of us who have had to buy bigger buildings, especially in one of our northern communities. Yes, our costs have inc

Status of Women committee  Yes, it would be.

Status of Women committee  Yes, it is a significant problem. This is not only in the city schools and the rural schools also--

Status of Women committee  In Manitoba, yes, we do the peer mentorship. Our Standing Tall program is one in which we do that in other areas. It works for the women. What we started off with was life skills courses in our northern communities. That really helped women to come out of themselves, I guess you

Status of Women committee  We picked two schools in our city of Winnipeg, and there is a higher dropout rate in the city than the rural communities. We seem to have lost the connection; the parents send their kids to school, and.... This why we started with that Standing Tall program.

Status of Women committee  Do you mean in the United States?

Status of Women committee  Yes, definitely.