Aisla: Do you feel that there is some commitment on behalf of government to fund an archival collection such as this, which is trying to preserve history from a different, alternative perspective?

CWMA: It's a tricky question. We really value the independence of being an independent archives, and that's very important to us. We certainly think the government, and the Public Archives of Canada, should be committed to maintaining and preserving material in the women's movement as well, but we feel we have the knowledge and skill to put together the collection, because of our involvement in the women's movement.

There's also the question of how the groups whose material it is feel about the depositing it. They're often simply more comfortable about having it with a group not unlike their own; with a group who shares, frequently, their group's politics. For example, we have some very important collections from lesbian groups, that probably just wouldn't have been saved if we didn't exist. And I'm sure there are probably other examples around. Groups working in the earlier years on abortion questions. Files where there are names of women.

Yes, we would welcome government funding, but only when the control remains with the feminist movement, with feminists. That's very important.

Aisla: For each of you personally, what is your future vision for the archives?

CWMA: I'd like to see us part of a network of archives across the country, and that this archives, possibly, be the founding archives for that; but that this be something that will spread across the country like wildfire or something.

I'd just like it if we didn't have to fight all the time just to keep going. It's really hard to do the kind of work you want to do when you're scrambling to stay alive. It maybe goes back to Virginia Woolf's little line about a room of our own and however many pounds a year.

I'd also like us to think that the archives have helped women to have a sense of their history... so that women have a real sense that we're doing something important; we're making history.

It shows the strength and the power of women in Canada, and amount of work that's been done. I think it's a very powerful political tool in terms of documenting the number of women who have fought for these kinds of rights in Canada.

Aisla: Thank you very much.